And the new Apprentice is….. Steve Rayner! I think it’s fair to say Steve’s performance in selling Nasal Strips had pretty much won him the show a few weeks ago but Stephen Higgins wasn’t giving up without a fight.
Bill Cullen lined up a great task for the final to launch the new Ford Fiesta and to promote Dublin’s latest hotspot; The Wright Venue.Both teams looked to be going down the same road for the theme and it did seem a very obvious choice to go with the Spanish Carnival/ Fiesta concept.All credit to Stephen Higgins for having the courage to change the theme half way through the first day.
While the finalists were repeatedly complimented for having grown throughout the process it was clear little had changed with the other candidates:Sam was still driving everyone crazy.Setanta was pointing out what everyone else was doing wrong.Maria still feeling she was under-utilisedAnd The Breffmeister was still providing the best one-liners on TV.
The final also gave us two of the funniest moments from this year’s series:
1: Stephen Higgins is on camera confidently saying that he’s placing his trust in none other than the Breffmeister to demonstrate the Ford Fiesta to as many customers as possible. In the next shot we see Breff sitting in the car with model Pippa O’Connor having the time of his life while completely ignoring a customer who was interested in the car.
2: Michelle Heaton falling over. Yes, I’m childish, but my god that was hilarious. “May I present to you the new Ford Fiesta”…..splat!
Overall, the finalists looked like they put on a hell of a night apart from Steve’s dreadful presentation and Stephen forgetting to mention the price of the car.When all was said and done, it was clear to me that Stephen Higgins had won this task but overall what Bill was looking for in his apprentice he found in Steve Rayner.
So no doubt Bill will be back for another series of The Apprentice next year; will you be applying??? Let us know your favourite bits of last night’s show and the whole series below.