THE Apprentice fans have clocked how long the boardroom scenes take to film – by checking out Lord Sugar’s watch.
The 74-year-old businessman appeared on the show this week with a very flashy timepiece on his wrist.
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And it was clear just how long filming was dragging on for by how the time jumped ahead – from lunchtime until it would have been dark.
When Lord Sugar and his trusty lieutenants Tim Campbell and Karren Brady welcomed the candidates back into the boardroom his watch showed it was 1.20pm.
But as the recriminations and tellings off – plus in this case Lord Sugar trying a range of unpleasant non-alcoholic drinks – dragged on hours had passed.
By the time they got to the stage where one candidate was fired, his watch was showing it was 6.45pm and more than five hours had gone by.
The show is famous for its brutal timekeeping with its cast of young hopeful businesspeople often dragged out of bed at four or five in the morning.
And there can be late nights too as filming in the boardroom – which is reality is a TV set in West London – drags on.
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Former Apprentice stars have revealed that the moment they are seen leaving Lord Sugar’s offices and getting into a cab are filmed beforehand.
And nor is the receptionist who tells the stars that Lord Sugar is ready for them a real member of his staff. As many viewers will have twigged she is usually an actress on the TV company’s payroll.
Lord Sugar has spoken about the brutally long filming times for the boardroom scenes in the past, explaning in 2019 that the scenes are heavily edited.
He said: “We’ve seen it all.What you get there [on TV] is an edited version of a 4 or 5-hour session in a boardroom.
“If you saw the rest of the 4 hour and 30 mins, you’ll see I don’t have much patience and we don’t have much tolerance and we do get a bit excited ourselves.
“Of course we’re quite used to it now.”
This week saw the departures of two Apprentice candidates – with Shama quitting in the opening moments of the show and Navid getting his marching orders from Lord Sugar at the end.
