IT’S been nearly two decades since Lord Sugar first appeared on our screens as the star of BBC One’s The Apprentice.
But just because he is a man of a certain age on telly doesn’t mean he has considered a youthful cosmetic spruce-up with injectables or nip/tuck surgery.
Despite persistent offers from his business partner and former show winner Dr Leah Totton for a facial tweak or two, he has no plans to experiment — unlike fellow telly supremo Simon Cowell.
The tycoon, who had skin surgery around his eyes in 2007 to improve his vision, says: “Leah has been absolutely dying to inject me with loads of bloody things, and while my wife and daughter go to her for these things, I’ve told her, ‘No, thanks’, and haven’t let her do a thing.
“I mean, what has Simon done to himself? He’s a really nice chap, but he’s been looking a bit strange lately — God forbid I were to ever go down that road.
“If you looked at a picture of me 20 years ago and one now, there would be a dramatic difference in the two. But then again, I am 77 and growing old gracefully doesn’t bother me at all.”
His relaxed attitude seems in stark contrast to the hyper-competitiveness of the candidates vying for his £250,000 investment prize for winning the TV business contest.
In the current series — the 18th — there have been a dentist, a pie maker, a post-natal fitness specialist and even a former UK garage music legend.
The contest reaches its end at 9pm on Thursday, when the pie maker, Phil Turner, and fitness studio owner Rachel Woolford go head-to-head for Lord Sugar’s investment.
And with millions watching each week, The Apprentice seems just as popular as when it first aired in 2005 — when Lord Sugar was boss of £125million electronics firm Amstrad.
Since then, there has been little change to the show — apart from the business mogul’s advisers, Karren Brady and Tim Campbell, roles previously filled by Nick Hewer, Margaret Mountford and Claude Littner.
But Lord Sugar reckons its continued success is because producers have resisted introducing shiny bells and whistles to titillate the audience.
He says: “I do think if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, but many television companies are adding gimmicks to formats that are successful without them.
“You’ve got to stick to what the public want because the people watching at home aren’t stupid. They don’t like all these new elements, they like to stick with what they already love.
“The Apprentice doesn’t need all that anyway, thanks to the fresh batch of candidates we get every year.”
Lord Sugar has got the series numbers under his belt to prove it — and now the 19th series has been confirmed, and he and the BBC are planning to celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary next February.
While the Beeb has yet to confirm any new shows after the next series, he has high hopes of an announcement soon, with a special episode to mark the milestone.
He says: “Series 20 is a must, we’ve got to do that one. We have been having talks about it and everyone is really excited about the things we could do.
“There’s chatter of a possible Christmas special next year as part of the celebrations, but it’s still got to go up the hierarchy of the BBC to be confirmed, and see if there’s the budget for it.
“Either way, I’m pretty certain the normal series is going ahead, and I’d like to see it keep going beyond that — a 21st, 22nd and 23rd. Who knows, it could happen.
Retirement? Never. I’m not going to do that because I can’t, it’s just impossible
Alan Sugar
“I’d also always be up for doing another celebrity version, for Children In Need or Red Nose Day, but the difficulty is finding the celebrities that want to come along, because they’re all busy.”
Somehow he has not been put off by his near-disastrous experience of filming with A-listers in a 2007 Comic Relief version of the show with two more specials in 2009 and 2019.
He recalls: “Rupert Everett was in the original line-up and took on the gig without realising there wasn’t a script, and he turned up and said, ‘I can’t work without a script, what am I supposed to do?’
“He did a runner, saying he ‘didn’t do that type of work’, and I had to replace him with former winner Tim [Campbell]. Safe to say, Rupert got a right b***king from Piers Morgan for leaving over a bit of ad lib.”
Whether it’s a new series or new businesses, it’s all in Lord Sugar’s long-term plan to keep going into the next decade and beyond.
He jokes: “Retirement? Never. I’m not going to do that because I can’t, it’s just impossible.
“What would I fill my time with if it wasn’t filming for another series of The Apprentice?
“I wouldn’t be sat out in my garden and growing flowers, that’s for sure.”
Luckily he has other TV projects to keep him busy for now.
For three months he and a TV team have been planning a Lord Sugar biopic, and he says: “We’re working on a series on my lifetime — but at this stage, just working on it.
“It’s a long way off yet, and there’s no deal, and I would guess it won’t be out there for a while yet.”
His representative confirms: “The rights to Lord Sugar’s story have been bought by an industry-leading production company, but alongside Lord Sugar, they’re still ironing out the details.
“It hasn’t been fully determined which parts of his life it will focus on, and an outlet hasn’t been decided on, but it is going ahead and will likely not be on screen until 2025 onwards.”
But a biopic where the businessman draws the line on telly appearances, aside from The Apprentice.
“I’ve been invited to other kinds of things, but you won’t see me popping up anywhere else,” he insists.
“I draw the line after the standard celebrity things, I’ve learned to shy away from it.
Humour is just a way for me to lighten the atmosphere because I know the candidates are very nervous
Alan Sugar
“I’m unlike my good friend and former show advisor Nick [Hewer] who would go to the opening of an envelope – he’s got his own red carpet in his house.
“And I’m not begrudging that, he’s made a fortune out of doing telly – though this is the same person who originally told me, ‘Oh no, I can’t do TV, not for me’. There’s no hard feelings between us. But being on telly hasn’t changed me – I’m still Alan and that’s it.”
Being ‘still Alan’ means increasingly allowing his joke-dropping personality to shine, and letting out his funny side to his terrified Apprentice candidates in the boardroom.
He says: “I do like to bring a bit of humour to it, but some of it is down to the editing. Humour is just a way for me to lighten the atmosphere because I know the candidates are very nervous and I like to use humour to make them feel more comfortable.
“Some of what I say is spur of the moment, but to be perfectly honest, there are some jokes in the back of my mind after hearing from Karren and Tim about what’s gone wrong when I’m not there.
“But the boardrooms are not scripted at all, they can’t be – because I’ve got no idea what the candidates are going to say to me, or then how they are going to respond.”
There’s no joke-writer behind the scenes, he insists: “No, we couldn’t afford that. But maybe I do have a stand-up career next — Michael McIntyre, eat your heart out.”
That doesn’t mean that it’s all fun and games both in, and out, of the iconic London boardroom and things can and do go wrong in this game of trust between Lord Sugar and his hopefuls.
“The trust we have with our candidates to control their social media to a certain level, it’s been successful over the years because I put the fear of s**t up them, most probably,” Lord Sugar explains.
“We don’t choose people who are going to choose problems, at least not intentionally.”
But that hasn’t stopped some candidates from slipping through the net and, after cutting ties with Lord Sugar, boasting online about ‘firing’ him – and slamming the series as “toxic”.
Among them, 2019 competitor Lewis Ellis, who alleged he was “gaslit” in “stitch up” situations on the programme, saying: “I was made to feel like a dhead, and then told I was imagining it.”
While Joseph Valente, who won the process in 2015 and cut ties with Lord Sugar two years later, said of his relationship with the big boss: “It was frustrating, it became a hindrance, not a help.”
But Lord Sugar hits back: “There have been people I’ve had to let go, some of whom were very nice people, but they knew the deal in the boardroom that if they run out of money, then they are done.
“Of course there is always one that can’t keep their mouth shut — and try to mouth off or get close to me, but I’m not going to respond because that adds fuel to the fire.
“Any intelligent person just needs to go to Companies House and look them up . . . it’s as simple as that.”
