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The contestants hit some problems in the kitchen |
Apprentice’s Sugar bowled over by King’s
Head curry
Hit TV show uses popular Upper Street pub to put contestants to test in the kitchen
IT was the day hard-nosed businesswomen invaded a theatre pub with almost disastrous results – yet nobody was fired!
There were tears, accusations and drama galore at The King’s Head in Upper Street, and it was not the actors who were responsible for the histrionics, but high-flying executives from entrepreneurial BBC show The Apprentice.
For one night only, reality TV stars turned the traditional English theatre pub into a shaky Bollywood haven for multi-millionaire Sir Alan Sugar’s challenge to bring a new food menu to a pub which doesn’t serve food.
Despite a horrific attempt at making a dodgy looking curry, which ended in lunch being cancelled, the quarreling women from team Alpha managed to scrape through the task, leaving their competitors battling each other to avoid hearing Sir Alan’s famous phrase – “You’re fired!”
Fleur Brooklin Smith, assistant producer at The King’s Head, said staff were baffled by what they witnessed.
She said: “We had 48 hours of joyous bedlam. They decided to go with curry, which was an interesting choice. There are so many places on Upper Street which do really good curry. They tend to be family-run with recipes handed down from generations. Our girls had coconut milk from Sainsbury’s and sauce from a tin.
“They had this chap claiming to be a Bollywood dancer doing some sort of random dance. Everyone would look at the stage, this Indian music would come on, and he threw himself around for about five minutes then stopped.”
And staff and customers alike were less than impressed by the Alpha team’s business sense.
Ms Brooklin Smith said: “The job was to get people in off the streets, but when the guy was dancing they were all inside. We wanted to say ‘go outside and drum up some business’ but we weren’t allowed.
“Running a pub is very different from running a big business because it’s such a people job. You have to get on with people, be friendly, you can’t be cut-throat, which a lot of people on The Apprentice are. You could definitely tell why they were chosen – there were a lot of alpha females there.”
But the women were unable to keep up their tough exterior all day.
Ms Brooklin Smith added: “We’ve got a flat roof at the back of the theatre where we sprung a couple of girls having a bit of a cry. That’s not unusual with theatre folk. We wanted to see if they were OK, but the producers were telling us not to give them advice. We had to pretend we didn’t see them.”
Customer Kelly Ventress, who was at The King’s Head on the night, said: “I wouldn’t have recognised the place if I didn’t come drinking here. I don’t think Indian food could take over because it’s a theatre pub and it didn’t fit with the drinking atmosphere.”
Customer Marianne Powell added: “They did not think the marketing through properly. There’s lots of really good Indian restaurants around here.” This is a real ale pub and it just didn’t fit in.”
At the time of filming, The King’s Head was not serving food, although the owners are now planning to introduce a French organic peasant menu, steering well clear of curry. |
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