‘The Apprentice’ has been recommissioned for another series.
Producers of the reality TV show, which has been slammed with criticism this year for the lack of talented contestants hoping to bag Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment, has seemingly been given the go ahead to shoot another installment next year.
Lord Sugar’s trusty aide Claude Littner – who joined the show in 2015 – said: "Unless I get fired, I think there’s every chance! You never know! But I think I’ll be back next year."
However, the 67-year-old businessman has admitted he doesn’t really like filming the series as he finds it boring watching the contestants all day every day for 12 weeks.
He explained to the Digital Spy: "You can’t really enjoy [filming the show] because I don’t enjoy getting up at four o’clock in the morning – I don’t, I really can’t say that’s enjoyable.
"I don’t really enjoy wandering around with the candidates all day, every day, writing down almost everything that they say, making sure that Lord Sugar is completely up with all the events. It’s quite physically demanding. So it’s only when I look back at the programmes and see how brilliantly it’s been edited and how wonderful the whole production process is that I think, ‘That was fantastic, wasn’t it?’
"You forget the late nights and early mornings and the trauma of watching the candidates make mistakes or coming to wrong decisions. You just look back and see that what you’ve ended up with, which is a really fantastic programme."
But one aspect of the competition Claude does enjoy is the last stage when he has to grill the semi-finalists on their performances in the tasks and their business plans.
He said: "It’s hard to say I enjoy it… but I do actually enjoy it! I enjoy the mental challenge of actually going through their business plans really, really forensically and trying to see whether they are worth investing in, whether this is a business plan that can actually make a profit. Is it something that’s really going to be worthwhile?"