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Television Critic, Patrick Freyne - Clown jewels

Bill Cullen embarks on his annual search for Ireland's greatest sycophant, Michael McDowell lauds the big fella while Clinton and Blair enjoy a loving relationship

Reviewed: The Apprentice, Monday, TV3; Ireland's Greatest, Monday, RTE One; The Special Relationship, Saturday, BBC 2

'The Apprentice'

'Ireland's Greatest'

'The Special Relationship'

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If I was producing TV3's The Apprentice, each episode would start with a darkened boardroom and an empty spotlight into which 'local boy made good' Bill Cullen would step. "But where are the clowns?" he'd croon, staring into the camera with his big sad eyes. "There ought to be clowns," he'd tunefully assert (Stephen Sondheim's melody adding force to his insatiable desire for clowns). Then the camera would cut to the reception lobby with the pretend secretary and her not-really-plugged-in laptop. "Quick, send in the clowns..." Bill would plead desperately through the intercom. "Don't worry," the secretary would sing back. "They're aaallreaaaady heeeeere..." before turning to this year's apprentices to say, "Mr Cullen will see you now."

The appeal of The Apprentice is not that it offers an insight into the inner workings of corporate Ireland, but that it is, in fact, a Clown College filled with clown people. Its alumni do not end up working for Goldman Sachs or KPMG, they end up on Celebrity Salon or volunteering for medical experiments or selling their underwear on eBay.

The other giveaway is the fact it happens each year. Any jobseeker with a survival instinct would ask: Why does Bill need so many apprentices? Obi Wan Kenobi just had the one. What is Bill doing with them? Well, I suspect they end up like childhood pets that Bill forgets to feed. Each new season starts with his other half Jackie Lavin finding last year's winner stiff as a board under the couch, floating listlessly at the top of Bill's aquarium, or completely vanished save for some bloody fur left in a neglected hutch ("We need to go again," mutters Jackie down the phone to TV3. "We think a fox got the last one").

And so this year's specimens gathered like puppies at the pound – the girls all business suits and wasp-chewing scowls and the boys all faux-masculinity, aftershave you can smell through the television, and heavily-greased hair (as the series progresses and Bill's megalomania grows, I assume he'll try sticking them to the ceiling). Bill begins with some cautionary praise. "What you 16 have accomplished is no mean feat," he says. "You beat off 16,000 other applicants to prove you were the best business brains in Ireland." (Now, there's an accidentally rude double entendre there which I won't spell out, but if it's true, then it really was a pretty gruelling application process). Then he sends them off to pick team leaders and to think up team names.

"I was thinking of Team Synergy," says one lady. "That sounds like a makey-up word to me," says another. In the end, the girls' team pick "Fusion" which also sounds like a makey-up word but isn't. And the boys pick "Elev8" "because there's eight of us", forgetting that next week they may have to call themselves "Elev7".

Bill seems impressed by the team names, but then decides to shake things up by telling the leader of the boys, Cathal, that he must lead the girls' team, and the leader of the girls, Ciara, that she must head up the boys. "So Team Elev8 and Team Fusion... we now have some confusion," says Bill and the apprentices laugh so hard at this joke I think the whole series might end there and then with Bill saying: "Congratulations, Apprentices, you have passed the real test. You have all successfully climbed up my arse... which is paradise and where you may live for eternity."

But he doesn't. Instead he sends them out to bother/sell-hotel-vouchers-to the general public. As they do so, we're slowly given insights into their lives. "I think I've been through more at 27 than the other candidates," muses Ciaran 'Flipper' Walsh, referring, I presume, to his former career as a crime-fighting dolphin. In fact, he's talking about his former career as a professional poker player which he reasonably worries will make people think he's "a risk-taker and a gambler" (he's literally both!). Team leader Cathal Heapes reveals that, "I work best in short sharp bursts" which is just as well really, as Bill sends him packing after just one episode. For the most part, while they were all entertainingly ineffectual, none of them had the star quality of last year's breakthrough apprentice, the noble savage Breffny Morgan. While that will probably change in the coming weeks, right now the apprentices are an undifferentiated mass of young people in suits.

Which is also a good description of the front bench of Fine Gael, whose spiritual founder, Michael Collins, was being advocated as Ireland's Greatest person on RTE. This was part one of a five-part RTE documentary series about the five greatest Irish people, as discerned by an exhaustive poll. Over the coming weeks, luminaries will make the case for Bono, John Hume, James Connolly and Mary Robinson, before RTE reveals once and for all who Ireland's greatest is after collating the results of a phone vote.

Now, the notion that you can decide who is the best between Michael Collins and Bono is pretty dubious. That said, it would be fun if it was done right, with Bono, Michael Collins, Mary Robinson, John Hume and James Connolly all competing in Apprentice-style challenges. ("While Michael Collins wasn't great in the writing-and-recording-a-pop-song round, Bono was surprisingly good in the assassinating-members-of-the-British-security-forces round," I imagine writing in my parallel-universe review). Unfortunately, this isn't an option, and instead we are treated to a straightforward hagiography of Collins from former PD (and even more former Fine Gaeler) Michael Mc­Dowell, who, like many before him, has managed to pinpoint the exact moment in history when it became wrong to pursue political ideals by way of terrorist acts (11 July, 1921).

Stylistically it had many of the hyperactive camera effects and strange soundtrack choices (the theme from Pulp Fiction was played over a GAA match) that mark much Irish documentary-making, and filming was clearly arranged to coincide with a city break to London (why film McDowell up the London Eye?). There was also the sense that always exists when a politician praises a historical politician, that we were being invited to hear an implied "like meself" at the end of every sentence: "Collins was a pragmatist who did whatever Ireland needed whenever it needed it... (like meself)." "Collins was covert and calculated, ruthless and efficient... (like meself)." "Collins had a price on his head and was on the run... (like meself!)"

Political hero worship was also the subject of BBC's The Special Relationship, which documented the friendship between Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid) and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). All other events and relationships were rendered as secondary, as their connection was framed through election campaigns, political scandals (the Lewinsky affair) and humanitarian crises (Kosovo). It was silly.

There was actually footage of Clinton and Blair looking longingly at one another through windows and furtively whispering down the phone line to one another as their wives slept. "Kiss him, you fool!" I yelled, but the sizzling premier-on-premier action I anticipated never happened.

Still, as a Hays-code-era romantic comedy about a long-distance power couple it worked pretty well. As a compelling drama about political power, however, it failed.