Characters / The Apprentice UK Season 11

Joseph

"Am I really Joseph? Yeah."

• Didn't Think This Through: When project managing the third task, he selected a sub-team of only two French speakers (one of whom barely even spoke it, at that) to go to France.
• Bitter Sweet Ending: He broke with Lord Sugar after about 18 months, and the business they set up together ended up going bankrupt in 2020, owing over £2 million to creditors. However, he later started a new and even more successful business.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: He was the only reason his team got anything accomplished in the sixth task, thanks to Elle refusing to make any decisions whatsoever. He was given immunity in the boardroom as a result.
• Important Haircut: Shaved off his moustache prior to the interview round, which Lord Sugar and the interviewers thought made him look much more professional.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Like Simon in series 3, did this the right way; he was able to make a convincing case to the interviewers that it had been Lord Sugar's autobiography that inspired him to start a business.
• Put on a Bus: At the beginning of Series 13, Lord Sugar brought back all the winners who had won his investment... except for Joseph who had parted ways with Sugar but still remained on friendly terms with him.

Vana

"I just don't like questions that don't make sense."

• Awesome, but Impractical: The reaction to her business plan for a hybrid dating/gaming app, which Lord Sugar and the experts agreed could well have been the most lucrative plan ever seen on the show, but would have huge costs and a high risk of failure. Fortunately, Sugar saw enough potential in the plan to put her through to the final anyway, though the concerns continued to dog her idea, and ultimately prevented her from winning.
• Blatant Lies: Along with Brett, claimed that a product was being sold at half price when, in reality, it had never been sold at that price.
• Crack Defeat: While viewers were at the time split more or less evenly on whether her loss was justified, in retrospect her not getting Lord Sugar's investment is considered to be up there with Ruth's and Kristina's only finishing as runners-up in their respective seasons, seeing how the app market is even more ridiculously lucrative nowadays than it was in 2015, while Joseph broke with Lord Sugar after only a year, and the company they founded together soon went bust, owing huge amounts of money to creditors.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Karren's take on Vana laughing as the girls were receiving a debrief from Lord Sugar as the former felt the latter was not taking the competition seriously:
  Karren Brady: "Vana, I don't know why you're laughing because it's just not funny. It was a tale of woe, it was chaos, it was unorganized, it was a shambles."
• Exact Words:
  • After the first task she boasted that she had managed an average sales price of £5 for the team's salads. Which was technically true, seeing how she sold one salad and it happened to be for £5.
  • During the final, she said that 100% of the singles polled by her market research team would use her dating/gaming app, while leaving out the slight fact that they'd actually only talked to three such people.

Richard

"Would you like me to pass you over to David?"

• Backseat Driver: Accused of being this by Joseph in the third task, although the fact that he was the only particularly fluent French speaker meant this was probably inevitable.
• Butt-Monkey: Charleine turned him into this in the fifth task, putting him in charge of the sub-team, but insisting that David handle all the communications between her and that team, even when Richard was stood right next to him.
• Chekhov's Gun: His stupid mountain metaphor was brought up in the first episode, only to return to bite him in the interview round.
• Epic Fail: Claimed that he could charm his way into getting a low price for cheese in the third task, only for the shopkeeper to try charging him a higher price than was on the label.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Not by quite as much as he imagined himself to be, but there were more than a few times when his careful money management came in handy, most notably in both of Selina's turns as project manager.
• Insufferable Genius: By Task 10, Lord Sugar started to dislike him as the success he had in the process had gone to his head.
• Metaphorgotten: His business proposal contains an idiotic analogy.
  The trailblazer is a fully managed and implemented business growth campaign that starts with a focus base camp to remove the clouds from our client's business growth mountain so they can clearly see the summit we are aiming for.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: For the most part he seems to be a decent enough boss, with a good grasp on finances, though he can also be quite the slave-driver.
• Reformed, but Rejected: After being thoroughly torn apart in the interview rounds, he finally dropped his Manipulative Bastard act and became far more honest and contrite. However, Sugar still had too many issues with him to put him through to the final.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: New interviewer Linda Plant gave him quite a scalding one and while Claude is good in this department, Linda managed to break him into agreeing with her.:
  Linda Plant: "I think you're the type of guy who thinks they can write a lot of bullshit and think no one will see the truth underneath."

Gary

"You alright there, Charleine?"

• Crazy Enough to Work: The teams were instructed to buy an inflatable boat in the negotiation task, so he bought a child's inflatable dinghy. Unlike Felipe's cardboard skeleton fiasco the previous year, this time it just about met the specification they were given.
• The Generic Guy: Stood out the least of the candidates who made the interview round, with Sugar and the interviewers not even seeming to deem him or his idea worthy of much discussion in the boardroom. In the prior episode, Sugar even commented that he'd met "a lot of Garys" during his career.
• Metaphorgotten: He used bizarre mixed metaphors, such as "leaving a sour taste in the client's eye" and "dancing around the bush".
• Phrase Catcher: Normally when being discussed, there was some mention of him being corporate.
• Poor Communication Kills: His needlessly telling the clients (one of whom had a severe nut allergy) in the Week 8 task that their birthday cake might contain hazelnut spread, when in fact the label just had a legally-required warning that it was prepared in an environment that happened to contain nuts, helped condemn his team to defeat and nearly got him fired.

Charleine

"Don't grow it back, mate!"

• Arch-Enemy: While nobody particularly seemed to like Selina, Charleine really hated her, eventually resulting in the mother of all catfights in the loser's cafe following the ninth task.
  • And while Richard got on a lot of people's nerves, him and Charleine in particular seemed to butt heads most often.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  Gary: "You alright there, Charleine?"
  Charleine: "Yeah. The heavy candles are heavy!"
• Determinator
• Ignored Expert: Despite running a hair salon, Aisha sidelined her throughout the shampoo advertising task, likely out of fear that Charleine would get all the credit if the team won. Which ended up being kind of moot, seeing how the team lost.
• Kick the Dog: Freely admitted in Week 7 that she enjoys treating Richard like crap.
• Only Sane Woman: For the first seven weeks she was by far and away the most competent and consistent of this year's female candidates. However, she went off the rails big-time in the Week 8 boardroom, including trying to leave before Sugar gave her permission to do so, and generally acting like a Grade-A Jerkass to David. She managed to stage a recovery in Week 9 being far the most effective member of her team.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Seemed to think that this is the kind of reality show where talking at length about your past struggles will help you win, as evidenced by the interview round. In actuality, it didn't seem to affect her chances one way or the other, as she was the first person to get fired afterwards.

Brett

"Speak to me like that again..."

• Blatant Lies: Along with Vana, claimed that a product was being sold at half price when, in reality, it had never been sold at that price.
• Catchphrase: "Generally, as it stands..."
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: On the third task, where his sub-team's performance played a huge part in carrying the men to victory, a stark contrast to the pig's ear he made of running the kitchen in the first task.
• Honour Before Reason:
  • More often than not, he places making a high quality product ahead of making a profit.
  • Despite bringing him into the boardroom in Episode 10, he refused to lay undeserved blame on Richard for the failure of the task. Even when he was fired, Lord Sugar said that he was leaving as "an honourable man".
• Lawful Stupid: Insists on making the fishcakes to the exact specification given, even though they were far too big and they only produced 89 despite aiming for 300.

Selina

"I shouldn't bring up anything I have an opinion on."

• Beginner's Luck: Won as project manager on the first task despite not wanting the job and knowing almost nothing about the catering business. Mostly this was due to a combination of her sales team doing well and the other team crashing and burning, though she did make the crucial decision to keep costs down, saving them from the other team's fate. After that, however, she was unimpressive to say the least. The only other time she did very well was on her penultimate task, where she won as project manager, though even then Richard had to keep the costs under firm control.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Gradually evolved into this over the course of the season, to the point where most of the other candidates seemed relieved when she got fired.
• Never My Fault: Blamed everything and everyone but herself for her failure to sell anything during her last task. It's even continued outside the show, where she attempted to blame the producers for feeding the press stories about her sordid past, rather than the press just digging it up thanks to her own indiscretions. Never mind the fact that unless she genuinely thinks that TV producers are better at digging up dirt on people than tabloid journalists, she'd essentially be admitting that she blabbed about her past in order to increase her chances of being cast on the show.

Scott

"It's alright, I'll talk to myself."

• Blatant Lies / Self-Serving Memory: Claimed Brett threatened to punch his face in, when he said nothing of the sort.
• Epic Fail: His tour of the apartment in Week Nine resulted in him getting pretty much all of his information wrong, misnaming rooms, and coming out with the following classic quote:
  Scott: Open space for the windows to have the sun coming in through the day and night.
• Nice Guys Finish Last: Lord Sugar criticized him for not standing up for himself much and spending more time deflecting the blame off others than actually defending himself.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Bailed out on the show despite being on the winning team in Week 9. After getting his performance sharply criticised and being told that he was lucky to have won, he simply told Lord Sugar that he didn't want to go any further, and quit the competition there and then.

David

"I've never seen something so brutal in my life!"

• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Reacted this way after the second task, where he came up with the team's brand and directed their TV advert, playing a big part in the victory, but afterwards complained that Richard was taking all the credit.
• Epic Fail: Did very well for much of his time in the competition despite being a smallish part of the Week 6 fiasco, but in Week 8 he just made one huge mistake after another, leading to his firing.
• Keet: He is always enthusiastic and cheerful in everything he does. Works to his advantage in the fourth task, where his personality is what secures his team the animal balloons as a low value item, in contrast to the opposing team's stone faced seriousness. During his last task, he notably lost a lot of his enthusiasm, which was noted on You're Fired:
  Jack Dee: Right from the beginning, everyone identified you as the fun one. Then you get put in charge of a children's party and you turn into a probation officer!
• One-Steve Limit: Has the same surname as Elle (Stevenson).

Sam

"Question: If we get this contract, do we have to do it?"

• Ambiguously Gay: Had some quite flamboyant mannerisms but there has been no evidence to determine whether he was gay or not.
• Artistic License – Economics: Didn't seem to have that good of a grasp of financial figures, most notably when he screwed up the team's stock costs in his final task.
• The Ditherer: Was very indecisive when it came to his one time as Project Manager and it almost led to him being fired as Lord Sugar became exasperated with him not being able to make decisions quickly.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Claimed to be a good French speaker, but when it came down to it he hardly did better than most tourists armed with a phrasebook would have been.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Used a lot of complex words that went over the heads of parents, much less kids, when writing the team's storybook

April

"I'm taller than the average person, maybe even prettier and I have a lot of confidence."

• Didn't Think This Through: The pricing she set for her sub-team on the sixth task equated to £3.33/hr per person. Bear in mind that this is less than half the UK's national minimum wage.
• Epic Fail: Next to Elle, she was one of the worst project managers in the series after her team managed to make one of the worst profits in the show: £1.87!
• It's All About Me: Believed that she was such a hugely talented chef that she could charge very high prices for her salads. In actuality, most of them ended up being sold at heavily discounted prices, resulting in the team barely breaking even.
• No Social Skills: Tended to come across as quite distant and condescending throughout her time on the show.
• Skewed Priorities: Made the whole team stay behind and help get the fishcakes ready, even though the salads (which she thought could command a £9 sales price) actually were ready to go. As a result, they ended up missing the lunch rush, dooming them from the word go.

Mergim

"I'm screwing a nail."

• I Resemble That Remark!: Before the first task's results were revealed, he openly complained about how nobody on the team had wanted to volunteer as project manager. Lord Sugar promptly pointed out that Mergim hadn't volunteered himself either.
• Mercy Kill: Got a very gentle firing, with Lord Sugar even telling him to keep in touch, as he thought he could do very well in business with just a little more experience.
• You Are in Command Now: After Elle got fired during the initial boardroom in Week 6, Lord Sugar put him in charge of deciding who to bring back into the final boardroom, since he'd been the sub-team leader.

Elle

"Joseph, the second we get in that theatre I am no longer the project manager, you are that project manager!"

• Artistic License – Geography: Thought that Dover was on the Irish Sea rather than the English Channel.
• Bystander Syndrome: Despite being put in charge of her team in the sixth task due to her background in the construction industry, she abdicated all the decision-making to Joseph.
• Epic Fail: Flopped so spectacularly as project manager that Lord Sugar fired her without even waiting for the final boardroom.
  • To add insult to injury, this was Elle's sixth consecutive loss meaning she broke the record of the longest surviving candidate without a victory.
• Graceful Loser: Realised she would be fired when she lost the task, and took it well, saying "Lord Sugar would have been an idiot not to fire me".
• One-Steve Limit: Has the same surname as David (Stevenson).
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: While she stayed on until the end of the task, she pretty much gave up responsibility for the position of Project manager to Joseph.
  "Joseph, as soon as we get in that theatre, I am no longer the project manager. You are that project manager."
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Lord Sugar gave her quite a withering one:
  Lord Sugar: "Mistake on that, mistake on this, six times the loser...there'no point carrying on, Elle. In your day job, you dig basements, well in this case you've dug yourself a really really big hole."

Natalie

"We've got a secret to show you... a secret from the desert: Desert Secret."

• Motor Mouth: Self-confessed and lampshaded on You're Fired. Just to make it funnier, the show added Rossini's William Tell Overture to clips of her speaking fast. The only other candidate who could speak quicker than her would be Season 12's Jessica.
• One-Hit Wonder: Won the very first task, but that was the only task that Natalie did especially well on.
• Running Gag: Proved consistently terrible in sales pitches, despite that supposedly being her area of expertise.
• That Came Out Wrong: While giving an advertising presentation for the team's shampoo in the second task, she said that women over 45 are scared to try new things. An age bracket that just happens to include Karren, by the way.

Ruth

"Gosh, aren't you solid?"

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Quite a competent saleswoman, despite her full-on personality and bizarre array of suits.
• Crazy Enough to Work:
  • In the first task she asked potential customers a bunch of bizarre questions to get them talking, and then persuaded them to buy some food. Even Karren admitted being surprised that this worked.
  • Averted in the fourth task, in which the same technique saw her sell nothing whatsoever and got her fired.
• Graceful Loser: After being fired, she openly admitted that Lord Sugar was right to fire her, something very few candidates have ever done.
• Motor Mouth: In the fourth task she spent too much time talking to prospective customers and not enough selling.

Jenny

• Bystander Syndrome: One of many candidates who gets fired in the second or third week for generally not contributing to tasks.
• Long Speech Tea Time: After being fired, she gave a lengthy speech where she thanked Lord Sugar, but also claimed she was still better than most of the candidates still in the show, and that she'd go onto a hugely successful career even without him.
• One-Hit Wonder: Did a passable job directing the team's digital billboard in the advertising task, but it was the only time she did much of note.
• Never My Fault: She repeatedly claimed that if she'd actually been allowed to negotiate for manure rather than the team finding it for free at a farm, she wouldn't have been fired. Even though she was also tasked with finding an antique mirror and mussels, and failed to locate either.

Aisha

"If anyone is not productive on this task and we lose, they'll be coming back into the boardroom with me."

• Genre Blind: She actually claimed that Lord Sugar prefers marketing campaigns to be targeted at everyone and anyone, even though that's often a reason why a team loses the advertising task.
• Never My Fault: She never wavered from her claims that the team had only lost because they targeted too old of a target audience, even though Lord Sugar repeatedly pointed out that it had nothing to do with why they lost.
• Revenge Before Reason: Brought Vana back into the boardroom over several more deserving candidates (particularly April and Elle, who didn't contribute anything, and Selina, who messed up the TV advert) just because she pushed for them to market to older women, instead of Selina's idea to market to everyone.

Dan

"Are you interested in buying a salad?"

• Brutal Honesty: Admitted he couldn't cook and that he couldn't sell things.
• Celebrity Resemblance: Looks a lot like Chris Addison.
• Epic Fail: Failed to calculate the ingredients needed for the fishcakes, and then promptly failed to sell a single one.
• Graceful Loser: Was extremely amicable about his performance on You've Been Fired, cheerfully admitting that firing him was the right call.
• Reality Show Genre Blindness: At one point, said "I didn’t enter this process in order to sell salad on the street." Selling on the street to the public is one of the most common activities in the show.
• Red Shirt: From the moment he stepped into the competition he looked completely out of his depth. The only thing that made his firing seem even slightly less than certain was the fact that April and Brett were also so bad.

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