Tabletop Tuesday Makes an Appearance on The Apprentice

Last night’s episode six of BBC’s The Apprentice saw the two teams compete to create and sell a board game. Tabletop Tuesday was invited as a group to give some feedback on one of these games. The game we got to play was named The Relationship Guru and it was safe to say we didn’t fall in love with the concept or the execution.

A BIG thanks to the people who helped us give our opinions, who consisted of;

• Amy (who helps out on BRB) and I – who were there representing Big Red Barrel.

• Jimmy and Lucy from Loading Bar (where this was filmed)

• Richard, Andy, Dan and Kathryn from friends of the site, Rollin’ Dice Show

• Matt Lees – who is generally known for his internet videos based on videogames but also well known for his exploits with the great guys from Shut Up and Sit Down

• And Chris who is a Tabletop Tuesday regular visitor.

The Apprentice 2014’s starting line up

You can watch the whole episode here, if you want to skip to the part with us board-game-playing retrobates, then you can jump forward to around the 20 minute mark. Our section runs from 20.02 until 21.34.

We were visited by three of the contestants on the show; Daniel, Lauren and Felipe. We gave loads more feedback than was seen in the episode. Matt Lees, in particular, did a great job of not holding back his opinion and telling them exactly what they deserved to hear, some of which made it onto the show, but I would have liked to see a bit more of him. However, “If someone brought this out at a party, I would probably leave!” was a personal highlight.

Chris is surprised by the honesty of Matt Lee’s comments

We gave a lot more detailed feedback on what we thought of the game mechanics. The general consensus was “dull and limited” at best – we also mentioned how creeped out we were by the cover photo and unimpressed we were by the general artwork. The Apprentice obviously chose to focus on our concerns over the sexist and possibly offensive nature of the questions and as this was our primary concern overall, it seemed fair given the limited screen time.

Andy “Quiz Master” Jones – one step away from his own daytime TV quiz show!

I am pleased that they didn’t keep in too much of what I said, mainly as I only thought of any semi-intelligent to say 24 hours too late, but I did manage to interject on one of Lucy’s questions that was being asked by Andy “Quiz Master” Jones with the response “None of the above.” If you are only to get one line on The Apprentice, you could do worse than a quote from Brewster’s Millions!

[youtube id=”bXEglx-or6k”]

I did not know at the time when I sat down and talked to Daniel that he was the one that had written all the questions and this was something that nearly all of us were vocally critical of. Daniel made some enquiries, which in retrospect, attempted to deflect some blame from the poor quality of questions, but just ended up attracting more criticism. Although all three did try and defend their product and make their case, all three came across as being nice and friendly – but I don’t think any of them left without being firmly made aware that we were not impressed by The Relationship Guru.

Goodbye Gurus!

While they were filming the portion with the three contestants outside of Loading Bar (where you can see the word Scenario in the background as this is the bar that Loading Bar is based in) I did get the chance to briefly meet Karren Brady. She was absolutely charming, as well as very warm and welcoming despite me being slightly cheeky by commenting that although I was a fan of her work on The Apprentice and her work in the world of football, I prefered her work with Birmingham, as she now helps run West Ham, who are rivals of my beloved Spurs.

All in all though it was a great experience that we were happy to be a part of. The contestants were pleasant (although probably as they were doing their best to get us to say nice things about their terrible game) and meeting Karren Brady was good, especially as this now means I have completed the set after meeting Nick at EGX a few years ago. Also, have to say how friendly and accommodating all the members of the production team were as that helped make the whole filming side of things go smoothly and I have now seen first hand how much of their hard work ends up on the cutting room floor.

A shot not used in the episode but seen in the preview on Episode 5, shows Richard and Lauren finding something amusing – probably laughing AT one of those questions!

A BIG thanks to those that invited us to be on the show, to all those who helped represent Tabletop Tuesday and to Loading Bar for the filming location. Everyone is welcome to come down next Tuesday, join in and see where it all happened. There are over 80 games to play whatever day you venture down and pleased to say that The Relationship Guru won’t be one of them – but if so inclined you can play online here and judge for yourself – The Relationship Guru game by Team Tenacity.

Warning! Playing The Relationship Guru will probably force you to make a similar “Really!?” style face.

I will talk a bit more about this on next week’s podcast, which is being recorded tonight, so if you have any questions let me know and I will answer here or on episode 120.

Tags: BBC, Loading Bar, Loading Cafe/Bar, Tabletop Tuesday, The Apprentice, The Relationship Guru, TtT