Throng

20:57 We're down to five - "Devilish" Debra, Yasmina the bland, James the jester, Lorraine - owner of the longest face in Britain and Kate - the Heather Mills bot. After a programme introducing us to their families and their hard luck stories (plus Debra's long suffering boss), it's time for the penultimate episode. The interviews are always the most enjoyable stage as Sir Alan's stooges really stick the boot in. Expect Kate and Debra to field the most blows. I'd like to see James in the final but suspect his jokey demeanour could count against him. Then again, look how well Lee McQueen did with that "reverse pterodactyl" impression of his.

21:00 "This is a job interview from hell..." etc, etc. Oh Sir Alan, are you sure you couldn't just offer the cash alternative?

21:03 The phone rings but this time we know what's in store for the feckless five. Kate's the one who rushes to grab it, looking better without her usual polyfiller level of slap.

21:04 Debra's shown being kind to Lorraine while they're chatting in the kitchen. A softer side suddenly coming through? It's like a cobra suddenly asking for a cuddle.

Both Lorraine and Yasmina are certain they'll sail through the interviews.

21:05 The narrator lets us know that Debra has "made few friends" at her previous jobs. Department of no suprises.

Kate: "I've only ever had one interview in my life where I didn't get offered the job. They were complete idiots..."

Lorraine is worried that her CV is "a little watery". She should have gone with the traditional paper format.

Yasmina needs to look up 'humility' in the dictionary. "I'm brilliant at everything."

James delivers another of his brilliant one liners: "The last thing I want is to be in the boardroom with Sir Alan kicking me so hard up the arse that I've got his toes for teeth." Let's hope his Wildean bon mots help him handle Sir Alan's suited and booted attack dogs.

21:08 "I've got four of my trusted associates to interview you," says Sir Alan doing his best Don Corleone. One or even three of the candidates could go depending on their feedback.

Here comes the panel:

Gordon, chief exec of Viglin.

Claude, Sir Alan's former trouble shooter, now a multi-millionaire in his own right.

Karen Brady, chairwoman of Birmingham City.

Alan, city investor and trusted business advisor.

They've taken references, read the CVs and been through the candidates abpplication forms.

Karen Brady has come dressed as a cup cake for some reason.

21:10 Yasmina: "I tend to be good at everything." That's it, go for the modest approach.

21:11 "It's like waiting to see the headmaster," ponders James. Well, yes, if the headmaster had split into four mad eyed business barmpots.

Claude opens the attack on James: "I've read your CV and its fair to say it's exceptional...exceptionally bad." It seems James's CV is littered with terrible acronyms.

21:12 Gordon's asked Kate to tell him a little about herself. She runs through her qualifications.

"That's good," says Gordon dryly. "So what are you doing here?"

He's setting her up for a beating. Slowly, slowly, catchy mascara'd monkey.

21:13 Karen Brady's interrogates Yasmina about setting up her restaurant and looks on indulgently.

Claude is impressed by Yasmina's website. "However, I don't know how honest a person you are...why are you so happy with yourself?"

She says she made 4.5% net profit but it says gross profit on her CV. Not very smart.

Claude's got her business accounts. "How did you get hold of them?" asks Yasmina.

"They're a public document." says Claude, his eyebrows rocketing skyward. He systematically takes her appart. She knows nothing about how her own business is doing.

Outside with the others, Yasmina puts a brave face on it. How was it? "Good. Very good. Nice man." She spits out in a staccato fashion.

21:17 In with Karen, Lorraine has suddenly brought out her Irish accent. She has a gift for spotting things she claims. Karen wonders why she didn't manage to spot wrong employment dates on her CV. "Why did you lie on your CV?"

Unlike Yasmina, Lorraine plays it straight when she comes out the other side: "That was HORRENDOUS."

21:19 Claude has Debra in his clutches. "I would struggle to consider you a team player. People find you ruthless."

"I''m amibitious," says Debra her eyes colder than deep space.

21:20 "I put a leash on people who want to spunk money up the wall." Claude is quoting from James's application.

"This is frankly indefensible." says Claude. James's application also boasts about how "ignorant" he is. Someone else in need of a dictionary.

21:21 "I might spend too much time with a smile on my face and walking around chatting too much." admits James as Gordon accuses him of being a joker. Let's hope he never has to defend himself in court.

21:22 Kate's application says she'd struggle working in a team of all woman. "Obviously I'm a woman myself," twitters Kate.

"Oh you've noticed," says Claude with a desert-like dryness.

21:23 Alan's reading references for Debra. "She's loud, aggressive and inexperienced, swearing at people and telling them to F-off."

Karen's on to another one: "People either love her or hate her but most people hate her." Is she too ruthless?

No, says Debra reaching for her shiv as her cheeks get redder and redder.

"No one calls me a bitch," says Karen. I'm sure Google searches wouldn't back that up actually.

21:25 Karen continues her support for the sisterhood by bringing up Kate's relationship with Philip. The Heather-McCartney bot doesn't respond well.

21:26 Alan wants to know why Yasmina made her mother remortgage her house to finance her restaurant. Again, not exactly explained well.

21:27 "You're just perfect aren't you?" Claude tells Kate.
"Well, I wouldn't go that far," glows Kate.
"I think you're just a competent interviewee," he mutters.
The glow is fading a bit. Kate goes grasping for her accolade as the youngest person put forward for the McDonald's management team as a teenager. Hmmm...maybe not quite good enough.

21:29 "I don't think I've heard so much negative feedback in one day," Debra says looking shell shocked. She should have tried bugging her old office.

21:30 Lorraine says getting the job will fulfil 20 years of dreams. Unlike Kate's dead-eyed statements of passion, you really feel she means it. But her inconsistent CV and stuttering interview performances do not bode well. Kate has the pretty blonde card that has been played well on the show in the past.

21:31 Sir Alan has the panel in the boardroom.

Normal Alan on Lorraine: "I couldn't shut her up."

Karen Brady: "In her application, she had put that she had a special gift."

Gordon: "She told me she could read people's minds."

Margaret sticks up for her. She's made the right call plenty of times.

Claude doesn't think she'd cope while Alan is even more straight forward: "She'd drive you up the wall."

21:33 Claude is impressed by her entrepeneurial spirit but not by her collapse once he started to unpick her accounts.

Alan's issues are different: "Why does she want to come and work for you?" He's also disgusted that she pushed her mother to remortgage her house and then only gave her 1% stake in the restaurant.

21:34 Sir Alan remembers boring money from his parents to buy a car to help him work. Yasmina's decision doesn't play badly with him.

21:35 Karen recalls asking James to tell her one thing to impress Sir Alan:

"I want him to be like Willy Wonka and give me the keys to the factory."

Sir Alan is not Willy Wonka, though I could imagine him enjoying employing oompa loompas.

James is pretty much written off as a joker.

21:37 Karen's on Kate - "a little bit too robotic."

Kate claims her friends would never describe her as "boring". How about bland?

Nick ponders: "Maybe she hasn't got a personality."

A little chuckle amongst the men as Karen quotes Kate saying "women are moany, mopey and whiney."

"I'm glad you said that," says Sir Alan - a man who once publically criticised the very concept of maternity leave.

21:38 Debra's problem was those terrible references.

Alan is unconvinced by Debra's suggestion that she's changed in the 10 weeks.

"She's impressively tough for a 23-year-old," says Karen.

Gordon thinks she'll deliver but will kick anyone in the teeth on the way.

Good comments and Sir Alan seems impressed. But will Debra's back-stabbing instincts activate his inbuilt Caeser complex. "Et tu Debra?"

21:41 Gut instinct? Lorraine and James definitely to go. Debra and Kate to be in the final. Yasmina, wavering.

21:41 The candidates are delivering their final sell.

James kicks off first: "On paper I look horrendous..." Excellent start there. "I've got a treasure chest of experience. I think you and I could be a good match." It sounds like he's filling in an online dating form.

Sir Alan wants to know why his application form was so flippant. Oh, I don't know, so he could get himself on the telly?

"You're not reinventing the wheel with me, " James says continuing the joking despite trying to say he's not a joker. "You just need to fix a few spokes."

21:43 Can Debra curtail her rabid junkyard dog demeanour.

"I have the desire to succeed in business. If I have to change, I will." she says trying to come over nice and fluffy.

"You need to conquer yourself before you conquer the world," says Sir Alan. I think he's hiding The Little Book Of Calm under the desk.

21:45 "My colleagues think you're a little robotic" he tells Kate.

"I take that as a compliment" says Katebot 3000 activating her nodding and smiling protocol.

21:46 Sir Alan wants to know if Lorraine can handle "these difficult times". There's that phrase again. I think he has a quota he needs to fill of recession references.

21:47 Why does Yasmina want to give up her own business and independence? "My skills are being wasted in the catering industry."

Sir Alan wants to know if she thinks she's one of those most credible remaining candidates? Hmmm...what might her reply be. "No, Sir Alan, I'm a tit that doesn't understand my own accounts?" No, she goes with a simple yes.

21:48 Sir Alan summing up:

Debra - leopard but can she change her spots?

Lorraine - can she cope?

Yasmina - is she there for the right reasons?

Kate - too good to be true.

James - a corporate man, who made him laugh but...HE'S FIRED.

The joker gets junked first. I think we all knew that was coming.

21:49 Debra looks tearful. This is unexpected proof that she has human emotions. Meanwhile, Kate is leaking WD40. 

We're on course for another all female final.

21:51 Two more up for the chop.

Sir Alan's back questioning Yasmina's commitment.

"100%" she says. Doesn't she know The Apprentice usually goes up to 150%

He seems unconvinced. Now he's back trying to deconstruct Kate's "clinical, robotic approach".

"Personality has the power to open doors," he says gnomically. "But character keeps them open."

21:53 Lorraine recounts her background again. "Yes, yes, very sympathetic to that." grumbles Sir Alan "But you rub people up the wrong way..." And...she's FIRED.

21:54 Yasmina's hanging by a thread. The fact that she's got a business is a real sticking point.

Debra's a fighter but Sir Alan wonders if she'll be able to control herself in the real world.

Kate tilts her head with a "What is love style expression" and Sir Alan puts her through to the final. The bland blonde is through.

21:55 It's between Yasmina and Debra. If entertainment wins out, it should be Debra going through.

But it's not. She's FIRED. However, Sir Alan praises her to the hills and asks her to "keep in touch." If she doesn't get that TV shopping channel job we predicted last week, she'll be working for him eventually.

21:57 Yasmina and Kate return to the penthouse. That's going to be one uncomfortable round of cocoa.

21:58 Next week: the departed candidates return to help Yasmina and Kate attempt to launch their own competing boxes of chocolate. Clearly a task chosen to allow Sir Alan and the narrator to indulge in gratuitous "bitter regret"/"sweet taste of success" metaphors.

Initial thoughts: Kate is the Michelle Dewberry of this year's Apprentice (even down to the affair with another contestant) - efficient, blonde but slightly boring. Yasmina didn't really need the job but she'll fight hard for it in the final.

Join me again on SUNDAY to find out who comes out on top.