“As Thomas Skinner joins Strictly, we should appreciate The Apprentice as an incubator for significant cultural figures”

Since appearing as the resident clown candidate on The Apprentice in 2019, Skinner has turned up as a panellist on 8 Out of 10 Cats, cooked takeaway-themed dishes on Celebrity MasterChef and sat cheerily “talking pints” with Nigel Farage on GB News.

Meanwhile, he has parlayed his use of the word “bosh” into selling everything from beds to golf clubs and has amassed more than a million followers on social media, where he rhapsodises about all things English and eats roast dinners in the morning.

Earlier this summer, Skinner was photographed cosying up to the world’s second most powerful man, JD Vance, at a Cotswolds barbecue, and September will see him climb another British cultural rung when he appears on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.

For many, Skinner, a former market trader from Romford, is the ultimate British success story. For others, his increasingly ardent polemics against protesters and immigration make him a wolf in Toad Hall clothing who shouldn’t be given a platform on national TV, let alone be competing on Strictly. Whichever, aged 34, he’s clearly just getting going.

Recent history reminds us not to be surprised that an Apprentice candidate can cause ripples beyond the boardroom. Strange as it seems now, Katie Hopkins, “conduit for truth” or “professional troll” depending on who you believe, was once just another person peddling for Lord Sugar’s patronage, until she walked out of the third series in 2007 – and into controversy that has never abated.

Like Skinner, Hopkins has long avowed her admiration for Donald Trump, for whose ascent to the highest office we can also thank The Apprentice. Back in 2007, Trump’s US version of the show was on the verge of being cancelled when the TV writers’ strike brought the production of dramas and comedies to a standstill and boosted the ratings of cheaper reality shows. Trump flourished in the optics of performative power and never looked back.

Back in the UK, The Apprentice has long been an entertainment show masquerading as a business programme. I remember watching would-be cupcake mogul Luisa Zissman, runner-up in 2013, and thinking, “If she’s happy just baking, I’ll eat my hat.” Sure enough, she turned up a year later in the Big Brother house, not an oven tray in sight.

Zissman typified the show’s perfect candidate: someone awake long before the pre-dawn alarm call, make-up perfect, hair immaculate, elbows out and ready to take on the world.

Those who triumph on the show are quick to take credit for the tiniest of successes while seamlessly removing themselves from focus when there’s blame in the offing. They are intensely loyal – to themselves. They can keep smiling in the face of Lord Sugar’s heaviest-landing puns, and they have hides of rhinoceroses when he insults them. In short, for 2025, they are politics-ready.

Instead of lamenting the fates of some of The Apprentice’s more polarising alumni, we should appreciate it for what it is – an incubator where significant cultural figures are, if not hatched, then at least highlighted. Lord Sugar once told me he can spot a series winner after just a fortnight. If only we were all blessed with such foresight… Well, thanks to his boardroom, we are.

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.