Sorting wheat from chaff

The Apprentice reaches that interesting stage where talent shows

CONTENDERS: Stuart Baggs, Stella English, Liz Locke, Joanna Riley, Christopher Farrell, Sandeesh Samra, Paloma Vivanco Laura Moore

JON HALL

There comes a point in every series of The Apprentice where the idiots take a back seat, and the contestants with real promise begin to come to the forefront. That point is about now.

It's week five of the show, so we've already got rid of some of the useless candidates - we're thinking Dan Harris who spent the first week of the show shouting orders at his team-mates, and Shibby Robati who managed to commit to a bread order 1000 times larger than his team could manufacture.

And we've also got the measure of those loud-mouths who are still clinging on by their fingertips, but are unlikely to last the distance.

So it's a good time to take a look at those slightly quieter candidates who may just have the makings of what Lord Sugar is looking for in an apprentice.

First is 28-year-old property developer Jamie Lester. Jamie's so far proved himself to be quite a good judge of character, having realised in the first week that Stuart's over-enthusiastic sausage selling was probably putting most potential customers off, and taking the annoying Melissa down a peg or two during her week in charge.

He also came up with the winning beach product in week two, with the really quite impressive Cuuli towel.

He says of himself: "I'm very motivated and entrepreneurial - you need to go out there and get your hands dirty."

Then there's 30-year-old City girl Stella English. She's already proved her mettle by transforming the boys' team from a shouting bunch of reprobates into a calm, well-organised and productive business operation when she was put in charge of them.

She has proved good with numbers and certainly has ambition, having worked her way up to a management position in a Japanese bank after leaving school with no qualifications.

Special mention goes to 28-year-old mortgage broker and former Royal Marine Commando Christopher Farrell, who received special praise from Nick in week three for his "brilliant" organisation of his team's baking factory.

And 24-year-old Liz Locke has kept a pretty low profile so far, avoiding the boardroom despite being on the losing team a couple of times. But she's a self-confessed fashion addict, so this week's task should be right up her street... The challenge sees the remaining contestants opening pop-up fashion boutiques in Manchester's Trafford Centre.

The teams are told to select up-and-coming designers from London and try to sell their clothes. But who will pick the real talent,?

THE APPRENTICE (BBC One, 9pm)