Week 5: What a load of pants

Since Verity is away this week, she’s left me in charge of filling you in on the foolhardy mishaps of Sir Alan’s merry band of miscreants. Given the title, you’d be forgiven for thinking last night’s programme was lacking in laughs but actually it was one of the funniest so far – for all the wrong reasons.

This week, the teams were tasked with creating a brand identity for a new cereal formed by Sir Alan’s own fair hands (who knew the man had so many talents?). They had to come up with a recognisable character to represent their brand, as well as a box and a tv advert.

Kimberley tried to live up to her ‘rough tough cream puff’ image by taking the mantle of project manager for Ignite, while goldielocks Kate was thrown among the bears as head of Empire.

Before I figuratively dress down the candidates, I must make an appeal to the producers of the show. Please stop undressing the candidates. The sight of Philip in his greying undercrackers at the start of the show really put me off my tea. Unfortunately this wasn’t the last time we saw a contestant’s pants this week...

Empire start off well, with podgy faced Ben suggesting a ‘treasure’ theme. James comes up with the idea of a parrot pirate character but Ben is not so sure.

Meanwhile, at Ignite HQ, Philip is holding court, spewing forth one bad idea after another. “How about cereal killer”, he says without a trace of irony. Dowdy Lorraine tries to get a word in edgeways with some idea about Mr Men characters, but Philip shouts her down with a song that contains the lyrics ‘dance in your pants’. He calls Lorraine’s idea ‘stupid’ but then proceeds to introduce us to a character called Pants Man. The team clearly hate it, but Cream Puff puts up with it and Lorraine looks like she’s going to kill someone. I can’t stop singing ‘dance your pants’.

‘Parroty or piratey?’ is the question on everyone’s lips over at Empire, where James can’t decide which he likes best. They decide on a pretty and inoffensive blue design for their box, with a treasure map on the back. “It’s very unisex”, declares Kate. Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing, but I am quite keen to try Sir Alan’s cereal at this point so they must be doing something right.

Philip, Lorraine and Cream Puff are tearing into each other like lions scrapping over a piece of meat. “When Philip doesn’t get his way, he throws a tantrum like a five year old boy”, whines Cream Puff. The group head off to a meeting with a jingle composer, where the arguments continue. Philip tunelessly rattles off his ‘dance in your pants’ song and Lorraine admits she’s still not sure about it. This is like a red rag to Philip the bull, who charges back to defend Pants Man’s honour.

Outside, Howard the bug eyed sprite eyeballs them both and reprimands Lorraine for dissing pants man in front of the composer.

Nothing much to report from Empire’s side as they’re all getting along famously, although tone deaf James says he feels like Ringo Starr when he gets a chance to direct a professional singer during the jingle-making process. He also compares himself to “a monkey learning to use tools”. You can’t argue with that.

There’s a bit of light relief over at Ignite as the team head to Asda to try on massive white Y fronts. “I hope you’re going to buy that”, says a disgruntled shelf stacker. I pray they won’t. Howard looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings in his, while Lorraine looks far too comfortable.

Ignite don’t put much thought into their box, and Cream Puff hastily calls the designers to outline the team’s main requests, basically leaving the graphic designer to do the work unsupervised. When the box comes back, it’s a horrible snot green colour, with a messy design on the front and nothing on the back.

When filming day rolls around, Empire decide Ben will don the parrot suit. They’ve got a child actor in to appear alongside him and I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. He/she won’t eat the cereal due to a nut allergy. Margaret is a vision in fuschia and seems positive about the team overall, but says their advert is too complex. Not sure what’s tricky about parrots and pirates, but then I’m still singing ‘dance in your pants’, so what do I know?

Back in World War III, Ignite have decided Loo Roll will be playing Pants Man. It’s the first time we’ve seen him all episode. He should have been flushed away last week if you ask me. Cream Puff asks him to hide in the garage away from the children. Probably for the best.

When he finally does emerge from the garage, Pants Man is not the party dude we all expected. The kids aren’t laughing. Lorraine and Howard are dancing around in their Asda knick knacks. Cream Puff thinks this is hilarious; the kids do not.

Time for the presentations, and Mona and Cream Puff are not seeing eye to eye. Mona’s presentation skills are akin to those of a primary school teacher, but in her defence the product is beyond naff. She feels Kim is criticising her, but Kim doesn’t seem to give a crap anymore.

A room of brand consultants lie in wait to tear the teams apart. Debra presents on behalf of Empire and does a stellar job, even though her face doesn’t move an inch throughout the whole thing. She’s like a Thunderbird. The ad looks a bit naff but Kate responds well to harsh questioning from ad execs.

The others enter with their cereal Wake up Call and introduce Pants Man. Everyone is laughing already. Mona delivers a baffling speech in which she says pants loads of times. One lady says Pants Man is confusing her – “do you wake up or do you put your pants on”? If you can’t answer that love, no one can. Strangely, the experts seem to like the ad, but they don’t get the branding strategy and hate Pants Man. Philip is hurt and points out that ‘monkeys don’t play drums to Phil Collins’. Er, ok.

In the boardroom, it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen. Empire universally praises Kate’s leadership skills (even Ben!) and they take joint responsibility for the pirate parrot. The experts all hated the advert, but Sir Alan likes their treasure map box.

Ignite’s box is hopeless and they all know it. Lorraine gets in quickly and digs the boot in. Philip stands by Cream Puff but Lorraine says she gave mixed messages. Kate’s team win a session with a laughter yoga expert, where they all dance around a man who looks like Gandhi and say ‘hahahohoheehee’.

The others head to the grotty cafe and Lorraine worries they will all try to ‘pin it on her’ because she slated Cream Puff and Philip earlier. She’s damn right. Even Sir Alan doesn’t like the way she tried to “cover her backside before anyone else could speak”. At least she tried to cover it up Sir Alan, unlike Philip who showed us most of his earlier on.

Nick is as a stern as ever, and has judged Philip to be a ‘bulldozer’, forcing his rubbish ideas on the others. Loo Roll is accused by Sir Alan of “keeping his arse out of it”. Where has all this bottom talk come from? It’s quite evident Cream Puff will chose Philip and Lorraine to come back with her.

It all turns into a kind of group therapy session, where Cream Puff accuses Lorraine of ‘sucking the energy out of the team’. Philip is angry in general and shouts a lot about pants and Lorraine being crap. Kim says she championed Lorraine from the start and seems shocked her protégé has turned on her. They enter into a funny mutual flattery whilst still shouting at each other. Sir Alan breaks it up: “This is not a psychiatric ward”. Philip turns on Cream Puff for bringing them back when the others (yes, you Loo Roll!) did nothing. Cream Puff starts doing bad impressions of Philip’s tantrum, while Lorraine is offering her shoutiest defence yet.

Sir Alan fires Cream Puff Kim, saying that she reminds him of the Wizard of Oz. Back at the flat, Philip gloats that “the pants came down and the flaws were exposed”. I pray no more pants will be coming down next week.

Next week: Verity will be back and the candidates will be off on some kind of bargain hunt challenge, flogging antiques and bric and brac. It looks like Lorraine might be made Project Manager – uh oh!

Gina Dyer is deputy editor business and finance at www.siftmedia.co.uk