Dr Mumbo

Inside track on The Apprentice Australia

The Apprentice logoDr Mumbo’s spies in the casting sessions for Nine’s Australian edition of The Apprentice tell him it’s not far from shooting.  

He understands that decisions on the contestants for the Mark Bouris-fronted show will be made over the next couple of days, with a long list already being sifted.

The casting sessions are being done by A Cast Of Thousands, the same people who came up with the winning chemistry for Masterchef.

In the Sydney session, the mix being sought was fairly clear, Dr Mumbo gathers. Some obvious potential contestants include the ‘wacky’ poker player who wears a white jacket and black shirt or alternatively a professional gambler on horse racing, a good looking former air hostess, a battler single mum, a couple of creative types from within the marketing industry, a web entrepeneur; and a couple of people of Asian-Chinese origin.

The series is due to start shooting, Dr Mumbo understands, on August 1 and will run for just over three weeks, suggesting an intense schedule for the programme. The timetable implies that Nine is keen to get it on air sooner rather than later in the hope of a scheduling boost before the end of the ratings year.

Dr Mumbo’s spy at the auditions tells him: “I got the impression that most of the people there don’t know who Mark Bouris is. It looked to me like the people going through were mainly the ones who want to get on TV. Most of the ones just there for a job were getting cut out.”

The final prize in the contest is a $100,000 salary job working with Bouris at his financial services firm Yellow Brick Road. Bouris was not at the casting session.

The format – a reality business format featuring two teams doing a series of tasks with one person being eliminated from the losing team in each episode – has been a major hit in the US and UK.

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