“Young Apprentice is about kids who dress age-inappropriately and talk a lot of rubbish.” Read on for the verdict on last night’s TV.

YOUNG APPRENTICE, BBC1

“His ad offended me (mildly) by being completely unfunny, but it didn’t inhibit James’s pitch to industry professionals, which was impressively confident and polished.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“As he asked the chap, labelled a “risk-taker” through the series, how would he invest the £25,000 prize? I would study economics, he said. So, he had seen going on television not as a route to fame or even business success, but as a way of getting his course fees paid.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“Young Apprentice isn’t about finding people with wit or imagination. The 16- and 17-year-olds who really do interesting, creative things aren’t like this. They’re a bit cooler – often literally too cool for school – and wouldn’t make such good television. Young Apprentice is about kids who dress age-inappropriately and talk a lot of rubbish.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

I Had the X Factor… 25 Years Ago: a Wonderland Special, BBC2

“There were rises, falls and waterworks enough in this documentary for Simon Cowell to fill Now That’s What I Call Sob Stories volumes 1 to 83. So credit to Wonderland for telling these tales so delicately.”
Alex Hardy, The Times

“As we zoomed closer in, the story became less about people having a brief burst of fame and losing it and more about people finding contentment after a hectic career.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

THE REAL THUMBELINA, ITV1

“It was, variously, touching and heartening. But it was Zillah’s experience that really stuck with me, chiming uncomfortably with an increasing doubt over whether Ricky Gervais’s Life’s Too Short gives a voice to small people or simply exploits them for comic effect.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

CHARLEY BOORMAN’S EXTREME FRONTIERS, CHANNEL 5

“A good traveller is one who sees something of wonder everywhere, even on the Canadian prairies.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

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