There has been something that I have been thinking about lately. Since Margaret Mountford quit as an advisor after Series 5, she has returned as an interviewer in one episode of each adult series. Watching her though, I don't entirely see why she's there. The other interviewers all have a clear purpose - they grill the candidates on their business plans, CVs and backgrounds, personal lives, progress through the competition, relationships with the other candidates or a combination of these things. All Margaret seems to do is read out statements from the candidates' CVs and give them dirty looks. I don't understand what help she gives Lord Sugar in choosing the winner.

Does anyone else find this? I don't find this particularly interesting. I'd rather have Matthew Riley back, or someone entirely new - someone who will actually do something useful. Maybe it's just Margaret's edit?

I think it's just the fact that she's a popular and recognisable figure and viewers like the novelty of having her back for one episode a year, rather than serving any particular purpose in the interviews.

Is she that popular though? As advisors, I have always found Karren and Nick more enjoyable to watch, Karren on the business side and Nick on the entertainment side. Karren is my favourite advisor because she seems very astute, she is always happy to pipe up in the boardroom if she has something to say, and of the three of them, she seems to really have a vested interest in who wins. I love Nick just because he's really entertaining, comes out with some incredible things and pulls the most wonderful faces! Margaret pulls some faces as well, but she's not as good at it as Nick... Nick's line in the ready-meal task, 'Where do you find skulls? You find them on dangerous products... like bleach... and drain cleaner...' was just delivered fantastically.

I don't especially think that having Margaret back is a novelty, firstly because I don't see what she does and secondly because I don't think she's especially entertaining. Claude is entertaining, and he's there for a reason - he always picks up on anything dodgy about the candidates, and despite his harsh manner, I think that he is very fair. Apart from the fact that she's been on the programme in the past (not even in an especially memorable capacity when compared to Karren and Nick, in my opinion) I don't see what makes her enjoyable to watch. If I wanted someone who had been on it before, I'd replace her with a memorable former candidate, like Saira. That would be good!

I thought I'd bump this thread that I made at the start of this year, because it appears the production team may have been thinking along the same lines as me when they replaced Margaret with Ricky. (I am getting paid for that idea, right? )

Would be interesting to see what others think of my thoughts here, especially now that Margaret is gone. Didn't get many comments at the time, but these forums weren't frequented that much then.

She recently did a daytime series about litter
For some reason the BBC seem to like bossy older women, eg Mary Berry

and as if a million voices cried out in the force NOOOOO!!!!

She's got a sharp mind and wit which sometimes goes over peoples head but its sharper than an obsidian knife and when the candidates realise they're shall we say a bit cut up

Putting ricky in there also sounds a bit naff...he's got empathy with the candidates and the interviews are all about finding out who's actually owns a field of ponies so the less empathy you have with them the better

Maybe they're just trying to disprove the reputation that they gained by axing Arlene Philips from Strictly Come Dancing.

She was there to do that thing with her eyebrow.

I think you need a range of abilities, to interview or judge people. Here the range of proposals is wide. You also need to be able to deal with people who may be smarter, or dumb, ,more articulate, less articulate , just different in knowledge and background, or setting up a business that needs different skills to any Ricky has needed. .You need to know enough to be able to tell if the smarter person is talking rubbish in a language you struggle with, or its brilliant, and to translate what the inarticulate person says - to see if its a gem, or coal dust. Ricky never displayed much insight, his ability to deploy people in tasks and determine blame was questioned, his CV was attacked in his interview, and his original proposal had issues too. .

There's several ex apprentice's who have written/tweeted very good critiques of this, and/or past series - i might try one of those. The problem is this is an opportunity for Lord Sugar to advertise his own company, and he never hired many of the people who could analyse what was going on better than him.

The interviews though are primarily about providing drama , and cheap laughs from the exorbitant tanguage that the candidates are encouraged to use on cvs . We never see much of the financial cases falling apart, or why people come to different personal assessments. and its been the case that making up your CV, having a hopeless proposal, or acting like a fool, hasn't stopped some people winning. If you just show the moments of drama, and ships sinking, you may as well have Margaret's eye brow as a Ricky.

The danger of course with Ricky, is that he will think he is the winning mould, or will pick who he thinks Lord Sugar will like. This isn't necessarily what his Lordship needs to be told.

I don't necessarily agree that that is what the interviews are about. I suppose they are in that that is what the production team have made them about (i.e. they show the elements of that on the screen at the expense of other things) but that is not the intention of having them as part of the show in the first place. There wasn't much of that sort of drama in the interviews episode of the first series, and it fact that was only 45 minutes long instead of the full hour - it wasn't supposed to create drama, it was supposed to teach Lord Sugar and the viewers more about the candidates. Since then the production team have realised how much conflict they can create and they play it up for all it is worth (personally I wish they wouldn't) but I don't think that from the point of view of Lord Sugar and the advisors, that is the point of having them there. The overall intention is to teach everyone about each of the candidates and their proposals, and in spite of everything else the interviews still do that effectively. If they didn't, Lord Sugar would probably scrap them and do something else in their place.

I personally think that having a former candidate is a great idea, and I disagree with Maxatoria's suggestion that having empathy with the candidates means that you'll be less tough with them. A few years ago, I was on the judging panel for a young people's charity that supports teams of teenagers working on whatever social/political project they want. The panel was intended to assess the projects and decide how much money should be invested in each team - the other judges were representatives of local businesses, and I was there as a former participant with a different perspective. I don't think that my personal experience made me easier to impress - on the contrary, I was arguably the toughest judge there. I wasn't unpleasant, but I was very direct in asking questions, and pretty firm with my responses. I think this was quite surprising to people who were expecting me to be really down with the kids, but having said that everyone respected me, in addition to being firm I did also show that I was extremely supportive of anything that I liked the sound of, and outside of the pitches I made an effort to chat with everyone who was pitching and get more of an idea of them. It was a good experience, and a lot of the people said afterwards that talking to me was very enlightening and they felt I had done the job very well. So I think Ricky could be similar. He may give certain candidates the benefit of the doubt where others wouldn't, but there may also be other points where his experience of the process shows when a candidate is completely bullshitting, which is something the other interviewers may not see so well.

to meet the diversity quota.

You mean as the only female interviewer? They have another woman, she's called Claudine. And anyway, they have shown in the past that they don't seem to care about that - Series 2 and 3 only had male interviewers.

I just assumed that Margaret and Karren swapped places, and people like Margaret so they keep bringing her back.

To me her purpose is the sniff test, to see if she can see the spark of entrepreneurial spirit in them. But it's edited to make it look that she's just being snooty about the "tell us about yourself" part of their CVs, while the other interviewers examine the business in more detail.

Lord Sugar trusts Margarets judgement and of course she's a face we all know.