Leah Totton has swept to victory and been crowned his latest £250,000 (€290,000) business partner. I use the verb "crown" advisedly, for Leah (25), comes across as a bit of a princess, what with the Disney cascade of candyfloss hair and the improbably huge, cornflower-blue eyes.
"I aim to disarm with charm," was the monotone mantra in her audition for the show. No sign of that on screen, though.
Totton, who hails from Derry, used to date a footballer as well as being a straight-A student and a hottie. But that's not the source of my animus. Cross my withered old heart.
The Fire-meets-Ice final was less a clash of the Titans than a battle of the Barbies.
Cupcake queen Luisa Zissman was in the pneumatic brunette corner, with Totton (aka Dr Totty) cornering the ice maiden end of the market.
As she sweeps into the room like Tilda Swinton on a chariot pulled by albino reindeer, I wait for my bone marrow to freeze and my coffee cup to shatter.
But then she hugs me and beams at me and jumps on to the sofa. She's not even wearing lippy.
"What are you playing at?" I cry. "I've spent weeks hating you and your disapproving moues! You can't just waltz in all relaxed and nicey, nicey."
"Don't worry, negative feedback is all part of being on a television show. I was expecting it," she says. "I am nothing - and I mean nothing - like that person you saw on screen. I mean just looking at that pout makes me cringe; it's terrible! I have never, to my knowledge, made that face before, and I'm really going to have to work on the frown."
What, with a quick shot of Botox? I quip. Her winning business plan is, after all, to set up a chain of beauty clinics.
"No," she says, suddenly the po-faced professional once more.
"Young women of 25 don't need Botox. And I am a very moral person so I would have no hesitation in saying that to a member of the public who came to me for non-surgical treatment."
According to Totton, her USP is her clinical training and the fact that non-surgical procedures will take place in a medicalised environment.
"I know people who have had procedures done by people who, I think, weren't properly trained and certainly weren't healthcare practitioners," she says. "The results weren't shockingly bad but they weren't great, either. I was horrified to discover the lack of regulation in the industry."
Her clinics will operate under the brand name (astutely chosen by Lord Sugar) of Dr Leah. There will also be a skincare range. I bet Dr Hauschka is quaking in his botanicals.
Totton, who studied medicine at the University of East Anglia, already has experience working in the field. After graduating, she undertook two years of training in aesthetic medicine in the private sector alongside her NHS job at Newham General Hospital in London.
"The worst aspect of the publicity surrounding The Apprentice has been the internet claims that I'm not a real doctor," she says, more in sorrow than in anger.
"I've worked for seven years to get where I am today and I'm very proud of it. I'm also really aware of my professional responsibilities, which is probably why I appeared so reserved and on my guard at all times on the show."
Reserved, yet dolled up to the nines. A few mixed signals there, I point out.
Luisa, on the other hand, made no secret of using her looks to get ahead, although Lord Sugar, bless his Cockney socks, is concerned with the bottom line.
"I'm a serious person in a serious person's job," says Totton. "I don't look anything like this at work," laughs Totton with a merry shrug. "I wear my hair scrunched up in a bun, with no make-up - none of my patients recognised me during the whole series, which is how it should be."
Totton plans to take a career break to concentrate on setting up her business while doing medical research and squeezing in another professional qualification in the shape of a Masters.
She admits The Apprentice selection process was a steep learning curve.
"At the start there was a lot of cattiness and bitchiness among the women, but I'm not a game player, so I didn't join in," she says. "Besides, when the process began I'd just come off a week of nights so I spent most of my free time asleep."
For all her business acumen, isn't carrying out vanity procedures on insecure women a waste of her hard-won medical skills? Surely it's a little early in her career for Princess Leah to jump into bed with Darth Vader and move over to the dark side?
"I don't see it as moving over to the dark side, I see it as medicalising the dark side and casting a light on to it," she replies smoothly.
Oh, she's good, is Dr Leah. I've always said so. Haven't I always said so? Personally I would choose a cupcake over a chemical peel every time, but each to their own.
Lord Sugar, I commend your judgment; improbable though it might seem to everyone else, you and I know the best woman won.
Irish Independent
www.yahootrend.com
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