With five contestants left in the race to secure the final prize on The Apprentice last night, the former PwC manager came up against his toughest challenge so far in the 10-week show.

Somehow surviving the myriad tests of earlier weeks with his happy go lucky disposition, the ruthless interrogative eye of Lord Sugar’s band of trusted advisers was too much for Priyesh at the interview stage. To be honest they gave him an easy ride compared to some of the other contestants on the show, but Priyesh was still put through his paces.

When he tried to explain how his business plan made commercial sense, with its dual ambition of creating not only his much mentioned mobile cocktail business for corporate events but also rolling out a brand new line of canned cocktails to the country’s biggest supermarket chains, the interviewers were not persuaded.

Perhaps his dreams of cocktail domination were rather too ambitious. Worse was yet to come when he was asked whether he had registered his business or even its name, far less set up a company. The conclusion was this was a side hustle and not a great one at that, and with a ‘less developed business plan’.

His first interview was with Linda Plant, and Priyesh said: ‘Obviously people don’t realise how tough the interviews are. It’s not like going to a job interview where you can prepare everything and you know what is going to come up.

‘This is a business plan, and obviously I know what’s in the business plan, but it’s the questions they ask – they are just so brutal…when you sit across the desk from them it’s like a lion looking into your face.

‘I thought they would say one nice thing, even Claudine.’

Mike Soutar wanted to test out his cocktail making skills, expecting to see the full Tom Cruise effect, but Priyesh, bashful as ever, said he could not do that. He did not get off lightly as Soutar pointed to a well-loaded trolley of liquor bottles and asked him to prepare a Paloma.

Looking slightly askance Priyesh approached the trolley with trepidation and started to mix the cocktail.

‘To be fair you’ve got cameras, you’ve got him staring at you, you’re at the desk making it,’ he said. ‘It’s on the spot thinking, under that pressure.’

In the end, his drink passed the taste test, albeit not being a Paloma due to his random addition of Cointreau, instead of Tequila, a novel approach, which merely helped to put a kibosh on any hopes of the £250,000 investment in his mixology career.

Then it was back to the boardroom, where it was time for Lord Sugar to make his final selection of the two candidates he wanted to go through to the final.

There was little criticism of Priyesh from the interview panel, who called him an ‘effervescent’ character, although they all agreed his mixology business was not one for investment.

Earlier in the series Lord Sugar had described Priyesh as a ‘lucky charm’, after he had called him back to the boardroom in week two with a text message when he had second thoughts about not firing him. But this time his luck had finally run out.

In a somewhat acerbic boardroom at points, Lord Sugar clearly liked Priyesh, especially as he managed to swerve several firings, once after failing to do the even most basic addition, despite having a degree in mathematics.

Last night his time was up. Lord Sugar told him he’d be better off going back to his day job at PwC, questioning why he wanted to throw away such a good career, and said the cocktail pitch was not one for him.

Priyesh took it all in his typical smiley stride, and in the after show said he hadn’t taken Lord Sugar’s advice, had quit PwC, and was now setting up his own bar and restaurant in London. Cue reminders of his very questionable culinary skills back in Egypt.

So it was smiles all round, and there’s one last chance to see Priyesh when he returns to help the finalists, Karishma Vijay and Pascha Myhill, on The Apprentice on BBC1 next Thursday 16 April at 9pm.