Taskmaster

Revision as of 19:17, 3 July 2020

Synopsis

Comedians are given very strange things to do.

Alex Horne's mind is a strange place. All of the usual elements are there, but they're all mixed up. He makes hot toothpaste pies. He plays golf with hen's eggs. He draws horses while riding horses.

But a problem shared is a problem halved, so Horne has invited some comedy friends to perform these surreal dreams. Greg Davies hosts the programme, ranks the performances, and the best player over the programme (and over the series) is the winner.

The players from Series 1: Ranganathan, Skinner, Conaty, Widdicombe, Key (seated) Davies and Horne

Taskmaster is theatre of the absurd, sensible people doing insensible things. The atmosphere was heightened by the filming location - almost all the tasks took place in a hired cottage, decorated as a shrine to the Taskmaster. There was no narration over the films, just the natural sound of the players talking.

Fans of bizarre television flocked to this show, and it gained audience as the first series went on, and as each subsequent series aired. Taskmaster turned into a massive hit for Dave, their first since Argumental about five years earlier. After five years, during which the format was honed to perfection, UKTV's contract expired and the show went up for new bids. Channel 4 bought the rights; we'll have to see what Taskmaster is like on its new home.

Key moments

The blatant I'm-only-doing-this-because-the-recommission-of-my-show-depends-on-it apathy of Dave Gorman's performance.

Any episode where a participant is subjected to extra punishment, such as Josh Widdicombe being asked to count the numbers of beans, spaghetti hoops and grains of rice in their respective containers or Rob Beckett being asked to spend a task talking in an accent other than his own.

Rhod Gilbert using his prize tasks to embarrass Davies, especially when he gets Greg's mother involved.

Catchphrases

"All the information's on the task."

Champions

Champion of Champions

Participants

2015

• Frank Skinner
• Josh Widdicombe
• Roisin Conaty
• Romesh Ranganathan
• Tim Key

2016 (Summer series)

• Doc Brown
• Joe Wilkinson
• Jon Richardson
• Katherine Ryan
• Richard Osman

2016 (Autumn series)

• Al Murray
• Dave Gorman
• Paul Chowdhry
• Rob Beckett
• Sara Pascoe

2017 (Spring series)

• Hugh Dennis
• Joe Lycett
• Lolly Adefope
• Mel Giedroyc
• Noel Fielding

2017 (Autumn series)

• Aisling Bea
• Bob Mortimer
• Mark Watson
• Nish Kumar
• Sally Phillips

Champion of Champions

• Josh Widdicombe
• Katherine Ryan
• Rob Beckett
• Noel Fielding
• Bob Mortimer

2018 (Spring series)

• Asim Chaudhry
• Russell Howard
• Alice Levine
• Liza Tarbuck
• Tim Vine

2018 (Autumn series)

• James Acaster
• Rhod Gilbert
• Kerry Godliman
• Jessica Knappett
• Phil Wang

2019 (Spring series)

• Sian Gibson
• Lou Sanders
• Paul Sinha
• Iain Stirling
• Joe Thomas

2019 (Autumn series)

• David Baddiel
• Jo Brand
• Ed Gamble
• Rose Matafeo
• Katy Wix

Inventor

Alex Horne, who also wrote and produced the show.

Title music

The Horne Section.

Incidental music by Dru Masters.

Trivia

Based on a stage show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010 and 2011.

In early series, judgement was pronounced at the Clapham Grand theatre. Later series used a proper studio set.

Series 1 participant Tim Key was retained for future series as a Task Consultant.

Pre-watershed editions were made of each episode, which wasn't too much trouble for the most part. However one of Alice Levine's task attempts had to be so badly censored they had to add a line to explain just how much had been taken out. Way to spoil the illusion.

The barely concealed look of glee on Horne's face after successfully predicting that someone would answer the task 'Say a letter of the alphabet' with 'a letter of the alphabet'.

Web links

Dave webpage

Wikipedia entry

British Comedy Guide entry

See also

We Need Answers

Weaver's Week review

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