Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As we approach the fall where networks and streaming platforms alike will be addressing the lack of production on projects that has occurred so far this year, once can only hope they all follow a new thing The CW is trying out this weekend: asking, ‘Hey, what are some cool things that are ready to air, and have already aired elsewhere, that we can now put on TV here in the US?’ Enter: Taskmaster. The UK competition series has completed nine seasons in the UK, and Seasons 8 and 9 will now air on The CW beginning this Sunday at 8pm ET/PT. And there is perhaps no better show for American audiences to discover right now. I’m personally a big fan because every episode is funny and silly and exciting and yet never mindless.
Here’s how it works: a handful of personalities, usually comedians and actors, compete in a series of tasks at the Taskmaster house that are sometimes physical, sometimes mental, and always entertaining. They then regroup back in a studio where they watch the clips to see how well they performed at completing the task, and especially how they compare to their fellow contestants. They are they given points by the Taskmaster, actor and comedian Greg Davies, and his assistant, Alex Horne, who is actually the creator and brains behind the whole operation, as they preside from their golden thrones. “I can only speak for myself and tell you that I feel more powerful than I ever felt in my life as soon as my beautifully sculpted backside hits that throne,” Davies told me over a Zoom call this week when I asked about the power harnessed through those particular chairs. “I would say my throne is quite a lot smaller than his throne so I feel all that power but 20% less,” Horne said.
The idea was originally thought up by Horne for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2010, and has been a television show since 2015 (a US version aired on Comedy Central in 2018 with Reggie Watts). The tasks at hand are the perfect mixture of ultra-smart and super-ridiculous, with silliness, physical prowess, and mental creativity thrown in, and as Davies explained, “The vast majority of the tasks come from Alex’s twisted mind and I know for a fact that he brainstorms most of them alone and in a jacuzzi.” Horne confirmed this, saying, “I have to have the temperature at 38.5C and the bubbles on extra powerful and then I can come up with it. There’s a certain seat in the corner where they’re just in the right place.”
Okay, so once the water temperature is just right and the bubbles are bubbly, how exactly does he find that balance for the tasks without going too stupid or too smart? “I think it’s a lot of instinct,” Horne offered. “The more we’ve done it the more we know what will work and what won’t. We’ve learned to trust that if you’ve got five comedians, they will all approach something in a different way. Even if it looks like there’s only one way of doing it, they’ll find other ways.”
As far as how those particular contestants come to be each season, Horne explained, “It’s a pretty collaborative thing, Greg and I have people we want on it and the channel have opinions and we all meet in the middle really, so there’s never anyone on it that we don’t want.” And while it took a bit of convincing at first, considering people had no idea what they were signing up to do, now that people have seen the show (and the popularity of the show, as there have been versions in about eight other countries around the world), Horne said, “It helps that there are two comedians at the helm. I think it makes the comedians trust that they won’t be made complete fools of unless it’s their fault.”
But can Davies and Horne tell right away who will be the most creative and therefore victorious? “I would say it’s unpredictable,” Horne said. “We had Noel Fielding in the past, who’s a very creative man and he was creative, but he would also show a competitive side that we didn’t expect. I think people always reveal an aspect of themselves that we were not expecting and that’s definitely been the case in the latest one.” Davies agreed, adding, “It reveals sides of their character that you could never have predicted. People are more or less creative than you thought, but also people sometimes get in a wild rage over if they’ve managed to push a duck over a tree or whatever the task might be. Grown adults that are really affable onstage are suddenly absolutely furious and I love it. I love bringing out parts of their personality that people wouldn’t normally see.” This typically happens during the studio portion when they watch back to see how they’ve done, and how they’ve stacked up to their competitors — footage they have not yet seen throughout the filming of the show. “It’s just so great to see their reactions,” Davies said. “Flaws that they didn’t know they had are laid bare in high definition. What I always say is, I think the reason people, I hope, go away from having a nice time, is we are ridiculing people but it’s all done in a very loving way, it’s very much a game show.”
And one that people love deeply, even outside of watching it on TV: so much so that both Horne and Davies are often asked for tasks at parties or on social media. Davies, for his part, said, “I’ve developed a blanket way of dealing with it, I just say no,” but points to the recent #HomeTasking challenge launched on YouTube earlier this year as “a really exciting thing to be a part of.”
Horne would post challenges on YouTube, and people (often families at home during lockdown) would take videos of themselves attempting the tasks, and the winners were edited into videos and uploaded. “It is a privilege to be in people’s lives,” Horne said. “All we’re doing is setting the task and they’re the ones to actually throw their house into disorder by doing it, so it is a lovely thing, really.” Davies echoed that, saying, “Especially during lockdown, it was genuinely quite moving at times, the amount of effort. And we had lots of contestants from the States as well, who are seeing this on YouTube, and that was really exciting to see people in other countries taking up the challenge.” That includes the US, which will now be able to watch it on network TV, and of the UK version airing here, Horne said, “I just really hope they like it.” Davies also said, “I think it will be interesting because the vast majority of contestants on it won’t be known to the audience watching but I really have a strongly held belief that you’ll quickly grow to love the contestants even if you’re not previously familiar with them.”
Each season features a new group of celebrities, and Season 8’s contestants include comedian/actors Lou Sanders, Sian Gibson, Paul Sinha, Joe Thomas (who British TV enthusiasts with a Netflix account may recognize from The Inbetweeners), and Iain Stirling, a Scottish comedian who American audiences may not have seen in action before, but if you’ve ever watched the UK version of Love Island, you’ve certainly heard him. “Iain, for my role in the show, is one of those frustrating people that you can’t break their spirits, try as I might,” Davies said. “He was an exasperated puppy, though he got quite stroppy which is what we want and he did really well,” Horne said. “He has got real skills but he also lets himself down by being a man.”
When I spoke to Stirling this week, the first thing he said was that “It’s genuinely mindblowing,” to find himself speaking with someone in America about his time on Taskmaster, a fact he couldn’t be happier about, though one he’s still getting used to. The first time he was recognized in the States was when two people came over to say hi to him in an Irish pub in New York City after they recognized his voice from Love Island while he was yelling at the TV watching a Liverpool Soccer Club match. Very on-brand.
“I am obsessed with Taskmaster, I’m getting excited just thinking about it,” he confessed. “When I got Taskmaster it was the first time I was like, I’ve just been asked to do the funnest thing I’ve ever seen on television. I’ve been obsessed with it quite vocally on social media and in life in general since it began. really. And then I got a phone call from my agent, the most pointless phone call of all time, that said, ‘They approached you, would it be the sort of thing you’re interested in?’ And I think I said something to the effect of, ‘It’s the only thing I’ve ever been interested in.'”
From there, Stirling said it all happened so quickly. But the first big hurdle, and maybe one that would eventually serve as a preview of the way he would approach the show as a whole, was picking out his outfit: the one that he would wear as he competed in dozens of challenges at the Taskmaster house, but one that he says, “I got so excited about and then I panicked and didn’t do very well on that front.” When I point out that the black tracksuit he went with served a purpose as both fashionable and functional (not to mention comfortable) especially when it comes to some of the more physical challenges, he said, “It’s fine. What I did was overthought it and came up with something really extravagant and then last minute thought, oh that’s too dumb and then changed. But it’s still fine,” he acquiesced, maybe mostly convincing himself after recounting how he had ultimately run out of time and purchased the tracksuit last minute on the way to the house.
So someone this invested in the show should clearly have a leg up on the competition, no? “Well, I thought I had because I’d watched it so much and it didn’t really help,” Stirling admitted, explaining that Horne and the way he words each of the tasks at hand is “very very clever.” That extends to the attention to detail in the Taskmaster house which is decorated with remnants of past contestants on the show, both on purpose and accidentally. “It feels like you’re entering a historic building because it’s not even set dressing anymore, it’s just stuff,” Stirling said. “Previous contestants may have left things and they just forgot it after filming. You see all that and you realize that you’re part of a TV show that can have all those easter eggs and people will notice them.” When I suggest that the Love Island villa could do the same, Stirling praises the popular phrases that adorn the walls, often inspired by the lingo of previous seasons but also admits, “I would love previous contestants’ pants, earrings, just draped in unlikely spots.”
So what exactly does his strategy on Taskmaster prove to be? Well, as he explains, “I just got riled up by puppets very early on,” after the particular niche-ness of a challenge had him thinking he had it in the bag, only to watch it back in the studio, saying it feels like, “Where you thought you were a genius, you’re like the biggest moron that’s ever lived.” But his extreme passion, shall we say, which can also come off as competitiveness, eases around Episode 4 when Stirling said with a laugh, “I had a reality check and I decided that for everyone’s sake, including my own, the competitiveness had to cease.” Ultimately, and you can tell he means it when he says this, Stirling confirmed, “It’s one of the few TV shows that is genuinely as fun to film as it is to watch, which is very rare.”
It’s also rare for him to even be available to chat about Taskmaster right now, as he’s normally holed up in a Spanish villa recording hilarious voiceover while singles prance around in bikinis on Love Island. Due to the pandemic, both this summer’s installment, as well as the early 2021 winter edition, have been scrapped. Stirling admits he misses the people he’s worked with for the past five years and that everyone “100% agreed it was the right thing to do,” but he can also look on the bright side: “With it being rested for a year, imagine the excitement when it comes back?” Plus, this also gives him a chance to come up with new material as he admits, ”There’s only so many jokes you can do about trestle tables.”
I asked if any previous contestants from the reality dating show reached out to show their support during his time on Taskmaster, which aired in the UK in the summer of 2019, but it’s a no: “I don’t know if Love Island contestants are as into comedians eating donuts for points as we might have hoped.” But for the American fans who are also unsure if the show is for them, Stirling encourages you to “Just buy into it. Find that part of your childhood self, embrace and enjoy the daftness and the stupidity of it all and then if you look a little deeper, you’ll see the more intellectual work that is taking place.” In fact, it’s a particular trait of the excellent competition and game shows currently happening in the UK now. While Stirling admits to being a big fan of American comedy, he said, “Britain has become really good at creating comedy that if you had it on in the background and weren’t paying attention, you would almost think it’s children’s TV. It just looks so dumb and then when you actually look at it you can see the cogs turning and you can see what they’re doing and you can see the knowing look in everyone’s eye of what’s happening and you go, oh this is actually very clever. If you think of that swan analogy of the swan at the top [of the water], and then underneath there’s just all this subtext and irony and sarcasm that’s going on at the same time, you’re like, oh yeah, anyone can enjoy this. Everyone doing it knows it’s stupid but they’re buying into it wholeheartedly anyway.”
I ask if doing Taskmaster prepared him with the skills it took to perform in his partner and latest Love Island host Laura Whitmore’s TikToks while the couple were at home during the lockdown — and when he wasn’t spending hours on his social media platform of choice, Twitch. “I definitely applied myself,” he said, adding that it was “only just that I whipped out a couple of cha-chas.” But the comparison between TikTok, a platform that encourages creativity and may look simple and easy but actually requires a lot of skill, isn’t all that different to Taskmaster. “It is the same idea that seems frivolous and stupid and childish, and in many ways, it is,” Stirling said. “And in many ways, there’s a reason why that works and it’s quite fun to work out what that thing is.” And luckily, American audiences can now enthusiastically jump at the chance to do so themselves.
