Need a break from the world? Watch Taskmaster
Comedians do silly and clever things for the pleasure of a sadist. It's brilliant.
Soon after the end of the Before Times, I started watching Taskmaster. It quickly became my security blanket as the world was crumbling. I fell in love with a show that was silly, ridiculous, clever, and unfailingly entertaining.
Five contestants, typically comedians or actors who are at least fairly well-known in the UK, tackle tasks set by the Taskmaster, Greg Davies (his assistant and show creator Alex Horne actually comes up with the tasks). Most of the tasks challenge the contestants’ wit, creativity and nerve. They earn points based on their performances and each season has a champion.
There are two tasks I think perfectly encapsulate what Taskmaster is all about. I concur with the Guardian’s list of the top 100 tasks that these are the two best ones in the show’s history.
In season 2, the contestants were required to “Get This Potato In The Golf Hole Without Touching The Green.” Whoever did it the fastest would win. Simple enough. Usually, the most compelling performance is shown last and the honor here fell to Joe Wilkinson. Without giving too much away, it’s amazing how many emotions Wilkinson goes through in this clip.
In the season 5 task, “Write And Perform A Song For A Stranger,” the contestants are split into teams. They have five minutes to learn as much as they can about a woman and half an hour to write a song about her. Every aspect of this task is prefect, from comedy legend Bob Mortimer’s first question to poor Rosalind to the songs, which are both wonderful. Nish Kumar and Mark Watson’s ode is completely lovely. As for the other team… well, there’s a good reason why Aisling Bea and Sally Phillips start giggling as soon as Horne cues up the footage. You’re really going to want to watch the uncensored version.
Season 11 started this week and it’s off to a great start. I’m only familiar with a couple of the contestants, but that doesn’t matter. I have no doubt I’ll quickly come to love the crew as much as I did Rose Matafeo and Mawaan Rizwan.
Brilliantly, if you’re in the US or Canada, you can watch almost every episode on the Taskmaster YouTube channel. Season 9 is the only one that’s unavailable at the minute, but hopefully that’ll be uploaded soon. To get you started, here’s the very first episode:
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