Talk about sweating the assets. This is the second 10-week run of Taskmaster in 2025, the previous series only having ended in July. Channel 4’s biannual broadcast of their hit comedy panel game show means that it dominates their Thursday evenings for nearly half the year – a tribute to both the programme’s popularity and the acumen of whoever was responsible for poaching Taskmaster off Dave in the first place. That was certainly the broadcaster’s best bit of business since swiping The Great British Bake Off from the Beeb.
Anyway, it’s back with utter – but not yet deadening – familiarity, from Greg Davies’s ritualised introductory humiliation of “Little” Alex Horne (the real boss of the show, of course, so he can soak it up) to the mix of aspiring and established comedians.
Reece Shearsmith and Sanjeev Bhaskar are the veterans – Shearsmith perhaps spurred on to appear by his comedy partner Steve Pemberton’s participation last year and maybe a sign of an underlying competitiveness between the Inside No 9 creators. Bhaskar has meanwhile obviously decided that his role is that of the slightly grumpy, couldn’t-care-less oldie – a part also performed to perfection by Julian Clary in the 2023 series.
As for the up-and-coming comics, this 10-week exposure is an invaluable career rocket. Forget the Edinburgh Fringe Festival or Cambridge’s Footlights troupe, Taskmaster is the real golden ticket. Indeed, Ania Magliano may be a Footlights alumna, while Phil Ellis is a former Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, but they probably won’t be familiar to general viewers. They will be soon.
This series line-up, from left, includes Ania Magliano, Maisie Adam, Phil Ellis, Reece Shearsmith and Sanjeev Bhaskar (Photo: Channel 4)For those who are interested in such things – the line-up features comedians from every decade from the 27-year-old Magliano to the 61-year-old Bhaskar, via Maisie Adam (31), Ellis (44) and Shearsmith (56) – and what’s more, they sit in order of age. It’s the sort of detail Horne delights in.
square TV FEATURES The Taskmaster effect: How a gameshow became the comedian's golden ticket
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The tasks prove a mixed bag, the best involving the contestants chasing Horne around the Taskmaster garden to try and scan the QR code attached to his back. Other challenges involve doing “something disgusting and nice at the same time”, and rolling round objects at a target in what looks like a shopping centre car park (Shearsmith manages to take out a camera operator with a tyre).
The final task – in which the blindfolded contestants have to move around as instructed – is a mess, with Davies and Horne repeatedly having to intervene to stop them falling off the stage.
Actually winning the tasks – or indeed the whole contest – is, of course, irrelevant and it’s often the most useless contestants who prove the most endearing. Adam, despite winning the first episode by accidently blowing a horn at the right moment, looks like she’ll follow the likes of Sophie Willan and Lucy Beaumont in the likeably clueless stakes.
The final task saw the comedians blindfolded (Photo: Channel 4)With its rampant silliness, it’s easy to see why Taskmaster is popular with younger viewers. And perhaps the more sensitive and idealistic Gen-Zers get a transgressive thrill from Greg Davies’s devil-may-care oldie cynicism. But while Davies gets to deliver all the gags, he is fed by Horne, one of the best comedy straight men in the business.
With two series already commissioned for 2026 and more no doubt to come, will Taskmaster carry on until Horne runs out of fresh ideas and the pool of comedians dries up? Or will we tire of the format and the Davies/Horne schtick first?
The latter seems more likely, but in the meantime, it remains the second most consistently amusing comedy panel show on TV. The funniest? Well, in my book, that’s Would I Lie to You?.
‘Taskmaster’ continues next Thursday at 9pm on Channel 4
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