You might assume that after more than 22 seasons, a show could start to run out of good ideas. But for the British hit comedy show Taskmaster, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite it’s remarkably simple premise (five comedians completing ridiculous tasks to earn the approval and points of one very important man), the show, hosted by Greg Davies and Alex Horne (who is also the show’s creator), continues to feel remarkably fresh.
Some of that comes from the meticulous design behind all the chaos and comedy. Taskmaster doesn’t just throw contestants into the same set of challenges and hope for funny results (though I’m sure they do). The team constantly tries to find new ways to test how the comedians think, approach tasks, and inevitably find loopholes. And of course, they want it to be entertaining.
But just as important is the show’s willingness to start over with a completely new group of comedians. Series 22 brings together Richard Ayoade, Matt Lucas, Isy Suttie, Nina Conti and Chloe Petts, giving the Taskmaster and his assistant five entirely different personalities to contend with.
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And if that weren’t enough, Taskmaster is still finding new ways to surprise its audience. The series has managed to pull off a major collaboration for a future episode, giving viewers a reason to believe there are still new places to explore within the confines of the Taskmaster house.
Greg and Alex sat down with Parade for an exclusive interview to discuss the new series, how they contend with the dynamics of the cast, finding the right ideas for tasks and more.
Let’s start with the cast of Series 22 and getting that group of comedians together.Alex Horne: I would say the headline act for me personally was Richard Ayoade because I was always curious to see how he would cope in the show. Or how we would cope with him. So I was amazed when he got in touch and said he was keen to do it. From then on, you are just building it around him slightly, I suppose. There’s a lot of different energies. Chloe is obviously a different energy to [Richard]. I mean, all five are. Isy and Nina were weirdly synchronized, whereas Matt is just different to anyone. We just try to chuck five interesting people into a cauldron and stir it. That’s kind of it.Greg Davies: One of the things I love is how they confound our expectations. I knew everyone apart from Chloe and had met with or worked with them all before. And still, you put them together, and they’re not the beast you thought they would be once combined. I think nine times out of ten, you’re sort of dealing with a collective that works in a way you weren’t expecting anyway. So I think it’s sort of academic how much we chat about it beforehand and how we try and combine the right personalities, because they become an unholy beast of their own once together.
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So if you didn’t know Chloe beforehand, do you purposely try not to interact much before you actually film the episodes?Greg: I think the first conversation I had with Chloe was when they were backstage before we went on, but I like it that way. Interestely, and Alex probably didn’t notice, but we just finished filming Series 23, but I was late to get down to the studio once, and Alex said “Oh, that’s good. It’s good that you come down late because it sort of establishes the new role”. Even with the people I’ve been friendly with or hung out with, it’s better for me to arrive just before we go on set because I have a different role.Alex: That’s true. I mean, also, I think we try not to do much producing on the show. We try not to. You’d be amazed how little the director says in our ear. We’re just left to get on with it. We don’t really want to meet them beforehand and say “This is how you do it”. We just want them to just be themselves.Greg: Or to be reminded of previous dynamics because the show’s dynamic is the show’s dynamic. Chloe and I have a connection because they support Ed Gamble on tour, who used to support me on tour. So we have a lot in common with Ed, and both have heard a lot about each other. I think it’s good to just go “Well, it doesn’t really matter anymore because we’re in this ridiculous world now.”
Is that the same for you Alex? Do you chat much with the contestants before you start filming the task?Alex: Maybe less. What happens is that they come and I tend not to have met them before, but if not, we’ll have a quick coffee or Zoom, just to check they know how the show works. Even when my friend Mark Watson, he thought he did one task per day. He thought he’d come along, do a task and go home.
In a way, you did have him do a task a day even after he filmed the show.Alex: True, yeah. But lots of people turn up and realize, “Oh, is it just me?” So we now make sure they understand that. And when they turn up at the house, I am normally in normal clothes, just to show them around. And then I put the suit on and don’t see them until they walk into the lab. We do the same warm-up task with everybody, and I try not to see them in the suit until we do the task so that I can have a bit of tension. When they walk in and I’m in a suit and there’s four people with cameras staring at them, it does change things.
How many tasks do you tend to film with someone in a day?Alex: I’d say eight. Eight is good. We have between five and six days and we need 40 tasks, so that just about works. But some don’t work, some do, some take longer and some are team tasks.
That’s an impressive feat for your production team. This season, Richard seemed to have less regard for the continuity of his hair or beard, but most of the time, it does feel as though it’s all filmed in a day.Alex: It’s filmed over months. In Series 22, we started in November and finished in March. Hence the hair changing. Med Giedroyc did all her tasks in five days because that was her only window, and that’s not the best way to do it because she went mad.
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It must be nice for most people to have time to leave and think about how they did.Alex: Yeah, because it’s exhausting as well. It’s really tiring. And you go a bit task blank, as well. You kind of need to be fresh each time. So maybe two days in a row, not more than two days in a row.
Again, it’s a testament to your production team that they are setting up these elaborate set pieces over the span of months where everything has to be in its particular place.Alex: Yeah, I’ll pass that on. It is quite a jigsaw, and also we have to factor in that sometimes it rains whereas if we did this show in Los Angeles, it’s going to be sunny every day. I like that it’s homemade, and sometimes it’s snowing and sometimes it’s sunny. The team have to work hard doing ridiculous things.Greg: One of the really vivid memories of mine from many seasons ago was a review of the season that came out and the reviewer descried the show as being “low rent” or something. Maybe “low budget”. Something like that. I know it was something that suggested we were slapdash in some way, and I think that’s because we film in a very small place and we try to keep the visuals consistent, but there’s nothing low rent about the team behind Taskmaster. It’s a very, very hardworking and concise group of people who are keeping everything look consistent within the world.
Sometimes people online suggest that it must be easy to spot where a loophole or hidden message is in a task because of where the cameras might be situated.Alex: There’s a bit of hide and seek in this series, and we do make sure the cameras aren’t pointing to where the person is. So yeah, hopefully we are aware enough of that, but we don’t always remember. And when we make mistakes, we try to include them because I think it’s funnier to see production failing sometimes. I can get berated by Greg. And especially with the studio tasks, some work really and some don’t. So I have to get told off and there has to be repercussions.Greg: And I do want to add, there is a lot of subliminal messaging in Taskmaster that ultimately will lead to Alex and I being able to activate large swathes of the populace as a sort of Manchurian candidate. What I’m saying is, it seems like the iconography is neither here nor there, but in the years to come, you’ll see how significant it is.
Greg, do you keep any of the art pieces from the show?Greg: No, I don’t at all because I think the whole Taskmaster role plays to a particularly obnoxious part of my personality and it’s almost like I’m able to bleed that part of my character out of this show and in the rest of my life, hopefully, try not to be a narcissistic fool. So no, I don’t take any keepsakes that involve pictures of me.
Isn’t your house filled with 22 giant self-portraits featuring you in different genres?Greg: No, but when I walk into the Taskmaster house or into the studio, I bristle with excitement that there are Davies iconography everywhere.
I suggest you have one room in your house, maybe a guest bathroom, that features all of the portraits ever made of you.Greg: I don’t agree with you, Grace, because I want to maintain friendships.Alex: I agree with you, Grace.
I presume if you are filming Series 23 while Series 22 is airing, it must feel odd going back to something that you did so long ago. Has there been any surprises as the show has been airing?Greg: You’ve already mentioned Ayoade. I’m always fascinated by what people will make of him and what their expectations will be of how he’ll behave. But I thought they were a good crew, but the truth is, we just filmed the next series.Alex: Yeah, the timing of this interview is a bit weird.Greg: So yes, sometimes I put on my TV and go “Oh yeah, that world we lived in for a few months.” It’s sort of strange. It’s a machine.Alex: The final task of this series is great. We utilize the acting talents of the cast, and we do try to make sure we top load the first and end episodes with memorable ones. We had the duet in the first episode, which I really love. I like it when they create somethng that’s sometimes funny but also quite good. And those songs were brilliant. And the acting in the last scene is great. Those are the ones I look forward to the most. But Greg’s right, we forget when it goes out and suddenly get a message saying “Wow, that was amazing” and we don’t know what it’s about.Greg: It’s all a nice surprise to go, “Oh, yes, God, we did that whole thing. We lived that for a few weeks”. I think people are enjoying it, from what I’ve gathered.
There was a type of task you did beginning in Series 16 which was the hotel task. I really loved that format, and you’ve dabbled back into a few times with the drive-thru in Series 19. It felt like it could have been a staple in every season, to do something like that, but I don’t get the impression that’s how you think about tasks.Alex: No. I did think the hotel one was amazing. And we almost pitched a show which was just that. Comics running a hotel. But we try not to repeat things. We try… what’s the phrase? To catch lightning in the bottle. Is that the one?
I think that works.Alex: I think we just got to let it go. We’ve did the pub quiz, but I think the hotel is probably as good as it gets. And then we have to find another thing like that. It’s a tricky one. We could go back to the hotel, but I think that one is done. We react to the end of each season and think, “Okay, we’ll do completely different types of things in the next one.” Like if we had a two-part task, we go “Okay, let’s not have any more of them for a bit.”
In that sense, is there anything particularly exciting in the remaining episodes that feels like something totally new?Alex: There’s a task near the end, which involves an animator in America called Pendleton Ward, who does Adventure Time.Greg: Yeah, we managed to rope him in.Alex: We managed to get him involved, so that’s pretty special. The odd collaboration is really nice. That’s the one I’d say.
A new Taskmaster-adjacent project is Your Time Starts Now, which is for households to compete in the game. You also recently did a charity stream for Great Osmund Street Hospital Charity, and for a while now, you’ve had Taskmaster Education available for schools. Talk to me about your desire to do more with Taskmaster than just the show itself. Alex: Well, it’s definitely accidental. What happened was that I was asked to do a thing at my kid’s primary school. The headmaster said, “Could you come in and do a Taskmaster session?” So I came in, and there were 30 kids, maybe all at age 10. So I gave them some tasks, and it was really obvious straight away that it was a good way for the kids who aren’t necessarily the sportiest or cleverest, or even the best at performing, to do something and join in and be part of something. There was a task where you had to find the length of a ball of string without measuring it and there was one little kid that knew she was 1.5 meters. She told them to wrap her up over and over again and count how many times, and she got the length of the ball of string exactly right. Although it was written on the label, another team got it right as well. But yeah, it just came from that – seeing that it did a really good job in a classroom. But luckily now there are people who can take on ideas for us. There is a teacher named James, who was a headteacher, but now just does Taskmaster Education. He took it on and applied genuine educational elements to it. So I think hopefully it does do a good thing, but we’re more than happy to sort of hand it over and see what happens. You never know where these things are going to go, really. I mean, it was just meant to be a stipid thing at Edinburgh years ago.
And to think how big it has gotten.Alex: A previous interview we did said there’s a thing called DragMaster, where drag queens do Taskmaster, which we didn’t know about. But it’s lovely thinking that these things are going on without us.
I presume you will be litigating that one (laughs).Alex: Oh yeah, we’re coming down hard.Greg: Oh God, of course we love it, and then we shut it down.Alex: So yeah, it’s got a life of its own now, and that’s fine by me.
Taskmaster is available to watch internationally on YouTube at 5 p.m. ET and airs on Channel 4 in the U.K. at 8 p.m. BST.
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