Taskmaster (TV Series)

''Taskmaster'' (abbreviated as ''TM'') is a British comedy panel game show created by comedian and musician Alex Horne and presented by both Horne and Greg Davies. In the programme a group of five celebritiesmainly comediansattempt to complete a series of challenges, with Horne acting as umpire in each challenge and Davies, the titular "Taskmaster", judging the work and awarding points based on contestants' performances. The concept for the programme was first created by Horne for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010; he later secured a deal with Dave to adapt it for television with the first episode premiering in 2015. After the ninth series in 2019, the programme was acquired by Channel 4. The programme has completed sixteen series as well as three ''Champion of Champions'' specials and four ''New Year's Treat'' one-offs by January 2024, and is set to continue for at least five more series until 2026.

''Taskmaster'' proved a success on British television, spawning international versions in Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Canada (Quebec), Sweden, Spain and the United States. A British spin-off series, ''Junior Taskmaster'', was announced in March 2023. Additionally, a tie-in board game, two books, and a VR game have been released. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Horne hosted #HomeTasking, a series of tasks for people to film in their own homes; for each task, a montage of attempts was posted on YouTube that featured Davies awarding points to his favourite entries.

History

''Taskmaster'' was the brainchild of comedian Alex Horne, whose idea was inspired by ''The Crystal Maze'', his work for '' Big Brother'', and his envy of his close friend Tim Key winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2009. The original concept of the programme took place over the course of two years. Starting in September 2009, Horne sent 20 comedians monthly tasks by email over the course of a year. He then presented their efforts as part of a two-hour show at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe titled ''The Task Master'', which focused on demonstrating the differing attempts by the contestants before revealing who won based on their performances. The contestants included several comedians who would go on to appear as contestants in the eventual television programme — namely Key, Joe Wilkinson, Mark Watson, and Mike Wozniak — as well as Tom Basden, Henning Wehn, Rick Edwards, Josie Long, Al Pitcher, Stuart Goldsmith, Lloyd Langford, Mark Olver, Tim FitzHigham, Tom Wrigglesworth, Jarred Christmas, Lloyd Woolf, and James Dowdeswell. Mike Wozniak was announced as the winner of the first Taskmaster competition.

For the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Horne conducted another stage show titled ''TaskmasterII'' at the Gilded Balloon with a similar format. This time there were ten contestants: nine comedians returning from the previous year, and critic Bruce Dessau. Josie Long was announced as the winner of ''TaskmasterII''.

Both stage shows proved a success with their audiences, leading Horne to recruit production company Avalon (who were also his agency at the time) to help produce an adaptation of his concept for television, before pitching his idea to several different broadcasters. Channel 4 reportedly paid for the production of a pilot episode, marking the first use of the house in Chiswick which would go on to become the Taskmaster House, but chose not to commission it at the time.

British television channel Dave took interest in the idea and bought the rights to it, with comedian Greg Davies recruited to help present the programme alongside Horne. However, the channel's Deputy Director of Commissioning at the time, Hilary Rosen, was concerned with the structure of the show. Horne assured Rosen that the programme was not like a traditional panel show but "more like a sitcom", to account for the involvement of the same group of contestants who would appear across a series. Another problem with the format of Horne's concept was that shooting a traditional pilot became implausible, despite studio segments having no issues being tested. One plan for the programme was for Davies to use a cane with a golden "T" on the base, but this was later dropped.

A series of six hour-long episodes was commissioned by Dave in September 2014 with Davies and Horne attached, initially with the episodes intended to be shown in any order. Rosen later determined the show should be arranged in an order, pointing out that "this was a show you record and transmit in the same order". In February 2015, the first cast of five contestants for the first series was announced, and the studio-based segments of the programme — where footage of the contestants' attempts at completing tasks at the Taskmaster House was screened, and prize tasks and live tasks were conducted, in front of a studio audience — were filmed at the Clapham Grand. The involvement of veteran comedian Frank Skinner, who agreed to join after meeting Horne for lunch, helped to entice the other contestants to take part in the programme.

The first series, which started airing in July 2015, proved a success, leading to additional series being commissioned on Dave over the course of five years. The filming location for the studio-based segments of the show was changed to Fountain Studios for series two, and again to Pinewood Studios from series five onwards, using a studio set resembling the interior of the Clapham Grand theatre that was used for the first series.

In November 2019, rumours arose that ''Taskmaster'' was being moved to another channel; Channel4 had secured the rights to the programme, renewing it for six series over the course of three years. In March 2023, Channel4 committed to six more series, airing two series of the programme annually up until at least 2026 (i.e. series21).

Channel4 also announced a spin-off called ''Junior Taskmaster'' with contestants aged between 9 and 11, consisting of eight episodes with 9th series contestant Rose Matafeo as the Taskmaster and 11th series contestant Mike Wozniak as her assistant. ''Junior Taskmaster'' follows similar children-oriented spin-off programmes on Channel4 such as ''Junior Bake Off'' and '' Teen First Dates''. Another spin-off of ''Taskmaster'', titled ''Foodmaster'', is centred around food. Former contestant Ed Gamble hosted a non-broadcast pilot in July 2023.

Series16 premiered on 21September 2023, while series17 is set to film in-studio at the end of the same month.

Format

''Taskmaster'' is a comedic game show, in which a group of five contestants – mainly comedians, but sometimes including other well-known television personalities – compete against each other by completing tasks assigned to them. In each episode, contestants are shown tackling a series of tasks, supervised and sometimes assisted by Horne. Davies then judges each contestant's performance in each task to determine how many points they receive, generally ranking them from one to five points. The contestant with the highest score in each episode wins a collection of prizes submitted by the contestants themselves as one of the tasks; the one with the highest cumulative score at the end of a series wins a trophy. In the main series, the trophy is a golden bust of Davies. These past winners also qualify for future "Champion of Champions" episodes, where the trophy is the golden statue of the rest of Davies' body. A series of "New Year's Treat" episodes featuring celebrities other than comedians has as its trophy a golden statue of Davies' eyebrows.

Tasks are typically given to the contestants by the Taskmaster's assistant, who hands them a tri-folded page sealed with red wax and the "TM" branding. The contestants must read the task out loud. Tasks given to contestants range from simple physical challenges, such as "eat as much watermelon as you can in one minute", to more complex or artistic tasks. Some tasks may be timed, consist of multiple stages, or both. In some cases, contestants conduct tasks as a team with one or two other contestants; in such cases all members of a team receive the same score. To complete tasks, contestants often have to apply a level of logic, creativity, or lateral thinking in order to achieve the end goal. Contestants can be disqualified and awarded no points for a task if they fail to achieve the task's objective, inadvertently break one of the task's rules, or cheat. Conversely, they can be given bonus points. Occasionally, prank tasks are given to one contestant alone, who is led to believe the others are performing the same task; Davies may award bonus points for these.

Tasks are mostly pre-recorded before an episode's broadcast; the majority are usually conducted in or around the Taskmaster house, a former groundskeepers' cottage located on the outskirts of a golf course in Dukes Meadows, Chiswick. Two tasks are usually conducted during studio segments: an introductory Prize task, in which each contestant supplies an object they possess that conforms to a set theme, all of which will be awarded to the winner of the episode; and a final "Live" task, which the contestants perform onstage in the studio. In the event of a tie in the top score at the end of the episode, either a pre-recorded tiebreaker task between the tied contestants is shown, or a quick live task is performed to determine the winner.

Production

Most tasks are recorded with each contestant separately in a house in Chiswick, London. However, Alex Horne's initial plan was to carry out the tasks in the comedians' houses, saying in an interview: "I didn't realise how impractical that would be both in terms of cost – and their lives." Filming tasks takes roughly one day per contestant per episode, filming around eight tasks a day, with the days of filming spread out across several months. Before the studio filming, at Pinewood Studios, contestants are forbidden to discuss their tasks and are not shown any footage from the tasks, so that studio reactions are genuine.

Horne designs the tasks to avoid the need for any specialist equipment, so that "people at home reable to do the same things". Initially, they planned to have Horne show the right way to complete the task after showing the contestants' attempts, but this was abandoned as "it supposed there was a right way". He also notes that some tasks in the first series involved the general public, but later series avoided this in order to prevent coming across as a "prank show". Some tasks are vetoed by producers for pragmatic reasons, such as "paint the biggest thing red". Others do not turn out as expected, such as "burst all these bubbles n a massive roll of bubble wrap– fastest wins", which had been attempted in three different series but not shown in any of them, as "it always ends with people jumping on it for hours".

When asked why he did not present the show, Horne has said that "that was never the plan ..My role as sidekick is to be sneaky and you can run it from the sides in a really funny way." Horne and Greg Davies had never worked together before ''Taskmaster''; Davies was chosen "because of his authority", Horne says in an interview. He adds that in the pilot, Davies acted as a "dictator figure cross with everyone", but his tone in the show is more relaxed, as "if someone doesn't do something well we really enjoy it so he can be himself".

The series director for ''Taskmaster'' is Andy Devonshire, who was previously series director on ''The Apprentice'' and the BBC versions of ''The Great British Bake Off.'' Peter Orton was director for three episodes in 2016. Production designer James Dillon is responsible for the studio and filming locations as well as the caravan featured from series four onwards, having been past known for designing the original set for ''The Crystal Maze''. The show's theme music was written and performed by The Horne Section, a jazz band led by Horne.

Cast

In the studio, other than while attempting the live task, the contestants sit on a row of chairs in alphabetical order of forename from left to right.


Key
* Series champion
*NYT = New Year Treat
*CoC = Champion of Champions

Episodes

Franchise

International broadcast

The British show is also broadcast in Belgium, Sweden, South Africa, Norway, Finland, Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Croatia and Portugal. In Australia, SBS Viceland started to air ''Taskmaster'' episodes on 27 July 2020. The most recently broadcast series is available on SBS on Demand.

In the United States, The CW acquired series 8 and 9 of ''Taskmaster'' for a late-Summer run premiering on 2 August 2020. However, the series opened to extremely low viewership (in comparison to the Canadian import, '' Fridge Wars'', which premiered the same day), and was consequently pulled from the network's schedule on 5 August. The CW added the entirety of Series 8 to its "CW Seed" streaming library on 10 August.

A subscription streaming service, ''Taskmaster SuperMax+'', debuted in March 2022. It allows worldwide access to the British version of ''Taskmaster'', free from ads. It followed the show's cult popularity in America, despite little streaming availability; a U.S. version of ''Taskmaster'' and broadcast of the British version on The CW were not successful. Horne stated that adding international versions to the service may occur at a later date.

Starting from series 16, every new episode would be made available on YouTube worldwide one day after its broadcast in the UK.

International versions

International versions of the programme have been made in Belgium (as ) (literally "The Greatest Light", but meaning "The Brightest Bulb"), Sweden (as ) ("Best in Test"), Norway (as Kongen befaler) (literally "The King Commands", Norwegian for Simon Says) and Spain (as ) ("Said and Done"). In Denmark the programme is titled ("Grandmaster") and premiered on 25 August 2018. In April 2017, a US version with Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster and Horne as the assistant was announced, made by Avalon, the same production company for the UK version and originally aired on Comedy Central on 27 April 2018. A German version featuring Atze Schröder

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