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 celebrities – mainly comedians – attempt 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 seventeen 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 four 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.

Mike Wozniak was announced as the winner of The Task Master. Six participants in the original Edinburgh show have gone on to appear in a televised version of Taskmaster as of 2024: Key in series 1; Joe Wilkinson in series 2; Mark Watson in series 5; Wozniak in series 11; Lloyd Langford in series 2 of the Australian spinoff; and Al Pitcher as a guest contestant in series 2 of the Swedish spinoff. Other Edinburgh contestants included Tom Basden, Henning Wehn, Rick Edwards, Josie Long, Stuart Goldsmith, Mark Olver, Tim FitzHigham, Tom Wrigglesworth, Jarred Christmas, Lloyd Woolf, and James Dowdeswell.

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; however, the aspects of the show filmed before a studio audience were tested in a pilot.

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.

Series17 ended on 30May 2024, while series18 has filmed in-studio in May 2024.

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. Series 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 Horne in his role as 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, such as "make a stop-motion video featuring a potato". Some tasks may consist of multiple stages or mini-tasks. 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, either at Davies's discretion or based on criteria described in a task's instructions. 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. Other pre-recorded tasks are filmed at a specific location that changes each series, with previous locations including Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Chesham United's stadium, Gatwick Airport and Frogmore Paper Mill. 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. Beginning with Series 8, each series is assigned with a theme that influences the design of the house, most notably the portrait of Greg Davies in the living room, as well as the music during transitions between tasks. Themes for each series include Japanese, western, art deco, Victorian, and steampunk.

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 [are] able 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 [on 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. Taskmaster'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

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, new episodes are available on YouTube worldwide one day after their broadcast in the UK.

International versions
International versions of the programme have been made in Belgium (as Het Grootste Licht) (literally "The Greatest Light", but meaning "The Brightest Bulb"), Sweden (as Bäst i Test) ("Best in Test"), Norway (as Kongen befaler) (literally "The King Commands", Norwegian for Simon Says) and Spain (as Dicho y hecho) ("Said and Done"). In Denmark the programme is titled Stormester ("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 as the Taskmaster was commissioned by RTL in 2017; two episodes were recorded but not broadcast.

In 2019 it was announced a New Zealand version would be produced, hosted by Jeremy Wells and Paul Williams. Four series have been broadcast in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Finnish network MTV3 aired a local version Suurmestari [Grandmaster] starting on 12 April 2020. An international adaptation, Direktor svemira [Director of the Universe], by Croatian broadcaster RTL, began to air on 24 November 2021. Portugal's RTP1 announced in 2021 that a Portuguese version would start broadcasting in early 2022, hosted by Vasco Palmeirim and Nuno Markl. Network 10's Australian version debuted in February 2023, hosted by Tom Gleeson and Tom Cashman.

Books
A tie-in book, Taskmaster — 200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People, was written by Alex Horne and published by Penguin Random House on 6September 2018.

Task 185 in the book provided the latitude and longitude of a Buckinghamshire park, with instructions to meet there at midday on 14September 2019 for a picnic and Taskmaster tour. The event was attended by around 1,800 people, with Horne himself present to show attendees filming locations from the show.

In September 2019, a paperback edition was published, with 20 new tasks. As well as writing additional tasks, Horne removed the expiration date of 31December 2019 where it appeared, and replaced tasks that had a set completion date.

In September 2021, a new book titled Bring Me The Head of the Taskmaster — 101 Next-level Tasks (and Clues) that Will Lead One Ordinary Person to Some Extraordinary Taskmaster Treasure was released. It offered readers the chance to win a real-world Taskmaster prize.

Board game
The board game Taskmaster was released in autumn 2019, initially selling out. It contains 200 task cards, along with secret tasks that individual players must perform, and video tasks featuring Alex Horne.

Video game
On 29 November 2023, Taskmaster VR was announced. Taskmaster VR, the first project of game studio Scallywag Arcade, will be coming to Meta and Steam in 2024.

#HomeTasking
From March to June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of lockdown in the UK, Alex Horne organised a series of tasks in the style of Taskmaster for the public to perform and record in their own homes. Entries were submitted on Twitter and compilation videos, including scoring of the ten best entries by Greg Davies, were published by the Taskmaster YouTube channel. The first task was "Throw a piece of A4 paper into a bin. Most spectacular throw wins." There were 20 tasks in total.

A new series of Hometasking, started during another lockdown in the UK, began on 14 January 2021, featuring tasks previously performed on the TV show.

Podcasts
On 15 October 2020, an official podcast began. It is hosted by Ed Gamble, the winner of Series 9, who comments on each featured episode with a special guest. Initially it focused on Series 10, with each podcast released immediately after each Taskmaster episode was broadcast. Episode 12 of the podcast focused on the 2021 "New Year Treat", and then from episode 13 onwards it returned to the very beginning starting with Taskmaster Series 1 Episode 1, returned to "real-time" episodes during the broadcast run of series 11, 12 and NYT 2022 before returning to the older series after the newer series concluded.

A second official podcast, called Taskmaster: The People's Podcast, was launched in April 2022. It was initially hosted by Series 8 champion Lou Sanders and comedy writer Jack Bernhardt. In September 2023 it was announced that series 15 contestant Jenny Eclair would be replacing Lou Sanders' role as host of the podcast. The hosts chat with Taskmaster fans as well as with cast and crew members.

Critical reception
Andrew Billen of The Times gave a five-star review of the show's first episode, "Melon Buffet", calling it "funny, revealing, and glorious" and comparing it to The Generation Game. In another review of the first episode, Filipa Jodelka of The Guardian described Taskmaster as a panel show with an "edgy parlour-game twist". Jodelka praised the "molten-hot banter" between contestants and Davies, and compared the arbitrary awarding of points to QI and Numberwang. Also reviewing "Melon Buffet", Ellen Jones of The Independent praised the show as entertaining despite its "informal and cheap-looking" style.

Wesley Mead of Den of Geek wrote a positive review in 2016, praising the show as the "crowning jewel" of original programming on Dave, and approving of the design of the tasks and the range of approaches that contestants demonstrate. Mead believed that the second series was an improvement on the first, but criticised that the first three series had only one female contestant apiece.