Taskmaster review – panel game that celebrates the bizarre and the mediocre

[Wilhelm]

Taskmaster is back for a sixth season. “We’re going to begin with the Prize Task, pause in case of a cheer … OK, so our new gang ...” begins Alex Horne. No cheer, but a laugh from the studio audience, at a gag that is self-aware and a little bit meta. It’s also quite good one, which is why they’re laughing.

Alex Horne is not the Taskmaster, Greg Davies is, as you’ll know if you’re familiar with the show. Alex, sitting on the smaller of the gold thrones, is Greg’s assistant. But in a way he is kind of the master, because he invented and writes Taskmaster. It’s his baby. He pulls the strings from the side, Thomas Cromwell to Davies’s Henry VIII (so he should be careful, after what happened to Cromwell).

The Prize Task: to bring in the best liquid. Which is a nice opportunity to meet the new gang of five contestants. Alice Levine has brought in some blood, her own she says, because her friend who is a teacher said that was the best liquid. Taskmaster Greg isn’t impressed; he used to be a teacher, so has some personal insight into the profession. “Let’s get this on record now,” he says. “They know fuck all.”

Asim Chaudhry (ridiculous he has no Wikipedia entry, if someone could put that right, please) has brought his People Just Do Nothing character Chabuddy G’s peanut vape juice. Liza Tarbuck has some very pure, proper clean water from Chile. Russell Howard has Brut for men. And Tim Vine has chosen fizzy Benylin as the best liquid.

Then the taskmaster ranks them or disqualifies them – arbitrarily and dictatorially – and it’s on to the first task proper. Which is to perform the best stunt – using a wheelbarrow – at the Taskmaster’s house.

It’s possible you are not familiar with Taskmaster, even unaware of its existence, most probably because it appears on a TV channel named Dave. But you get the idea – a comedy panel game that, like its creator’s opening shot, is self-aware, a little bit meta and funny. Not in a smartarse way, it’s more about warm banter than mean put-downs. Taskmaster is an unashamed celebration of the bizarre and the mediocre: it’s imaginative and a bit crap, but it works. The contestants certainly seem to enjoy themselves. Oh, and they remain the same, throughout the series (10 episodes), so that they become like characters in a comedy drama. Well, a bit like that.

It could even be one to see with the family, although Horne has a similar, but (even) more family-orientated show called The Button on BBC One, which uses members of the public instead of comedians. Taskmaster is better than The Button though, because people who are professionally funny are generally funnier than people who are just people.

Anyway, this new lot look like a promising cast, they throw themselves into their tasks with unabashed if resigned abandon. Liza T’s best stunt performed using the wheelbarrow is to give it hands and a silver cape and then send her superhero barrow down a zipwire to deliver a box of Milk Tray. In the lab-based fruit fun round, in which they have to wield a knife a maximum of five times to make the highest possible tower of lemons, Russell uses one of his wields to slice one of his own fingers. Is he OK? “Yeah fine, blood and fucking acid!” he wails.

In the round that involves a wardrobe, a walk and some hat restrictions, Liza hitches a ride with a lucky stranger in his Porsche, and has time for a cuppa before kissing (a portrait of) the Taskmaster. Chabuddy G is absolutely hopeless at everything, but hilariously and very likably so. He almost certainly won’t be crowned series winner at the end of 10 episodes, but already he’s my winner.

And Tim, who never got the pun-is-dead memo, is on worldplay, although pun of the night goes to Alex. “Tarbuck, named after seven-ninths of the global coffee chain,” he says.

Finally, back in the studio, they have to sort the objects under their tables in order of size, keeping their elbows on the table top, their heads in their hands and any fruit out of the final lineup. After which, Liza and Russell are joint leaders, so there has to be a tiebreaker: spin around as many times as possible before kicking the football at the caravan. Which Alice wins. And this time there is audience cheering. Well done.