Taskmaster
Recently we were in jolly olde England, visiting a friend and she introduced us to one of her favorite shows. It actually took me a while to warm up to it, probably because I was half asleep on her couch all the time. But now it’s one of my all time favorite television shows and I am eternally grateful to her for introducing me.
Essentially, this is a quirky gameshow where the taskmaster Greg Davies (The Cleaner, Man Down) gives five contestants tasks to accomplish and then hands out points on his whim, mostly. The contestants are well known UK comedians or comedic actors, some of whom I was actually a fan of before watching the show. The tasks test, sometimes cruelly, the ingenuity, creativity, and fortitude of very funny people. Sometimes solving the tasks is hilarious, sometimes it’s the fails that land. Through the course of the eight episode series, the audience is treated to fun and thrills, and gets a real feel for the kind of person each contestant is.
We binged several series over the course of our vacation, and my favorite as I came home was number five. Once we got home I tried number fifteen and discovered a very close second favorite. The big difference between a series that I loved and the ones that were fun but not favored is the contestants. In five there is Aisling Bea, who did read the task every week and then sometimes just didn’t quite follow the text. The funny part is she didn’t misfire on purpose for a laugh. These people are serious about winning the show, and the coveted Greg Davies trophy bust. I picked series fifteen because it had two people I already knew and enjoyed, Mae Martin (Wayward), and Kiell Smith-Bynoe (Ghosts UK), and they didn’t let me down. At one point, Martin gets into a serious metaphysical argument with other contestants about whether a sign with the word “banana” on it can be considered a banana. Later, they absolutely slayed me when they quipped, “I beaver away…famously.”
There is a lot of physical humor, as you might expect, and some sexual humor, especially from Aisling. I was continually blown away by the huge creativity shown by all the contestants, who often take taskmastering in a direction I would never have considered.
So many aspects of the show are absolutely brilliant. Beginning with the carnival styled, catchy series theme to the jangly theme that introduces the beginning of each task, the music plays a large part of making already funny scenes better. The jangly theme made me a little crazy for quite a while because I couldn’t figure out how it was achieved, until my hostess uttered – probably to get me to stop fretting aloud – that it was hammering on piano keys. Perfect music selection is paired with an obvious, sometimes challenging and beautiful videography style, made even better by superb editing.
The tasks themselves are credited to “the sidekick” who Greg Davies introduces with a sarcastic falsetto as, “Little Alex Horne”. Alex is sidekick, task creator, task monitor, and sometimes cruelly used by the contestants during their tasks. They also sometimes make use of cameramen or other crew, but Alex bears the very often hilarious brunt of the contestants’ use. It’s impossible to decide on a favorite task, because they’re devious, more difficult to “win” than appears on the surface, and as I said before showcase the contestants’ abilities. A fair number of them involve coconuts. Like, a lot. Sometimes Alex is extra sneaky, like putting additional instructions for a task on the back of the ubiquitous task envelope, or hiding in plain sight a solution to the task. He has instituted a six month long task to only one contestant, and gave another contestant completely unhidden but unnoticed fish puns for the whole season. I haven’t watched the entire set of episodes because there are twenty series, but I was wowed by Mae Martin’s use of the long game to brilliantly troll Alex at his own game.
In an unprecedented highlight, I will say I love the opening credits to each series. It’s a blend of quick shots of all the contestants during task moments. The longer you watch the series, the more often you begin to recognize that moment from an episode you’ve watched. I ended up watching for the moments, and as the balance of episodes shift toward the end of the series they became nostalgic, “I remember that!” moments. That struck me as yet another brilliant way to entertain consistent fans, and I love it.
I can’t think of anything negative to say about this show. There’s a reason it’s so wildly popular in the UK, even to having Taskmaster themed merch at places like Dover Castle, The Tower of London and Stonehenge. There are Taskmaster competitions all around the country. Every little bit of tomfoolery and mayhem is brilliantly conceived, enabled and contested and I have no doubt I will eventually “own” every series. You can watch them here across the pond, but not for free, unfortunately. I highly recommend watching this show. Give it a minute for the brilliance to get under your skin, and then enjoy something that will absolutely make you laugh. Or my case, occasionally snort.
Here is a taste of Alex’s travails.
Triggers: some sexual humor, occasional foul language, sore abdominals from laughing
Available: I buy entire series on Amazon Prime (they’re very cheap), also on YouTube tv
LINKS:
CFR: In Addition
Ok, first I wish to apologize to the readers and Cranky. Normally I would have published this last night. However I fell asleep at 5pm and stayed that way. Now on to the review.
I have heard several people talk about this show and now that Cranky loves it, well, I might have to give it a try! I do after all have a YouTube account! (Ok, I have a few…)
I don’t know if I would like watching people be made fun of, or outsmarted, or see them hurt themselves, but I am willing to give this a try.
I love a good laugh. However I think having Cranky come over and watch with me while we get Chinese would be better. What say you, Cranky?!
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