Taskmaster

[Onyx2]

On 5/11/2026 at 7:46 PM, DavidB6937 said:

Going to a taping in London next week. Very excited!

I was just reading this recap for this week's episode (so spoilers) but contained handy hints for attending live:

https://www.reddit.com/r/taskmaster/s/cO0RdhMSLN

[HarmonicGenerator]

On 5/15/2026 at 11:43 PM, Onyx2 said:

I was just reading this recap for this week's episode (so spoilers) but contained handy hints for attending live:

https://www.reddit.com/r/taskmaster/s/cO0RdhMSLN

The original post has been removed by Reddit! Can you summarise?

[Onyx2]

10 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

The original post has been removed by Reddit! Can you summarise?

Specifically for paid tickets (free tickets appear to be impossible now): no food inside so eat well beforehand, and take a very large bottle of water to see you through. Comments that the seats were not that comfortable as well. 

I take it you have tickets?

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

for those who haven't seem them. 

 

[HarmonicGenerator]

3 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

Specifically for paid tickets (free tickets appear to be impossible now): no food inside so eat well beforehand, and take a very large bottle of water to see you through. Comments that the seats were not that comfortable as well. 

I take it you have tickets?

I don't - was just interested in how it actually worked when you're there! I bet the tapings last ages.

Specifically for the last episode, I wanted to see if there were reports of Kumail needing to take a little break after the first task, he looked genuinely uncomfortable after they showed the laptop video!

[DavidB6937]

All I've learnt so far in this queue is that there's no designated toilet breaks during the taping so I should go now. I don't need it now! But I probably will in the next 4 hours..

[Onyx2]

Using this tool I've retrieved the text @HarmonicGenerator. No mention of Kumail's travails.

https://undelete.rdrama.net/r/taskmaster/comments/1tdq05d/notes_from_s21e06_recording/?share_id=Sh2mG7kZAcGVPr9t2Pqns

Spoiled just because it's long.

Spoiler

I've been a reader of Reddit for 10+ years but never made an account. As I was at the recording of last night's episode, I thought what better time than now to join?

Firstly, it was a great experience. My first TV show recording. It was really easy to get to, exit White City tube station and the studio building is right in front of you. Getting my wristband and going through security was a breeze (I had a paid tickets so I can't comment on what it was like with a free ticket). A bit of a shame you can't take in any food. If anyone is going, do make sure you are full before you do the security check, and you take a full bottle of water, as you are in the studio for nearly four hours.

So what can I remember that didn't make the edit?

Alex's banter was longer. As well as making 1s and 10s he also made at least one other food item - 'Brownmange' - a play on Blancmange, and possibly a third, although if there was a third exactly what it was escapes me. Amy was the only one brave(!) enough to taste any (1s and 10s), and she complained they tasted of soap ("actually it's mostly flour" replied Alex)

Prize task: I'm pretty sure the other two entries from Joel's diary were also read in the end. Joanna's story, as you can imagine went on for a long time. When it came to the scoring, Greg said he thought all five were adorable rather than embarrassing, and he was absolutely about to give Joanna three points... until she suddenly went into another extended story about her toilet snake!! I think it was about how she wished she had it for the studio recordings as she didn't trust her dressing room toilet. This really went on... and incredibly Greg succumbed to her charm and upgraded her to 5 points on the strength of her second story!

Be Brave: I don't have many notes on this one I'm afraid, other than that Alex couldn't recall any other occasion when a member of the public had made any concern about what was happening in the Taskmaster house! At the studio recording I couldn't see a monitor so when Alex was doing his long look into the camera before the break, we had no idea what it was going to look like on TV.

Coconkers: Much talk in the studio about how silly it was for Joel to try to drink the coconut milk, despite a hole already having been drilled in it. Also much more discussion about when does a Coconker stop being a Coconker... surely Coconkers don't have hammers, metal, and footballs attached to them? I saw people asking in the live thread about Jason's commentary. The VT shown on the day wasn't commentated on by Jason. I think it was Alex. During the final pick-up at the end of the recording, Alex gave a different introduction to the clip, saying something along the line of "See if you can work out who the commentator is!", and then explained to the audience that they were hoping to get a special voiceover for TV, but it was a mystery to me until I saw the episode who it was (I didn't even think of Jason)

Photographs: Joanna was very upset that she didn't realise that she could have kept going after she missed a photo, but to be fair I thought the same thing when I watched it in the studio, I thought they had 5 minutes to collect all the items they were going to use and then have to do one continuously every 10 seconds! There was an extended argument about whether the banana or the phone was bigger and whether that would count or be disqualified (I was surprised no-one said that he should have put a banana-phone in his mouth instead as they are clearly bigger!)

Live Task: This took about 15 minutes to set up. Alex surprised Greg buy asking him to come up with a catchphrase to start the rotation of the table. Greg quickly ad-libbed the line 'Begin the face vortex'! It went on for a bit but what was shown on TV accurately reflected what really did happen. Armando was out fast, but people kept hitting his face. Greg's face was hit many times, and yet most of the time when it was Greg's turn he hit his own face, to the amazement of everyone!

End of episode: So here is an interesting bit that wasn't shown on TV. Kumail won his first episode and went up to collect his prizes. Halfway through his celebration, he picked up and ripped Armando's certificate in two. Sections of the crowd were shocked and stopped applauding! When Kumail came back down to his seat for the post-episode chat, Alex said that the audience had never stopped applauding a winner before! Armando explained that while his story was true, he couldn't actually find the real certificate, so that one he bought in was a copy he'd made. Amy then revealed that the straw she had bought in also wasn't the original one. Kumail was relieved that he was able to keep his prize. Alex said that while contestants do genuinely win the prizes, they often return them.

The floor manager (I don't know his name) was the one who shouted 'Is everyone ok in there' during Greg's end segment. Off camera he was asked if that was the first time he had ever actually been in the show himself (it was!)

Amongst the many pickups, Greg had to re-record his 'Frankensteinian monster' intro many times, each one with more and more energy.

One thing that did surprise and impress me was how much Greg thinks about the scoring. It doesn't really come across on TV, but at one point, Alex ask him for his scores and he just sat silent for several seconds considering what scores to actually give out. In the recording, he was halfway through giving the scores out for the prize task before Joanna objected to her three points and he was eventually swayed by her second story.

I'm off to S22E10 next week so hopefully I'll have more detailed notes for you all in a few months time!

 

Edited May 18 by Onyx2

[DavidB6937]

Ah that was so much fun. I'll try to write something more interesting at some point but I got one of my most wanted potential contestants and it was an incredible experience. 

[Onyx2]

I've seen the cast list but others might not want to so pop it in spoiler tags 👍🏻 

Glad you had a great time!

[Accident Prone]

Me and the wife started watching Taskmaster from the start this earlier this year. We had never seen it before, we just jumped in on a whim after blitzing through Last Comic Standing and seeing a lot of those comics had TM listed in their IMDBs. So it became our weekend thing of an evening to watch two or three episodes.

We've just hit series 8, finished up the first episode, and this is likely one that I'll watch alone as a brutal completionist because the cast is not only weak but aggravating from the off. Iain Stirling has acted like a wanker (his rant on on the team's puppets missed the mark massively) and Joe Thomas is a dull, humorless sod. I'm a fan of Lou Sanders, and Sian Gibson and Pauk Sinha haven't stood out just yet, but just based on Iain and Joe alone from that one fucking episode, I can tell it's going to be a trudge.

This comes after a really, really strong Series 7 with James Acaster, Rhod Gilbert, Kerry Godliman, Jessica Knappett and Phil Wang, so expectations were high for Series 8. I cannot put across how much of a prick Iain was and how dull Joe was, but its magnified more that they had to follow the previous stellar cast. I'll see how it goes, I reckon I'm in for a tough hang.

I'll report more as I go along, maybe we'll catch up to recent episodes by 2028. Here's my ranking of all the series' so far;

1. Series 7 (Acaster, Wang, Gibert, Knappett, Godliman) - Chaos, antics, continued bits, misery (in the best sense), cunning, and just thoroughly, utterly enjoyable throughout. The gold standard (so far).

2. Series 4 (Adefope, Fielding, Lycett, Dennis, Giedroyc) - Despite Noel 'big timing' some of the tasks every now and again, this was a cracker of a series. Hugh Dennis and Mel Guedroyc is the middle-class buddy cop show that I never knew I wanted.

3. Series 3 (Beckett, Gorman, Pascoe, Chowdhry, Murray) - Everyone seemed to appoint themselves a role here and they played it well. I was never a Rob Beckett fan but he shined throughout.

4. Series 1 (Conaty, Ranganathan, Widdicombe, Skinner, Key) - The OG's. I miss the opening lines that Greg would introduce the cast with. Everyone was really enjoying the fresh concept and they set the bar high. Also had the benefit of being six episodes, which is the ideal length.

5. Series 2 (Bailey Smith, Richardson, Wilkinson, Osman, Ryan) - Took a while to get going as they were a ragtag group but weren't annoying or boring, which is a quality.

6. Series 5 (Bea, Mortimer, Watson, Kumar, Phillips) - Despite some star power, this was very hit-and-miss, and the first one that my wife noped out of a couple of episodes in. A really strong ending though with Rosalind's ballads. The first time in the show's run that Greg and Alex had to do extra legwork to get something out the episode.

7. Series 6 (Chaudhry, Levine, Vine, Howard, Tarbuck) - Christ was Russel Howard a fucking wet wipe in this. Unsure if he was playing up to a character, but he really sucked the energy out of the series. Everyone else with the exception of Tim Vine was unremarkable, bordering on cringe at times. The wife was voluntarily absent for this one too. And THIS was the series they extended to 10 episodes as well. 

Unless there's some massive swing coming up, Series 8 is probably going to slot in at the bottom. I'm not looking ahead at other series but this has to be a low point of the show's run. I'll bravely push forwards as my wife has hand-waived this one, which is smart.

Edited July 7 by Accident Prone

[HarmonicGenerator]

Series 7 is still my absolute favourite, but last year’s Series 19 was an all-timer.

I’m glad to see you’ve put Series 5 quite low on your list too, everyone told us it’s fantastic because of Bob Mortimer but we noped out of it too, only watched a couple of episodes and couldn’t get through the rest.

[DavidB6937]

I've never noped out of any series simply because I do think they've all got something/someone worth watching, although admittedly I do struggle with the series with Rosie Jones - no fault of her own obviously, but Taskmaster can be such a frantic fast paced show that it's quite challenging at points. She did really throw herself into it though so fair play.

There's a few I wasn't particularly bothered by, but very few I actively did not like but Iain Stirling is one of them. Anyone who's already looking at the champions show is a wanker.

A lot of it is like choosing a favourite child because I do genuinely love so many of them.

Charlotte Ritchie!

Mike Wozniak!

Me Fern Brady!

One team.. one dream..

Sorry I'm just randomly shouting things now but it's a difficult thought process and NO I'M NOT DOING IT.

The re-watch before the new series gets longer every year and yet I don't skip. It feels wrong to.

 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

1 hour ago, Accident Prone said:

Christ was Russel Howard a fucking wet wipe in this

I think he was either just about to have a nervous breakdown or he was just recovering from one. 

I've never tapped out of a series, even the Tim Vine, because while he isn't a funny comedian  he is an odd man who I enjoyed watching do the tasks. 

As for tapping out of series 5. The whole trouser theft arc that is paid off in series 9 will pass you by, which is a shame. 

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

I've never noped out of any series simply because I do think they've all got something/someone worth watching, although admittedly I do struggle with the series with Rosie Jones - no fault of her own obviously, but Taskmaster can be such a frantic fast paced show that it's quite challenging at points. She did really throw herself into it though so fair play.

I struggled with that one too. She gets a lot of unfair hate because she lives with a disability, and I really wish I did like her humour, but I find her very unfunny. Same goes with Nish Kumar, who makes me cringe more than laugh - I want to like him because of the bigoted hate that he gets, but I just don't think his comedy is any good. 

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

There's a few I wasn't particularly bothered by, but very few I actively did not like but Iain Stirling is one of them. Anyone who's already looking at the champions show is a wanker.

I didn't like him either. He's carved out a career based on his Love Island work and good on him for that, but his stand-up and comedy frequently falls flat. I do, weirdly, have a loose connection to him, and I'm told he's actually a really lovely guy, so once again I feel bad to be so critical of him. Comedy is subjective though, and all of the above have made good money from it so the fact their humour isn't for me should be irrelevant. 

[gmoney]

The Iain Stirling series is the worst I've seen. Cannot stand the bloke. saw him compare a live show once and he was fucking dreadful then too. That series 8 is really bad. Oil and water contestants. Sinha was apparently ill throughout and it sadly shows. Lou Sanders was fucking awful. I liked Sian and Joe Thomas grew on me as it went on, and I suspect they both would have been carried with a better cast, but alas.