The acclaimed and award-winning British comedy panel recreation present Taskmaster is again for a seventeenth season. After virtually a decade on air, how does the duo behind the hit preserve it recent?

“I think there are a couple of lucky things,” Horne, the present’s creator and co-host, mused. “One is that there’s a whole different panel or cast every single series so that five people in it have never been in before and never will be again, so it’s all automatically fresh from that point of view. It’s like starting your sitcom with two old characters you know and then five fresh ones.”

“We’re the White Lotus of the entertainment world,” added co-host and celebrated humorist Greg Davies, the titular Taskmaster. “If anything, The White Lotus has ripped us off (laughs).”

Horne continued, “Also the tasks are different every time. We set this a stupid rule: you can’t repeat a task. Other than those two things, everything else stays the same. We get slightly older.”

Taskmaster, a present through which 5 comedians face off in opposition to one another in a number of cerebral challenges, is offered within the US on the official Taskmaster YouTube Channel and by way of the SVOD service Taskmaster SuperMax+. It has change into an enormous success within the States, gaining 130,000 US subscribers within the final 12 months and reaching 200 million views and 60 million hours watched on YouTube.

Davies believes that the seasonally revolving door of panelists permits the viewers to construct a reference to them but in addition means they do not get an excessive amount of of the identical, and the reactions are genuine – and it is the identical for him and Horne.

“Having a new cast of characters means they always confound our expectations. We have an idea of what they might bring to the show, and they always bring that plus loads of other weird and wonderful stuff,” Davies stated. “I think with that thing about the best-laid plans of mice and men, whenever we’re putting together a group of people that we think will interact in a certain way, they never do. I don’t think formulas work on the show.”

Horne added, “Often some of them have never seen the show before, which always surprises me because they have agreed to do it. I like it when they haven’t seen the show because they’re not trying to copy anyone else.”

Davies interjected, “We had a contestant on series 15 or something who I don’t think he knew who I was.”

Horne additionally revealed that it’s “sometimes awkward” on the subject of panel picks. “There are people who want to be on it who I think are brilliant, but there are only so many spaces. It can get slightly fiddly. Just this morning, we were talking about someone who would be great,” he stated.

Davies added, “I think people are keen to do it because it offers a slightly different showcase for them. Speaking as someone who does stand up, you get a little bit tired of your creation after a while, if that makes sense. You put restrictions on yourself as a performer for a multitude of things that only a therapist could probably unravel. On Taskmaster, you can’t hide in the creation; you must reveal at least something about yourself. Performers who appear on the show often reveal ways they are entertaining that they weren’t even aware of and that’s one of the great joys of the show for me.”

While the panels are rigorously curated, the duties are much less coordinated.

“It’s definitely right to think about it in terms of a dinner party, but I don’t pick tasks dependent on the people,” Horne revealed. “There are ten episodes, so there’s all the time going contain music, one other that includes artwork, and one which includes sport, but when now we have somebody we all know can sing on it, we do not say, ‘Oh, now we have received to verify they sing sooner or later.’ It could be higher if we did, however I’m cynical, so we go for the funniest stuff moderately than the very best stuff.

There are already quite a few incarnations of Taskmaster, which began as a present on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival worldwide. However, would the pair think about bringing the UK present to the US?

“We’re in New York at the moment and we’re muttering about it. We think it could work,” Horne mused.

“We would love to do it. I’ll say it, blatantly,” Davies laughed. “I would love us to do it, but I think it would have to be a recreation of what we do on our terms. American performers coming into our world and abiding by our rules, and I think it would work, and I would love to do it.”

Horne continued, “Americans have always loved some British shows, like The Office and going back to Monty Python. I don’t know why, but I think they have taken this under their wing. I haven’t got an answer for you, and it might be because it’s quintessentially British, but it’s very different from anything on American TV. People tend to tell us that it makes them happy, and if they’re sad, they can turn to it and escape.”

So, who would they prefer to be on the panel of Taskmaster US?

“Schwarzenegger,” they stated virtually in unison.

“And Danny DeVito,” Horne added. “Let’s get both Twins on. We’d love to get Kamala Harris.”

“Who’s the one that does the chat show? She was in E.T.? Drew Barrymore,” Davies continued.

The previous few years have seen Taskmaster‘s recognition develop within the US, which was proved through the pandemic when Horne set followers duties to finish and submitted their outcomes.

“We loved that,” Davies recalled. “Escapism is a word that gets bandied around with our show. Even as the Taskmaster, the appeal for me is that you step out of actual life and exist within the confines and rules of this universe. I think people like that because the Taskmaster universe has things you must o to live in that world and you can perhaps forget about other stresses. I don’t know whether it’s specifically that we’re British or more that it appeals to the desire in most humans to forget stuff.”

Do followers of the present ever attempt to recommend duties for the present?

“I always wrestle those people to the floor,” Davies joked. “You might as well get that as a warning out there. Now, if you approached me and tried to pitch your tasks to me, you’re going to get floored. I’ve learned how to do it safely. I’m not choking them out or anything horrible. It’s more I place them on the ground and walk away.”

Horne added, “They often haven’t even started speaking and you see a look in their eye. My system is to note down their ideas and then burn the piece of paper.”

According to the duo, filming a season takes about six months. As the seventeenth one roles out, they’re already at work on the eighteenth.

“We’ve just started, and the studio part of it is not until September. We started filming about a month ago,” Horne confirmed. “It’s quite fun for them to look back and see what they were like six months ago. They do sometimes forget. It’s a long process, and we like that. They’ve invested a lot of their life into it.”

“The panelists will do one day one week and another day two weeks later. We try to spread the days apart because otherwise, they get a bit in their head, and it becomes too predictable. We do it in their diary, wherever they’re free.”

Due to the present’s recognition, the Taskmaster House has change into iconic and is a personality within the present in its personal proper. However, they’ve managed to cease the situation, rethemed for every season, from being swamped by followers.

“I think I can solve the mystery as to why it’s not inundated by people. It’s because it’s horrible. It is quite grubby,” Davies stated. “It’s a horrible, cold, awful little place that I’m delighted I don’t have to spend much time in.”

“Anyone who comes there will go I can’t believe I spent money on a plane ticket to see this.”

Horne added, “It’s also charming and lovely. We’re in there all year round because we’re filming almost constantly, but we treat it as our office as well. We have parties there in the summer for the team, and our kids go there. Our dogs have been there. It’s like a second home, but we still rent it out, which is annoying.”

Do Davies and Horne have a favourite process this season?

“Truthfully, I don’t remember any of them but that’s not about the show. That’s about my personal issues,” Davies confessed with a chuckle.

“We don’t because there are so many,” Horne clarified. “There are some that were outdoors in that big farm where they were running around, and those were fun. There was a giant dot-to-dot one that really tickled me.”

Davies added, “Yes, I enjoyed that because the horses felt like a jeopardy that none of us had banked on.”

“And Nick Mohammed was dressed as Dracula,” Horne concluded. “Let’s just say a lot was going on.”

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