Ep 197. Brynley Stent - TM NZ S2 Ep.7

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast.

It's me, Ed Gamble, still the host of it.

Thank you.

We are still talking about the wonderful Taskmaster New Zealand series 2.

And today we'll be chatting about episode 7.

And we have a wonderful special guest, as always.

We have the brilliant Brindley stent wonderful comic uh star of taskmaster new zealand series one of course uh but look they all know each other this is good we're going to get insight into the series two cast from brinley um brinley's amazing you should go and check out this is uh some new hot brinley content brin and cuz singles club uh it is um short form digital content sitcom they're playing themselves uh check it out on youtube Very, very good indeed.

Can't wait to speak to Brindley about that and, of course, about Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, episode 7.

Let's get into it.

Also, actually, before we do get into it, I should say I am touring New Zealand and Australia.

If you are listening from either of those places, hopefully I will be coming to somewhere near you.

I will be there in June.

I was supposed to be there in April, May, but unfortunately it had to be moved.

So if you are coming to those shows, make sure you you can come to the June shows.

And if you're hearing about it for the first time, check it out on my website edgamble.co.uk.

I'm coming to Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth.

It's going to be a big old trip, fun old show.

Probably the last time I'll do this show anywhere in the world.

So come and check it out.

But for now, this is Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, episode 7, as discussed by Brindley Stent.

Welcome back, Brindley, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Oh my gosh, always an honor and a privilege and a pleasure.

Always.

We're very excited to have you.

And before we properly get underway, I should say, I've mentioned this to you already, but we're recording morning in the UK, nighttime in New Zealand.

And

something went wrong with my alarm, so I've only been awake for about 10 minutes.

So

this feels like a fever dream.

I'm excited about this.

Yeah,

you've got to tell us your dreams.

Tell us your dreams immediately.

You know what?

I don't think I had any dreams.

Is that worrying?

Certainly not any notable ones that I woke up from.

I think it's worrying if you don't have actual dreams in your life.

Yes.

It's fine for not having sleep dreams.

I have no goals.

I have no ambitions.

Yeah.

Don't say that about yourself.

You want to be the best podcast in the world.

That's your dream, right?

Achieved, baby.

Yay!

It was my dream not to do Taskmaster, but to talk about Taskmaster for what is seemingly until the end of time.

You're now in Taskmaster Purgatory, I think.

So anyway, Brittany,

welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We are, of course, talking about New Zealand Taskmaster Series 2, which you're not on.

We've already talked to you about being on the show.

We've done that stuff.

But

I take it you know at least some slash all of the contestants on this series.

As per usual, yes.

The comedy community is small.

We're basically one huge incestuous family.

So, yeah, I know all the comedians.

I know three of the comedians extremely well.

I know David, Guy, and Laura from doing snort improv with them for 10 years.

So, I know them quite in and out.

And then Matt and Ursh, I just know from around the traps.

Colleagues, friends, acquaintances.

One of those.

One of those.

Take your pick.

Three quite different things.

One of those.

Yes.

The snort.

We've talked about snort on this podcast before.

I think a wonderful improv group.

No longer

an active group, I understand.

No,

we did 10 years, 10 long years.

And then I think a lot of us were all kind of mid-30s and we were like, doing improv at 10 p.m.

on a Friday?

No, thank you.

So we gracefully stepped away from that and now we have our lives back.

But also I think we miss each other sometimes.

Yeah.

I like that the only option was to disband the group rather than just do an earlier show.

Yeah, it's late night improvised comedy.

It's got to be cool.

It's got to be young.

I'm not going to, you know, the clientele for a 7 p.m.

improv show is not fun.

That's true.

That's, I mean, then your audience starts getting older with you.

Then it has the, you know, it's like tea time improv, and then you have it all, none of it can be rude.

No, no, 2 p.m.

improv at the church.

Well, look, I would pay to see that.

Yeah, so would I, absolutely.

But the church aren't charging.

You just have to stick some sandwiches or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This actually sounds really nice.

Let's talk about the prize task on this.

Episode seven.

We're heading towards the end of the series now.

The prize task on this episode, though, was the biggest bargain.

No, I don't.

I love a bargain.

Do you love a bargain?

You know what?

I do love a bargain.

I very rarely get a bargain, I don't think.

Because I think a lot of bargains are lies.

Would you agree with that?

Whoa, there's a huge statement to make.

Yeah, I agree.

It's the classic

Boxing Day sale, and then they hike the price up, and then they drop it, and it's not a bargain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's all agreed.

Agreed.

if it was a real bargain they wouldn't give it to you because then they'd be losing money yeah you're right you're right sorry to bring the only bargain is a gift yeah

um what was the last bargain you got though that that made you happy and excited

Wow, great question.

I got two eggplants at the supermarket.

They were $3 each.

That's not really a bargain.

That's about £1.50.

New Zealand vegetables are very expensive.

But I thought to myself, well, that's a nice pasta.

Why is that?

I don't know.

I thought, in my mind, and obviously I've only been to New Zealand twice, you're literally growing everything in New Zealand.

So, why does it cost so much?

It's criminal.

And our meat and dairy is expensive, too.

And that is, we are the exporters.

Maybe that's why we're the exporters of it all.

But whenever I'm in the UK, I tell you what, I'm buying up bags of kale, I'm buying hot pumpkins, I'm buying up so much meat.

I'm like, too much.

Too much.

And that's a bargain.

Yeah, that's a bargain.

Flying to the UK for however many thousands of dollars that must cost.

Buying a big old bag of meat.

65p.

Well,

let's see if we like any of these bargains that the contestants brought in.

I sense this is a classic guy, Montgomery, just doing what he wants and seeing how people will react.

He brings in a bottle open that he bought for $120.

This feels like a very guy thing to do.

It's clearly not a bargain, and he just decided to do it anyway.

Yeah, I think so.

He's got that kind of rumpled stiltskin sense of humour, does he not?

Where it's like you're like, is it a riddle or

is it actually a joke?

And then I think you just laugh because you're like, ha ha ha,

you know, this one, I mean, I think this is a bargain because I just think it is such a delightful item.

It looks like a weird little goblin creature.

Yeah, it's a cool, I think it's a cool thing.

I'd buy it, not at $120, but

it's worth it for the catchphrase of some of these go for $130, $140, which he establishes so quickly.

Very, very funny.

But the thing is, what we know about Jeremy is he will not get involved in the fun of something if it's bad.

He is a very...

In this instance, you're like, if Jeremy finds a reason to give something one point, he will do it.

And it's straight away one point for the bot local.

Yeah, you know.

You just know in his face.

He hasn't even finished scoring the rest of the things.

And he's like, I hate this.

And look, look guy knew that was coming he did it because he's a cheeky little impura this is another great a great prize from Laura

she spends 20 New Zealand dollars and buys 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars yeah yeah to make someone in

a billionaire

yeah quite good quite good I think it's worth it for the novelty of feeling like a billionaire for a day do you think it's worth what is it $20 it was like yeah right

I don't know if I if i if someone said you're a billionaire now if it was in pounds or dollars or whatever and then the way i was a billionaire was one single note i would be scared all of the time yeah do you know what i mean yeah all in one note it'd be so freaky and imagine you're like when i've got to put it in the bank and it's windy day you're like this is going to be a proper mr being situation now that that note's going to be taken out my hand

Or, like, how do you break that?

Like, no bus driver's going to take that note from you.

No, you can't go to the markets and use your billion-dollar note.

They'll be like, no, we don't have change for that.

It's a curse, actually.

Yeah.

Paying in cash at an estate agent.

Yeah.

Yeah, it wouldn't

quite work.

But I love the thing.

I don't know what situation the Zimbabwean currency is currently in.

Yeah.

We should check.

Yeah,

we should check the money.

That's on the Added Extras podcast.

Get it, go get it.

That's on the Patreon, guys.

The most boring content, you and I searching, the currency rates.

Yeah, it's me and Bridney talking for another three hours

about Zimbabwean dollars.

Go check it out.

But no, I think Laura's so good at these price tasks.

She really is.

She's so good at them.

I'm envious of her.

She's just got it.

Well, I think Laura brings a much needed energy to this series in the same way that you brought to yours, where you both just absolutely love it.

You just really throw yourselves into it.

I mean, we'll see later with the grape task, but Laura, just

so delighted to be there.

It's her dream stuff, basically.

Yes.

I wouldn't say the same about Ursula.

She is absolutely hilarious, but I don't think she can be bothered a lot of the time.

Although

she has done, this feels like she's made some effort, the Briscoe's discount staff card.

Take us through Briscoe's, please, Brindley, if you may.

Yes, I can be the New Zealand expert today.

So Briscoe's is a homeware shop in New Zealand that is famously known for always having sales.

Like, consistently, all through the year.

They have a sale.

They find any reason to have a sale.

They have the same woman who's been advertising it for, I reckon, it feels like 50 years.

She wears a wig, so it's like her hair stays exactly the same.

She looks like a step-fit wife.

She's called the Briscoes lady, and she's on your television 24/7 being like, Briscoes has got an Easter sale, Briscoe's has got a Waitungi Day sale, Briscoe's has got a something day sale.

So I guess what Ursha's trying to do here is say, Wow, you could basically get something for free because with this card, you can discount discounts.

So that's actually, you know, a really good prize from Ursula.

Quite often, she just sort of throws something together, but this is very, very well done from her.

But she's whatever she has, she always has seemingly a perfect joke or bit about it.

She really does.

She's so quick, eh?

God.

She's so quick.

But I find that even speaking to her, like when we have her on the podcast, you can ask her a question that she doesn't know you're going to ask, and she can come out with like a three-minute, perfectly turned stand-up routine about it.

It's god-smoking.

I guess that's maybe that's just being a good comedian.

I shouldn't be amazed by that, really.

I think, no, but I think she's actually one of our most famous exports in terms of stand-up.

Like, she goes to Melbourne and sells out the biggest theatres ever.

It's amazing.

Like, it's amazing.

And I don't think she gets enough credit from New Zealanders

for how big she actually is.

Do you think New Zealanders feel like they can't claim her because she is from South Africa?

Maybe that's

New Zealanders being humble because they know if they say, isn't she great and she's from New Zealand, they're worried people are going to turn around and go, oh, She's not from New Zealand, actually.

That's true, or they just don't know.

They're just like, They're just like, That South African lady's great.

There's a lady who lives next door that looks like her.

But very good prize from Urshela as well.

David brings in what he presents as if it's the cleverest thing in the world,

but hasn't thought it through at all.

And it obviously ends as it does most days for David with his head in his hands.

He brings in $50 for 50 cents.

So whoever wins that will pay 50 cents to get $50.

Forgetting, of course, as Guy points out, that whoever wins it just gets it.

So

he doesn't need to pay 50 cents.

I can see how he got there, though, right?

Because

he's not thinking about the Taskmaster show.

He's just thinking about what's a good bargain in general, right?

And $50 for 50 cents is a freaking awesome bargain.

So I see where his thinking goes, but immediately holds picked and immediately he is head in hands.

Yeah, he never really tries to argue back, David.

If someone says this is bad for this reason, he'll go, oh no, and just immediately put his head in his hands.

Yeah, but yeah.

He's so funny.

I absolutely love him.

Yeah.

He's a national treasure.

Yes.

Good.

Has he reached that status yet?

I don't know what the what within New Zealand is there something that someone has to do to hit national treasure status?

Well I don't know.

He's won the Billy T Award though, which is one of our bigger comedy awards.

But I don't, yeah, I don't know.

I think he is just, people just love him.

It's just like that guy, because he's on a bunch of ads as well.

He's on like Burger King ads and things like that.

So I think people are like, it's that guy.

I don't even know if they know his name, but he's definitely recognizable.

I think

he was on a that Burger King ad made it to the UK, you know.

Well, then he is a national treasure.

That's that's a national treasure here now as well.

He's the Burger King.

Now, Matt, another national treasure, we'll say anyone who's done Taskmaster is a national treasure,

brings in 200 copies of his band's third album, The Shape of Grunge to Come,

Dejar Voodoo.

And he says he's got thousands in his attic.

Have you heard this album?

Never.

When they played a snippet of it, I was like, what's that?

I felt bad for him in that moment.

Because I'm sure in context it's great, but everyone just sat there in total silence and just sort of...

I think Deja Voodoo themselves are good, but their album didn't sound good at all, and I don't think I've heard of it.

And also,

I don't know if it's a bargain to get some CDs someone's throwing away.

No, it really felt like he was clearing his attic out.

Yeah, it did.

Very, very Lee Hart boot scenario.

Exactly.

It's a Lee Hart scenario.

But

he said their albums are Brown Sabbath, Then Back in Brown, which are two clear parody titles, and then

the Shape of Grunge to Come, I believe, is a riff on the shape of Punk to Come,

which is the refused

album.

Maybe

slightly more underground and less of a mainstream proposition than the first two.

So you probably should have thought about that.

But I do want to hear it now.

I do want to hear it.

Well, next time you go on a lovely walk or to the gym or to the supermarket, you must play it in your headphones.

Yeah, well, I've dare, I've just checked, and Shape of Grunge to come is not on Spotify, so it's actually, I think, quite a good prize.

A rare CD.

True,

true.

And you get it for free.

So, bargain.

That's a bargain.

That's a bargain.

But it was one point for Guy, two points for Matt, three points for David, four points for Ursula, and five points for Laura.

David?

So, what I've got is $50 for 50 cents.

If you win, pay me 50 50 cents, I'll give you 50 bucks.

If you win, we just get $50.

And you take the label off because who's going to sell $50 for 50 cents?

Oh, fuck.

Task one.

This is a great task.

Construct the least appropriate wedding cake.

You have 45 minutes.

Your time starts now.

Now, did you have any instant thoughts when this task came up about what you would have done?

Look, I think when you think inappropriate, or or sorry, least appropriate, you think inappropriate, and I think you think sex or

like yuck.

Um, and so I think probably

shit or sex, the two human

conditions,

the two least appropriate things, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I genuinely think, um, honestly, I mean, you know, my brand, I probably would have like done something like a boy or bunny in a pot or something

dark.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's a little bit where my brain goes, a meat cake, you know, something like, yeah, that just looks awful.

What about you?

Well, yeah, probably shit.

45 minutes, you've got to start making it pretty quickly.

Probably shit, to be honest with you.

Yeah, yeah.

I did like someone saying that I think

they were like, it is sanitary, and it's sanitary.

And then Paul goes, for legal reasons, it is.

I mean, they were all pretty gross, weren't they?

But

I think Laura's the one who maybe makes the most effort to do something that's not that.

It's a sort of theatrical moment.

Yeah, and she creates the whole backstory.

And she says, oh, it's covered in cream and the bride's lactose intolerant, so that's not very appropriate.

And I like that because I think she's clearly done what you've done there and gone, everyone's going to do shit or sex.

But she does ask Paul to American Pie the Cake, which he refuses to do.

So she creates this whole backstory, and then

he does it when she leaves, leading to one of my favorite moments in the studio, just David talking about how thick Paul's dick is.

I know.

And then Paul, genuinely, genuinely to be like, can we move on?

I don't want him to be talking about this.

I can see when Paul's being genuine.

Like, he doesn't want to talk about it.

You got a thick dick, bro.

Yeah, absolutely love that.

I laughed out loud at guys, though.

It was so funny.

I know that your brain goes instantly to sex, but I think it was just the cadence and consonance he used when he said, I fucked your dad.

Yeah.

I tell you what it was as well.

It was because it came straight after Laura's.

And Laura did something quite interesting.

It was saying, oh, she's lactose intolerant, and here's the backstory.

And everyone was like, yeah, that's great.

And then it cut to guys and he just went, I've written, I fucked your dad.

And it's just like, just comedy with a sledgehammer.

It's really funny.

Yeah, cock and balls.

I fucked your dad.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Perfect comedy.

Route one.

That's his first thought he's had and he's done it.

Fantastic.

What did David do?

What did David do again?

Oh, the syphilis cake.

Syphilis.

Oh, how can I forget?

The syphilis cake.

He filled it with soy sauce and chili powder.

So that that is inappropriate.

That's good, yeah.

Um, yeah, and then obviously, it was like, I need something else to crown this, and went with the uh, just a big sign that said syphilis.

And when asked why it said syphilis, he said, Because I wouldn't like to see the word syphilis on my wedding day, which is a very good point.

I think that's a great point.

Oh, do you know what I would thought would be quite a good one just then?

Is um, if you could make it explode in some way, so everyone in the wedding gets like covered in cake.

Yeah, it's not very appropriate.

No, that's not very appropriate.

I don't think my parents or my wife's parents liked what we had on top of our wedding cake,

which was,

well, it was sort of quite nicely done, you know, groom and bride.

But the person we bought them from, what they do is they make the bodies really well and then the faces, they just do little round bits of clay and then squash them with their thumb and then just poke in a smiley face.

I love that.

It's a bit of fun, isn't it?

It's a little twist on the tradition, but

I don't think that went down particularly well with some members of the family.

Were they a bit freaked out, like voodoo doll kind of styles?

Like, why do you have to do that?

Just do something nicely.

Why do you have to do everything differently?

Fair point.

But we've still got a lot of things.

I did genuinely did think that you were going to say that you and your wife were just like boning on top of the cake.

I don't like a little fligurine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, we had some very silly

cake cake toppers

and James A.

Caster announced what all the different flavours were.

He announced the cakes,

which he asked to do.

He created himself a job.

Yeah, I was going to say, was he bridal party or no, not the bridal party party?

Yeah, he was one of my groomsmen.

Oh, nice.

So he's given himself double job then.

Yeah, so he was a groomsman, which I asked him to do, and he said, I'll announce the cakes.

I said, no, no one announces the cakes.

That's not a job.

He said, I'll be doing that.

So I had to gather everyone round while he announced all of the different cakes, which was a lovely memory and uh some people were very confused

i want him for mine i'm gonna message him when i get engaged i'm like i'm flying you over for the cake announcing ceremony the cake and you need at least three flavors though it's not it's not good if it's like

true

okay genuinely how much do you think i would have to pay james

genuinely how much would i have to pay james to fly him to my wedding in new zealand which is I don't have a wedding coming up, but so maybe in the next five years, hopefully.

Fingers crossed.

And then I put him up for two nights

to announce your to announce your cake.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, James.

You wouldn't have to pay him anything for that.

Wow.

He would be delighted to do that.

That's so lovely.

He's a good guy after all.

If it was fly James over to do a gig, there's no chance.

There's no amount of money in the world

you're going to be able to pay him.

But come and announce your cakes.

He's straight on the plane.

He's there.

Yeah, perfect.

Can't wait.

I found it interesting that Laura was the only one who tried to make it taste nice.

Yeah, I love it when she was like, I've got standards.

I'm not going to make it taste yuck.

I love it because she's competitive, but she's competitive in every arena.

So she wants to do the most inappropriate cake or the least appropriate cake, but also just the idea that someone's eating eating it, she does not want it to taste bad.

No,

she is unbelievably

competitive, but she's also very good at everything.

Like, I have played board games with that woman, and it is a sight to behold.

It is genuinely scary.

Like, you're like, oh, you're competitive and competent.

You're good at it.

You know the rules.

It's a terrible combination, isn't it?

It does.

It really is.

But yeah, that cake actually looked pretty good, to be honest, until Paul puts his big willie in it.

His wide.

No, I'm not going to go there.

Not up.

It's for the extras as well.

Yeah, that's for you.

Check out the Patreon.

Yeah, that's on our OnlyFans.

Brindley describes Paul's dick.

Paul's dick.

From tip to top.

He'd hate that.

Yeah, he'd hate that.

Yeah, yeah.

Matt, I mean, look, this is a really good way to go, I think, because he's not using any of the cake materials that have been provided for him.

I don't think that's necessarily a decision he's made.

I think he doesn't even go into the kitchen to check what's there.

He just gets the mud,

which

does look like it could be sewage, and covers it with toilet roll.

It's quite depressing, is

it really is.

And the candles, he puts in huge, like table candles.

It was cursed.

It was cursed.

And calls it the truth because it's what happens after you get married.

It made me so sad.

It did.

And then he said, too.

I was like, turn this episode off.

So far from Matt, this episode, we've had like his music career failed and his life fell apart after he got married.

It's really depressing.

Shit and nothing.

Hey, look, there's a silver lining in there.

He got five points for it.

You know, he went there and he was rewarded for it.

Yeah, yeah.

A silver lining to the saddest cloud.

Ursula,

I mean, this one made me laugh so much.

The ring of shit, just with she goes down,

she goes down the road we were kind of expecting.

Yeah.

But she goes down it all the way to the destination.

So puts blood on

the turds.

Then describes how you can get a cream, rub it on, and that'll sort you out.

But then as she leaves, which absolutely killed me, said, if you've got short fingers, you have to ask your neighbor.

Yeah, who apparently has long fingers.

Just so gross.

I love it.

Because her aim for the whole series seems to have been to make Paul feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I find, okay, so there's a thing in improv where you're like, ask, you know, where you ask the audience for like suggestions, and often they're like, shit, or vaginas, or whatever.

And often you'll be like, I'm not going to take that because we don't need to see that.

But sometimes you take it and you say, this is the show you wanted to see.

And

I think this is a Taskmaster moment where probably all the Taskmaster writers in that moment were like, oh, everyone did like weird shit and fucking gags.

And now it's like, well, that's.

Yeah, you paid your money.

That's what you wanted.

Yeah.

Ursula gets two points because Jeremy once had an anal Fisher.

And that's all the reason he needs to give.

It's nice to hear a reason from him, to be fair.

Laura, Guy, and David all got three points.

And Matt, with his pile of sewage gets five points.

I had an idea

about how to make this cake really inappropriate.

Okay.

Have you seen American Pie?

How would you feel if we turned all the cameras off and you American Pied the cake?

I don't know what that means.

I think I can guess.

And I'm not that keen.

Any takers from the cameraman?

Don't ask them.

Okay.

Because one of them will do it.

Task two.

This is an absolute classic.

This is such a classic.

It's been on UK Taskmaster after a few years later.

Task two, eat the grape.

You cannot damage the caravan.

Fastest wins.

Your time starts now.

It's an escape room, Brindley, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

it is.

And guess what?

I was very lucky to be in the writer's room for this day.

So I got to help come up with the,

I didn't come up with the idea to do the task, but I was there for like all the fun tricks of the task, which was really fun.

Yeah.

Did you see that?

This is the perfect day.

Come up with any of the particular little tricks.

Look, it's hard to remember.

I do remember the balloons and I remember the water.

Like, we're talking about water and freezing things, but it's hard to say when there's a writer's room of a couple of different people and you're all just throwing stuff around.

Sure.

But I remember it being calm.

No, I know.

Stay humble, you know.

I don't want any of those writers breathing down my neck, coming for me in the night.

Truly a great task because

you've got someone like Laura and Guy, to be fair, who both done escape rooms before, I think, very obviously.

They know the rhythm of escape rooms.

They delight in this sort of thing.

Laura, especially, running around.

She can't believe her luck that there's so many different things for a girl.

Best day giver.

Best day ever.

She's delighting in the clues and how they've been put together.

And clearly, she's thinking about the writer's room.

She's like,

They've done such a great job.

And getting the hot water to melt it.

Seeing the balloons.

She's just like, yeah.

There's nothing better than someone in the moment

giving kudos for the people who created it.

These guys have done such a good job.

Well done.

Well done.

Thank you.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Guy seems slightly more annoyed by the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah.

But does it very well?

He doesn't like things being pulled on him.

Yeah.

No, he doesn't.

It's a funny thing because he hosts obviously Guy Mont Spelling Bee, where he is the host and he is in charge.

He's basically the Jeremy Wells of the whole thing.

And then it's so funny to watch him be in the position of nasty little tricks being played on him, you know?

And he's like,

and I was like, this this is how it feels, Guy.

Yeah, because he's such a trickster on that show, isn't he?

It's he just absolutely loves annoying people.

And that is, you're right, that's his true Rumpelstiltskin vibe comes out on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they both do very well.

Laura, you know, does twice as well as Guy, but does it in 16 minutes and six seconds?

Did she take something?

Does she like do a line before she started?

I feel like she did.

I feel like she did a line.

She shoots through it.

I think if you just, I guess, if you just do a lot of escape rooms, you can see

the joins and you can see how things might work.

I think spotting those balloons and spotting the grape outside is key because, like, Matt and David don't spot the grape for ages.

Yeah, I love that little turn, that little trick that Paul does where he goes, it took David 15 minutes to spot the grape.

Again,

he's having a breakdown in the studio before they get to his.

You know it's gone badly when he sees other people do well and starts going, no, and putting his head in his hands again.

It was fantastic.

But the key here, the key in this one seemed to be if you find the money, if you find the extra 10 cents in the sofa and you find it at the right moment, then

you can buy the key for the caravan.

Whereas Ursula

gives Paul the money for the code and then has to pay with her credit card to get the key.

Yeah, it's all over the place, but it's brilliant.

I'm glad there were those different opportunities to buy the key.

It's a really fun task.

Also, you probably have already mentioned this on the podcast, but a fun little Easter egg for those who do not know is that Paul's Key Emporium is an existing website that you can go to.

Is it?

Yeah.

I did not know that.

Well, there you go.

And

can you purchase keys on that website?

I don't know if it's an operational business, but it is a business.

It is a listed website.

I think it's called Paul's KeyEmporium.co.nz or something along those lines.

Oh, here it is.

PaulskeyEmporium.com.

There you go.

He got the.com.

Yeah.

It's an international business.

Fantastic.

So, everyone, we're going to go on that in the Patreon and we're going to go through it line by line.

So make sure you listen to that.

Yeah, Matt's not necessarily the escape room type, I don't think.

He's just sort of stumbling around.

At one point, he finally gets out and forgets that he has to eat the grape.

That's probably my favourite moment in this task.

Me too.

When does it go back?

Oh, the grape.

He just doesn't seem bothered.

Ursula does well in the end.

She does better than Guy, which I really like seeing when that's announced in the studio.

I like Guy trying to be chill Guy still and being like, oh,

where you can see the absolutely seething that has been knocked down a place.

Yeah, yeah, honestly, the rivalry, the rivalry between Guy and Laura is my favorite thing this season because I know them so well, and they are like brother and sister a little bit.

And Guy is also competitive, so it's like these two head boy and head girl, kind of like trying to trying to get each other, and you can just see the evil glint in both their eyes, like anime characters, whenever the other one does well.

But it makes sense for Laura because I think her vibe is like, I am competitive.

I'm going to make you know about it.

And it's going to be like, come on, let's do our best at everything.

I really want to do well.

Whereas Guy's still trying to maintain this.

I'm Guy.

I'm chilled out.

I'm a little bit wacky.

You know, my head's in the clouds.

But then you see his eyes fire up and you're like, oh my God, this guy's terrifying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That's the reality show curse, right?

You have to, I think if you want to be a villain, you have to come in as a villain.

You've just got to be like, I'm a villain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't want to, it's embarrassing embarrassing when people can see what you're concealing.

Yeah.

Do you think you would have done well on this task, Ian?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think so because I do do a lot of escape rooms, so I think I would have.

But then, and, but my skill in the escape rooms really is the search at the beginning.

Okay.

My skill is finding things in drawers.

and telling everyone to put all of the clues in a central location.

Yeah, great, great, great.

I think my role is general vibes.

General vibes and telling everyone they're doing a really good job.

Yeah, good job, guys.

Yeah,

and being amazed.

Wow!

Wow, good job.

This is so cool.

What an inventive escape room.

I also like finding puzzles and then delegating them to the team member that I believe will do the best job.

Perfect.

This is math.

This is massive.

This is a powerful position.

Yeah.

Yeah, when I'm on tour, I do escape rooms a lot with my tour manager, Paul Brown, and my support at Chloe Petts, or Annie Magliano, actually, or Sam Lake.

Love, and love.

Yeah, the whole thing is.

If there's maths, it's always Paul.

Paul, because he used to be a maths teacher.

There's maths.

Paul Brown, get over here.

Yeah.

And then Chloe's normally in the corner just breaking things apart to see if you can find clues in there.

Oh, my God.

I mean, there's no valid way of getting out of escape room, is just break the door down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Chloe could do that, just like absolute

smashing the place up.

Just a boot.

Yeah.

She's very good at it as well.

So it was five points for Laura, four points for Ursula, three points for Guy, two points for Matt, and one point for David.

Paul, is that your key company?

I sell keys.

I got 10 bucks.

You actually suck.

Fuck, where's the

$9.90?

The $10, sorry.

No!

Where's the peace cents?

Where's the

internet banking?

Give me my phone!

Give me my phone!

If you give me a bank number, I will transfer you the money.

Okay.

Please, here's this.

You'll transfer me the 10 cents.

I'll transfer you the 10 cents.

Give me your bank details and I'll give them to you.

I was going to bring 20 bucks today to buy pie.

This is so mischievous.

Let's talk about task three.

Make the most extreme cup of tea and serve it to Paul.

You have 30 minutes to prepare your tea.

Your time starts now.

Again, there's some similarities to the wedding cake task here, I think.

Or could be.

Urshula certainly takes it in a similar direction.

And just makes sense.

I guess the way they interpreted a lot of them interpreted it with the bike and the rope and stuff like that is slightly different to the cake, but at least two of them make very spicy teas.

Which way would your brain have gone with this one?

I think probably extreme, like extreme, like 90s, like

skateboarding dude glasses, you know, like what you'd know.

Your idea of a kid, you know, when you're a kid, you're like, what's extreme?

Yeah.

What about you?

I mean,

I would have thought of that, I think, but maybe, I mean, I'm surprised you're not thinking of extreme violence or extreme horror.

I mean, yeah, maybe that.

Yeah, I would have thought you'd gone with a rabbit again, maybe,

put tea bags in its stomach

and then slit his stomach open and all the tea falls out or something.

Something horrible like that.

Something horrible like you'd like.

I would have liked to have seen Paul drink that, truly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, Paul drink a

horrible rabbit gut tea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I would have gone probably

shit, probably shit again.

We're nothing but on brand, are we not?

Shit and blood.

Shit and blood and fucking.

He's shitboy, and I'm blood girl.

That's our double X name.

Shitboy and Blood Girl.

2026 New Zealand Comedy Festival.

Come and check it out.

Yeah.

Yeah, Ursula goes very spicy

to try and blow Paul's ring right out.

That's what she says.

Again, this is just to try and torture Paul.

I mean, he doesn't really look like he hates it that much, does he?

Do you think she didn't brew it for him?

I don't think she did because I don't know Paul.

I mean, I know Paul loves sweet treats, is what I do know.

But that makes me think he's not good with spicy things.

I don't know why I'm assuming that, but I just

feel like maybe he's got a not a developed palate, and so maybe he doesn't like spicy things, but he looked like he was fine.

He doesn't look like he likes spicy things.

I don't know if that's offensive, but he really

has the look of an adult who still drinks glasses of milk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

There's nothing wrong with that, but you know, I don't think he likes spicy things.

He's a sweet boy.

He's a sweet boy.

A few people go for the sort of extreme 90s thing,

especially Guy and Laura, who both use the bike.

And

I enjoy that The differences are: Guy gets on the bike, absolutely loves it.

He's just showing off.

He's riding around, being like, and then I'm doing this, and then I'm doing this, and it's fun to watch.

And goes around, does a full assault course.

And Laura just immediately goes, Paul, get on the bike, I'm going to pour it from a great height.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's amazing.

Getting annoyed, she's getting annoyed with him that he's not riding into the right bit of the puddle so she can fill it up.

But it's fun to watch.

You're like, get on the bike, Laura.

but no they i mean neither of those felt particularly extreme to me i think no they felt kind of um hard and kind of like oh

yeah tricky tricky not extreme yeah um yeah but i i saw what they were going for but i think the difference between theirs and david's is that they weren't willing to put themselves in uh sort of extreme harm situations

whereas david has absolutely no respect for his own bones so he was perfectly happy to hang himself from the rafters

i pity the poor soul who is on health and safety for this season i pity them because every time david gets on their thing it's like oh no he's gonna hurt himself really bad yeah i feel like this must have been a slightly earlier task in the filming of it because i think

after ursula broke her arm doing that task i think they did have a tighter health and safety situation going on david would not have been allowed to do that.

Not at all.

But I'm glad he did it.

I'm glad he did it.

I like him as a bat.

I feel like he could play an animated bat in a pixar or something, don't you think?

Definitely.

A worried, animated bat making tea and stuff.

Yeah.

What I love about it as well is him going, like, telling Paul he's really strong.

I really like that.

David's always complimenting people.

You're already strong.

It's great.

And then cut to the entire crew having to do it instead of Paul.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, just a lovely.

it deserved a five points, I thought.

I agree.

I agree.

And what a Matt Matt was a bungee vibe.

Yes, the bungee in the tea bag.

It wasn't even his idea.

It was Paul's idea.

He said, I want to do bungee.

So he was thinking, I'll be on a bungee rope and I'll make the tea while I'm bungee jumping.

Obviously, not possible.

And Paul's saying, I thought you meant the tea bag was going to be bungee.

And he was like, oh, that's a good idea.

It's like, it's A, it's not.

And B, it's not your idea.

Yeah.

I don't know why.

I don't.

I think it's because it vaguely reminds me of teabagging.

But this one made me feel uncomfortable.

Really?

Like, I was like,

this feels sexual in some way, just watching him drop that teabag from a high end, like kind of slowly dipping it in with a long.

I don't know.

It just gave me a neck.

It reminded me of shitting.

So there we go.

Let's stick to the.

There you go.

Shit, boy.

Blood go.

Back at it again.

Yeah, it made, it didn't make me uncomfortable.

It made me uncomfortable in that it was quite bad, I thought.

I thought it was quite bad if I took the task.

It didn't feel extreme in any way.

I think sometimes, because of the shape of the New Zealand house, I think people get carried away with using that balcony.

I agree.

Which, you know, because there's not a UK one, there's not really anything like that.

So you have to sort of think outside the box a little bit.

Only a ladder.

There's a ladder.

People like the only real great height is the ladder in the shed, right?

Yeah, people love the ladder.

They're always using that ladder.

In New Zealand, it's the balcony, it's the leaf blower.

Yes, I was going to say, the leaf blower.

They love the leaf blower.

They love the leaf blower.

Every series, they love the leaf blower.

But yeah, very funny reaction to Matt's anyway.

I think he knows it's not great, but he still gets three points.

Because Guy and Laura both get two points.

Matt gets the three points.

Ursula gets four points.

David, well deserved, puts his body on the line, gets five points.

Three, two, one,

bungee.

Bungee!

God damn it!

Three, two, one,

bungee!

You demo with a cup of teafia over there.

How's it?

It's not bad.

Can we cut it so it just goes straight in the first time I drop it?

Yep.

Live tasks, Survive lemonade roulette.

The taskmaster will vigorously shake one bottle of lemonade.

You must then open one of the two bottles within five seconds.

If you open the bottle that has been shook, you will be eliminated.

You may ask the taskmaster one question.

Before each vigorous shake, you'll get one point for every bottle you survive.

It's my favourite sort of live task.

It's one where they've prepped for it, they've come up with the idea, and then it's a total disaster.

Everyone

fails.

Fails.

Yeah, yeah.

How do you need these tasks sometimes?

Yeah.

Just Just to get it.

You need to show it that it's, yeah, that it's not staged.

You know, that it's just like sometimes it's bad.

I mean, but the behind the scenes of this is, is that I don't, we're probably, you've probably talked about this before, but there's some other writers sometimes test tasks.

So we do sometimes like a little, it's the best day ever.

You get paid money and you just get hang out with your friends who have all already been on Taskmaster, so you can't possibly go on it again.

And they sometimes just say, hey, let's test a bunch of the live tasks in a room together.

So you just basically get to play games with your friends.

And

I feel like with this one, I wasn't there on this day, but I feel like this one surely went better in the practice.

Well, you'd hope so.

You'd hope it didn't go exactly like that.

I mean, what are the odds of it going exactly like this in the practice?

And then they're like,

chuck it in.

Yeah.

Jeremy's not going to be able to do it.

That's really only good content.

Yeah.

The only good content is getting the questions out of Jeremy, right?

Like, they get to ask him a question and see his response.

Yes.

I mean, you know, the obvious question is: which one did you shake?

But he lies every time.

He lies every time.

Yeah, so he's never going to tell the truth.

And then there's a question about Hilary Barry.

Yes, he is.

Who's Hilary?

Does she work at Briscoe's?

No, but she is of a similar ilk.

She is a national treasure of the people of New Zealand.

She is a television personality who does a news show with Jeremy.

She co-hosts.

So it's like a mum and like a hot mum and dad kind of scenario.

And so I think people are like, are you banging?

Is the kind of vibe?

He wanted to keep that going.

I really want Hilary Barry on Taskmaster.

I'm petitioning for her.

Don't know if she'll ever do it, but yeah.

Well, there you go.

The campaign starts here.

Hilary Barry for Taskmaster New Zealand.

Hashtag Hilary Barry for Taskmaster New Zealand.

But also, what annoyed me towards the end is Jeremy wasn't shaking those properly.

He was doing two tiny little shakes, and he's a big guy.

You know, if he did even one big shake with his full range of motion, that would have been popping.

But they were opening, and I couldn't even tell if he'd shaken it or not.

They just go.

I know.

And also, the colour.

Why lemonade?

Do like Fanta or something fun, you know, like something, some crazy colour.

Because it was like, it was a pitiful little splurt of what looked like water.

Yeah.

Disappointing.

Not happy with that.

Failure all round.

Zero points for everyone.

Meaning Laura gets the win again with 15 points Ursula pretty close with 14 Matt and David on 12 and a surprisingly low score guy on nine points meaning Laura extends her lead 118 points 10 points ahead of Guy

who is eight points ahead of David who's five points ahead of Ursula who is six points ahead of Matt Matt absolutely no chance now you know you're looking at Ursula and thinking that's not going to happen feels like feels like it's Laura and Guy this is is when it feels like it gets down to those two.

It's the two-horse race.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Agreed.

And that's what we've been watching the whole time, you know?

These are head boy and girl, you're like, who's going to take it out?

Yeah.

We love to see.

We do love to see.

Brindley, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.

But before we go, this is not going on the Patreon extras.

I want you to tell us about your new show, please.

Your new TV show available on YouTube here, I believe.

Tell us a little bit about it.

It is.

It is.

I mean, I would,

TV show,

I say TV show.

It's more of a digital series, as we are in the modern age.

It's not on the network television.

But it is called Bryn and Koo's Singles Club.

I am Bryn.

Koo is Kuda Forrester from season three of New Zealand Taskmaster.

And we are two best buds, two single gals in our 30s.

And we do a road trip around New Zealand looking for the love of our lives.

It's us playing ourselves, and we genuinely go to singles events, dating, and

yeah, it's a very vulnerable and fun series.

And you can watch it on YouTube.

Bryn and Koo Singles Club.

Yeah.

Bryn and Koo's Singles Club.

Find it on YouTube.

Go and watch it.

Brynley, thank you so much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast.

We always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster.

Please, we hope you've enjoyed yourself.

I know it's late there, but why don't you give us a point score for the record today?

I'll do my best British accent.

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

Okay,

Ed Gamble.

It's me, the Taskmaster.

And tonight I am going to score this Taskmaster record a gorgeous four stars.

I'm only taking one star off because of all the content that was taken out and put behind a paywall.

Fantastic.

So if you want that fifth star, you're going to have to hop on the Patreon.

There's two levels.

There is a dollar a month where you get nothing.

You get a badge.

And then there's eight grand a month where you get all of this extra content.

Yeah.

And also check out, don't forget to look out for me and Ed's new duo show, Blood Girl and Shit Boy, coming to Edinburgh Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, New Zealand Comedy Festival, Just for Laughs, everything.

It's going to be good.

Thank you so much, Bridley.

We'll see you next time.

Thanks.

See you soon.

Thank you so much to Bryn for coming on the Taskmaster podcast.

Don't forget to check out that show, YouTube, Bryn and Coz Singles Club.

I'm going to go and watch it right now, in fact.

Thank you very much for coming on the show to Bryn.

Thank you very much for listening.

If you are indeed listening, which you have to be, to hear this, we'll be back next week to talk about Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, episode 8.

Nearing the end of the series.

It will be so so sad to say goodbye.

Don't forget to come and see me on tour in New Zealand and Australia.

If that's near where you live, check out at gamble.code.uk for tickets.

But for now, bye-bye.