Taskmaster The Podcast *Best of Junior TM*

You are, of course, now the junior taskmaster's assistant.

This is huge, Mike.

It's a huge development.

Yeah.

I'm assistant to none other than Rose Matafeo, who you smoked in your own series, of course.

Absolutely destroyed her, but she won out in the end.

She's got an extra job out of it.

But yes, you are the junior taskmaster's assistant.

It's huge news.

In my opinion, Mike, I'm going to put it out there.

You're the perfect choice.

Yes.

Thank you, my old friends.

I've had a lovely time doing it.

I love it.

I mean,

it looks like so much fun, but I've said this to a few people.

It's just, you're one of the only people I know who wouldn't have to change their persona and vibe

around children.

To be abused by children.

Yes.

And you do, there is something in the air which means that children feel free and comfortable and indeed excited to abuse you on every level the sas level is high it's true

i do bring out the sass in the young it's always been the way why do you think that is though and it's always been like this has it it's always been like this yeah this isn't this isn't something we've discovered on the show this is this is the way it is in my day-to-day life as well.

I don't know what it is.

If I knew what it was, I would have changed it a long time ago.

You see,

it's not posture, uh, it's not my skincare routine.

Uh, it's not, am I eating too many lamb chops?

I don't know what it is exactly because I've tried everything and I can't work it out.

This there's something deeply visceral that's happening that's probably, I think, it might be your posture.

Do you think it is posture?

Yeah, because you're a very upright man.

I think

you present

before you've said anything as sort of like a cartoon adult.

in a kid's book, you would be a bank manager.

I see.

Okay.

And certainly not the sort of bank manager you'd be worried about.

No.

It's a very sort of provincial bank manager.

Yes.

He's on the edge.

He's flustered.

He's flustered.

He's panicking.

He's way out of his death.

Yeah.

He shouldn't be managing.

I think he can smell that.

Yeah,

this is it.

And he's gone too far.

His, you know, his wife is probably angry at him most of the time.

He gets back.

he gets home and she's angry at him and the bank's falling apart.

Because he's a sweaty mess and he's staining the armpits of his shirts every day and

all the extra money he's making from the managerial job is being wasted on replacing these shirts.

It's an absolute, it's a pig's ear.

I just, I think physically, when you look at you at first, you represent authority.

And then when you when you speak to you, you're a deeply silly man in a serious way.

And I think kids really, really seem to enjoy that and chime with that.

They They recognize

the paper thin, the fragility of the authority, don't they?

Yeah.

Early on.

Yeah.

In a way that grown-ups will probably be a bit more cautious with.

What's going on here?

Okay, I'll take a bit of time.

I'll analyse this.

I'll see what I can work it out.

They're like, no, this guy's a punk.

They know.

They instantly know that they can undermine you in every fashion.

Look, it's great to have you back on the Taskmaster podcast.

But of course, today we will be talking about Junior Taskmaster.

It's the Junior Taskmaster podcast, and we are in the first semi-final.

So, Lou,

first thing I want to know from you, did you enjoy watching the Taskmaster format with children involved?

I did.

I did.

And they come across so well.

And isn't it nice that the future's in their hands?

They're very funny.

But really, we're judging their parents.

And I just want to say well done to all of the parents because they were a laugh.

Yeah, I agree.

I think we don't do that enough on the podcast.

Congratulate the parents on

A, bringing up very smart,

fun, and funny children, but also letting them do it.

It's a good word to my mother now, is it?

Oh, you're going to thank

your parents.

You're going to thank my mother.

I think you're going to thank my mum.

Thank you very much to mother dearest Lily Sanders' mum.

That's her full name.

And I've thanked your mother anyway.

You've thanked my mother?

I've already thanked her.

When did you thank my mother?

I got the opportunity some time ago to thank her.

And I looked into her eyes and I said, what a gift.

Do you want to take a guess at my mum's name?

Carol.

No, good guess, though.

Anne.

It's Anne.

It's Anne, of course, right now.

That's the full name.

Look, let's talk about the episode now, Lou, because we're excited to talk about this.

It's the first semi-final.

Of course, there were 25 children competing to get to this semi-final.

It's the top two of each episode has got through to the semifinal and this is the first of them.

I quite like this tournament format.

Yeah, it was different in my day.

It was different.

Well everyone was a lot older of course in your day, weren't they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look at these Taskmaster contestants.

They get younger one the day, don't they?

Yeah, I do quite like it.

It gives more people a chance.

to get involved, I suppose.

Yeah, absolutely.

And what I really like about it is that they filmed these semi-final tasks on the same day they filmed all the heat tasks.

So everyone who was in a heat also got to do these tasks.

We will never see them, but at least they got the full experience.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, yeah.

They've had a lovely day out.

They have.

And our semi-final contestants today are Anita, August, Finley, Persia, and Scarlet.

A fantastic bunch of kids.

Can you see any of any of yourself in these children, Lou?

Do you see any of the contestants and thought that's a little Lulie Sanders in the making?

I don't think so.

I think I would have been petrified, wouldn't you?

When you were that younger,

well, no.

I think I would have been the most annoying and vocal contestant, I think.

Really?

Yeah.

There is such a thing as watching a couple with a kid.

They came into the cafe that I was in, and they obviously just had the one kid, and she was getting so much attention.

And I do think that's good for society to raise kids that feel valued and loved.

But there is a tipping point.

And do you think I'm the product of a tipping point?

Could be, could be.

Where

this kid thought everything she said was fascinating because the mum and dad were doting on her so much that they thought everyone else was going to treat their kid in this way.

Oh, isn't she marvellous?

She just, you know, did this or did that.

And I thought, yeah, ease off a little bit.

Otherwise, she's going to find life quite hard.

But these

these kids, I think,

it's really well cast and

lovely to see kids that are so enthusiastic and so funny.

Yeah,

what I really like about all of the contestants we've had on Junior Taskmaster so far is they're brilliant when they're doing things by themselves.

And, you know, you can see them being happy with what they've done and a great reaction from the crowd.

But they're also very supportive of each other.

Yeah.

You know, if someone else does something, they'll be clapping, they'll be high-fiving, they'll be doing, and it's really lovely to see.

The future's in great hands, Lou.

But also, I love the fact that they can't all win and they're good sports about it.

You know what I mean?

Then, when they get knocked out, they look sad, but they're not sort of like having an absolute meltdown on camera, anyway.

No, exactly.

I don't go, God knows what was happening off camera.

Let's talk about the prize task, which is the most glamorous object ever.

Oh, yeah.

What I'm really enjoying about Junior Taskmaster so far, and we've only had two episodes, episodes, is that because

it's kids and because it's members of the public, of course, as well,

it's distinct from regular Taskmaster.

So, a lot of the tasks and a lot of the prize tasks have been stripped back to almost what they were initially in Taskmaster.

So, it's almost like a little rebirth of it, which is quite interesting.

Yeah, I think that's true.

It's got a kind of a simplicity to it that really allows you to think, hang on, how would I do this?

And weirdly, it's even harder thinking about it of like, yeah, because of the kind of more basicness to it.

And I love that with these prize tasks, the attraction of gems, of gemstones, that is, you know, the child's, the child's instinct to go towards the gemstone.

I remember that so vividly.

Plastic gemstones.

are glamour.

It's just, yeah, it's what an idea of what a kid thinks is glamorous is a very funny idea to me.

And the fact that Syrah is first up and it's silk napkins.

They look gorgeous, to be fair.

I love it.

I love it.

And then Mike tries to make the distinction between being rich and being glamorous,

which I think they all sort of go towards the idea of glamour is money.

Yes, and that is a shame, to be honest.

I would like to tell those kids, look, I can tell you, I've lived a few years now.

You don't need money to have relentless class style and glamour.

Sometimes you just need a pair of ripped tights.

Do you know what I mean?

And sometimes money almost negates glamour.

Yes.

Because there's nothing glamorous about showing off money, right?

So they'll learn that in good time.

But for now, okay, we hear you.

Silk napkins, it was lovely.

I love the idea that silk napkins are glamorous.

You know,

mopping your brow with a silk napkin.

Is that glamorous?

There is something very glamorous in that.

Yeah.

I think anything silk where it could be cloth.

I can see where Syrah's coming from with that.

And also, as it turned out, she was first, but it was already refreshing because she was pretty much the only one that didn't have gold or gems on.

Yep, so true.

Yeah.

So then we get Gwen, who really sells the price task absolutely perfectly.

I think Gwen's clearly seen the show before.

Yeah, there's something that Gwen does that really disturbs me.

It's exactly what I do.

I was like, the second they said, right, Gwen, and she goes, right,

and is about to make a pitch.

And I was like, oh, great.

So that's exactly what I do.

So I saw real sisterhood in her.

I was like, hey, girl, you mini me.

But at the same time, it was

very confronting.

Speaking of going, that's exactly how I present my prize tasks.

Good on you.

She really works with her arms a lot as well.

She's good at gesturing.

She's really, she's got it it sewn up on her.

Totally.

But also, the lady does protest too much a little bit.

Like, she goes so hard.

And I just want to say with light and love, that's exactly what I do, Gwen.

That is exactly it.

I hear you.

So,

yeah, but no, she smashes it, though.

The bejeweled toilet scene.

Fantastic.

Mike makes a point about comfort.

And I think she fires back with something like,

you don't have to be comfortable to be glamorous.

Yeah, 100%.

High heels, the high heels point.

It's

so stunning.

It's a different retort.

Yeah, it's incredible.

And really, I think on a conceptual level,

this is kind of similar to Syrah, I think.

Those things that are actually really prosaic, really basic, but have that extra pizzazz to them.

The kind of the scatological with the gems, with the silk.

I think that's a great mix.

I think these guys are on it.

Yeah, I think the true glamour is sitting on a bejeweled toilet seat and then wiping with a silk napkin, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Let's not think about it too deeply, but yes.

See, that's the sort of thing I'd say if I was involved in Junior Taskmaster, and that's why I'm not involved in Junior Taskmaster.

Yeah,

because I'm only making the boys laugh at that.

These girls would be absolutely horrifying.

Alienating the girls and making too good friends of the boys.

100%.

Maisie, who you know, I don't have favorites on Junior Taskmaster, but her whole vibe, I'm very, I absolutely love Maisie.

I completely agree.

Oh my god, that little witch.

Love it.

Absolutely love it.

It's also because when she first speaks, she's very quiet, very polite.

Yeah.

And then you find out she's a witch and she starts doing these like evil eyes at Mike like she's going to do a spell on him.

And I was like, great, you've got so much going on.

She starts to really, it's like drip coffee, Maisie.

It's she starts to drip on through that show.

And by the end, you've got this amazing cup of coffee and you go, Christ, this is strong stuff.

She's incredible.

She's amazing.

She just brings in a gem.

To be fair to her, she didn't know people would be bringing multiple gems plastered across multiple objects.

She just brings in a gemstone that she bought in a Liverpool shop for £5.

See, this is what I love about it.

It's almost like Taskmaster was bottom of her list to do.

Like, she had a busy week.

I'm arranging the coven.

I'm sorting out spells.

I'm literally buying kit for my hexes as is.

Oh, crap.

I've got to do junior taskmaster.

I'll have that gem.

She just seems really like she's got a big to-do list.

this wasn't very high up on it and i respect that to heaven high water it's awesome there is there's just a moment as well where i'm like the the language skills of some of these kids are off the chain i think rose maybe says how are you and she goes quite well

i know like what you're quite well yeah yeah i've never said that

we can all learn from that it's likely from a book quite well oh incredible quite well uh

ollie uh again we're going going gems.

Ollie brings in a top hat covered in gems.

Are gems popular with the youth?

You're saying you remember being drawn to gems.

I don't remember

having that moment with gems when I was between the ages of five.

It's hard.

You know, it's very gendered.

Yes, is my answer.

I had little

gemmed kitten heels, plastic kitten heels from the Disney store, gemmed head, whatever.

I think there was actually a limit on the amount of gems I was allowed.

You know, my parents were very strict my dad also had this really strong concept of I wasn't allowed sorry this will sound outrageous but this is true all the time he'd say you're not allowed to be a tart

and so being a tart involved like high-heeled sparkly jelly shoes involved posing and photos in a certain way it involved like excessive amounts of gems okay so couldn't be a tart And so it made me want gems even more because I didn't get to have quite as many as I would have liked.

Because there was a no-tart rule in my household.

Oh, God.

It was

a really iconic moment.

It was me and my brothers.

He took us out to London and we were in front of Buckingham Palace and he took a photo and he goes, right,

Emma, you are in huge trouble.

You looked like a tart.

And I was like, no, no, I didn't.

But in my head, I knew what he meant.

I was like, I kind of did.

I was giving tart then on purpose.

You were giving tart in front of

us of all places.

I was serving tart.

Persia, who likes pigeons, pigeons are Persia's mushrooms.

Pigeons, yeah.

And even more so, I would say, because, you know, with Persia, yeah, it feels like having spent some time with Persia, you know, pigeons are where she begins and ends.

And it's, yes.

She doesn't just have pigeon clothing and accessories.

She's got all of the knowledge you could ever want about pigeons.

She's got pigeon anecdotes.

You know, she's got...

She's got the works pigeon-wise.

You know, it's not, and it's a life, I think it's a pretty, it's a lifelong obsession.

This has been going on for some time.

It's not just in an interest that's captured her imagination for a while.

This is...

Yeah.

She's the real deal when it comes to pigeons.

I think to be able to own a t-shirt that just that says, I just really like pigeons okay, you've got to be pretty deep into the hobby at that point.

She's not had that printed.

She's found that.

She's put the time into find that t-shirt somewhere.

How much do you think that t-shirt sells, would you say?

Because

I don't know many people who just really like pigeons okay.

I assume at some point it was a clerical era.

And one of her parents has managed to find a warehouse in Indonesia somewhere where it was supposed to be thrown away.

But owing to another clerical area, it wasn't thrown away, but it is there.

And they've dispatched some auntie somewhere or uncle to go and fetch it.

And they've found it.

It is a wonderful thing to see when these kids are like really hyper-fascinated in one thing and know loads about it and are really passionate about it.

When do you think that ends in life?

You don't get this on normal Taskmaster, do you?

No, that's very true.

And often in grown-ups, it can be, well, I mean, sometimes in grown-ups, it can be an affectation these things

sometimes and I'm I'm at exactly the age where this happens it it it can be in response to an existential crisis

in order to find a sense of relevance and meaning someone takes a deep dive into something just so that they have a handle on some aspect of the world that is slipping through their fingers

but it's always cycling but it is always cycling yes

or difficult jazz you know and yeah

But with the children, it's the real deal.

And also, it's the real deal unenforced, right?

It's not,

you know, these are, these are not,

there's no one cracking the whip, right?

This is not like the child who's been made to practice their cello for 13 hours a day, right?

Yeah.

No one is hovering.

Imagine if it was

making them memorize

a 460

very dry academic tone about pigeons.

It's no handling.

So you just tell it yourself.

If you want to get into university, you're going to have to to learn everything about pigeons.

You need a gambit, do you understand?

A strong gambit, an unusual gambit that no one else has got before.

That gambit is pigeons.

Hide the peas that are currently on the tees.

You have five minutes.

Your time starts now.

And of course, once they've hidden the peas, Jenny, part two, retrieve the peas and put them back on their teas.

Most peas back on their tees in the fastest time wins.

You have a maximum of 10 minutes.

Your time starts now.

Did you see this coming, Jenny?

Because I like to think as a seasoned taskmaster watcher and player.

No, no, I didn't.

And remember, I'm very gullible and quite stupid.

And

I do everything instinctively and very quickly and don't think.

So, no, I'd have been a complete idiot about it.

And I'd have, then I'd have run around like a headless chicken trying to find stupid peas that I'd thrown miles away.

I'd have probably thrown them over the fence.

Would you have also assumed that Mike was the one who had to find them?

Yeah.

Because they all love that.

They love that idea that Mike has to find it.

And they're gleefully throwing these peas into the grass, being like, Yeah, good luck, Mike.

You're never going to find that one.

I think I'd have probably eaten them.

Oh, that's good.

But then part two, retreat.

Then,

part two, I'd have had to say, Can you wait three hours, please?

And could you give me a sieve?

That might have been a step too far for a junior taskmaster, I suspect.

But anyway, you know what i'm talking about absolutely shitting

we'll call it plop plopping for the children

but shanaya very cleverly finds the peas in the fridge finds them early as well finds them before she was supposed to essentially for the big sort of uh big reveal and decides

she carefully places her peas in strategic places she's not a chucker she's very she's very delicate she's thinking about this she's not throwing them willy-nilly obviously, because she doesn't know who's going to have to find them.

So, she's thought ahead a little bit.

But what I really liked is she found that bowl of peas.

She thought, maybe I have to hide these as well.

So, I'm going to go and hide the whole bowl of peas just in case there's some little twist.

And it worked out very, very well for her because eventually she works out that she can just go and bring the bowl of peas and put them on the teas.

And she absolutely nails it.

Yes, very, very nice job.

Liana also find peas, but she didn't find them till quite late.

But it did save her bacon.

Well, save her peas.

It did.

Yeah, again, fun watching her hide the peas and talk about her auntie who has a caravan that she never speaks to.

That whole chat with Mike was fantastic.

And in the studio, where

Mike says, have you taken your auntie out for lunch?

And she said, no, I'm nine.

Just Mike really can't catch a break this episode, I don't think.

I think he must have come out of this.

I think that's why

that's his game plan.

Do you think he's going to be that assistant?

yeah totally yeah he's that assistant it seems to be like a character from a very strange book but those kind of books that eight year nine-year-olds read yeah is he's just reminding me of a fictional character who's wandered into the wrong room is saying the wrong things which i really enjoy yeah they there is something that is definitely the way mike's decided to take the assistant uh role but also there is just something about him that seems to make kids want to uh be mean to him and undermine him quite a lot just something about his personality.

Well, I mean,

I think that's a big difference between children of my generation and children of this generation who are so much more confident.

I mean, my generation, you didn't call adults Mike.

Yeah.

That just wouldn't, it would have been Mr.

Wozniak

and,

you know,

Miss Mattafeyo.

And you'd put your hand up before you spoke in the studio.

And actually,

we'd have all been sitting in puddles of wee under our chairs because we'd have been so overly excited.

I mean, it would have been just the maddest, most exciting thing to somebody of my generation.

A TV studio.

Yeah.

Seeing people up close that you'd seen on television, that was like an impossible dream.

That was like, you know, the moon landings.

Yeah, I mean, they're definitely excited, but there's no hands up.

There's no hands up, and it's Mike and Rose,

which I think Mike and Rose prefer, to be honest, because

they don't want to feel any older than

any older than the kids are making them feel anyway.

As Rose said, do not Google our ages.

At which point, every child watching Junior Taskmaster goes

straight to

Google and find out how old they are.

No, there's a lot of, I mean,

again, I hate making the sort of crass gender divide

as to what the contestants do, but the boys do enjoy a lot of just throwing the peas around as far as they can.

George does a lot of, yeah, a lot of throwing, a lot of random places.

Uh, I brim, no, Brian is a little more delicate, actually.

Ibrim, you know, he picks, he picks his places, you know, windowsill, but you know, and Finley puts one in the key lock and all of this stuff.

Says Mike wouldn't be able to see it because he's an old man.

Um, so it's with his restricted eyesight, restricted vision, yeah, yeah.

Um, but yeah, but none of them do find the secret peas, sadly.

It's just it's just the girls who do.

Yeah, is that, I mean, is it just because girls know that peas get kept in the fridge is it sort of i think they just i mean that's that's a gender thing that i don't think happens anymore but in my day you know girls were expected to put things away in the fridge and i don't think boys would have done that yeah well i mean i i was no stranger to the fridge when i was a kid jenny i was well that's because you were very greedy and you had your hands in all the pies

Absolutely.

So I would have, I probably would have opened the fridge at that age and not even seen the peas.

I had vegetable blindness.

But you might, as a contestant, what sort of a junior contestant would young Ed have been?

You maybe looked straight in the fridge just to see if there was some chance.

Yeah, I think I definitely would have done.

I think I would have been, I mean, I was probably a clever-ish little kid, but also just chaos.

So I think I would have been more of a couldn't believe my luck that I'm allowed to smash things up and no one's going to tell me off.

So I would have been a little bit more bullish, I think, as I was on the show.

Exactly like I was on the actual show, Jenny, is the answer to that question.

Yeah, I don't think we really change that much.

much i do think so well how do you feel how do you feel about the p forgery by george that's what i want to ask because this is the biggest story

i i love george george is um uh you know one of my favorite well they're all my favorites i don't have favorites um well i've only got one favorite child and that's my own grandson so there we go that's easy but i did like i i thought george was scrabbling by this point but i do did admire

the fact that he refused to give up yeah absolutely i think that bodes bodes very well for George because he knew that

he was on a hiding to nothing.

But he still didn't.

He could have just put his face in his hands and just go, I don't want to play this anymore.

I mean, none of them cried.

No.

No, no, no.

They're made of strong stuff.

Yeah.

So good for George.

But he was never going to pull the wool over anybody's eyes, you know, try to pretend that bits of grass were peas.

No love.

I thought it was smart, though.

You know,

faced with the situation that he was where he didn't know that there were other peas, there was no chance chance of him finding the peas that he threw away.

I thought it was, I thought it was pretty smart.

It's the sort of thing Andy Zaltzman would do on this series.

And did anyone bring up, um, sorry if I haven't listened to everyone, but uh, slash none of them, but did um, people talk about how much their parents must be like trying to help with ideas and stuff, you know, like when your parents helped you, because but your personality will still come through, and it's like very rarely did I think that's directly from the parents.

But it is quite funny when there's a song that's like of a different generation or something, and you think, Oh, how much did your parents help you with that one?

Yes, yeah.

I

don't think the parents have helped that much because if it was you and you were that age doing this, you'd want to do your own mother dearest was trying to help, you would be like, No, I want to do this because you do want the personality to come through, don't you?

And I think it does on all of these, yeah.

And also, my mum did help me draw an egg once, so and I got very good points.

So, maybe I'll just project.

How old were you, Lou?

14.

Why did you have to draw an egg?

It was homework to draw an egg and mother has got a fantastic range of eggs

and I got an A.

So maybe I'm projecting.

What do you mean draw an egg?

You had to draw an egg for homework in art class and she drew an absolutely smashing eggy, boiled, hard-boiled.

Hard-boiled eggy.

So it wasn't just like an egg shell because that would be quite easy to draw, just the shape.

No, she helped, did she?

Very artistic.

A hard-boiled egg from mother.

Sailed on in with an A.

So, of course, I've got my own agenda.

I don't know if you're writing another book, Lou, but A Hard Boiled Egg from Mother is a wonderful title if you are

without damaging the sandcastle.

Transfer the sandcastle from plinth A to plinth B.

The least damaged sandcastle wins.

You have five minutes, your time starts now.

A lovely task.

Well, behind the scenes, Goss, that task did feature in the pilot.

Okay.

I think it's a really good task.

I think I wanted, quite often we thought of stuff for this show, which I wanted to do with the grown-ups as well.

I think it would work on the grown-up show.

Definitely.

There's one detail which I can't remember.

I think we hid the actual sandcastle mold somewhere in the shed or in the garden property somewhere.

So one tactic that no one did is to go searching for the mold so you could just remake it properly on the second plinth.

But I think because no one looked for that, we didn't include it in the edit.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was that's what happened.

I was thinking that as it was going on, is there a way of getting the sandcastle mold, shifting everything across, or just putting the mold back on, moving, flipping the bucket, and then doing it?

I think there was, but there was a danger of, there's always that thing of if you hide something like that, what if they all find it?

Yeah, so it would have to have been fairly well hidden.

So, I'm pretty sure it was something like the other side of the shed so and no one found it and you don't want to push people in that direction because then it's unfair so i think no one found it i think if somebody had said there must be a mold here somewhere they might have um been encouraged to explore but they uh but that didn't happen i also think that might be one of those workarounds that by the time you do it it's not as good as another way of doing it aka the way kyra and billy did it because there's no chance of them damaging that sandcastle because it hasn't moved no so yes they yeah we were definitely hoping at least one kid would switch the letters because that's classic Taskmaster.

Yeah.

But we're very happy that not all five did.

Yes.

In the pilot, do you mind me asking, did someone switch the letters?

I don't mind you asking that, Ed.

There's very few boundaries I don't mind you crossing.

Okay.

But thank you for clearing it up.

One person did.

One person did.

It was a less elaborate sound castle, the one in the pilot.

But apart from that, it didn't change.

It was just a good, solid task.

I think the distance between the plinths expanded for the main show.

But they realized most of them realized pretty quickly you can just move that other plinth.

Yeah, how many of them moved the plinth?

I think only.

I think Kef did, didn't he?

And Jamie did.

Yeah, they definitely didn't all move the plinth.

Yeah.

Is that what you would have done, Ed?

You would have moved it and shoved or I would have.

Well, difficult to say what I'd do.

Chances are, I might have panicked and just smashed the sandcastle up.

Yeah.

Kef's initial reaction is that he wants to punch the sandcastle, and I completely

believe that instinct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would have gone for a gentle shove, I think.

Do you think?

But also, I trust my sandcastle making skills.

It's one of my few skills, Ed.

On holidays at the beach, I spend most of it making sandcastles.

Right.

And I make sand sculptures of the dog.

I've made children watching telly.

I'm all over it.

I really, really enjoy it.

Yeah.

Have you ever transformed it?

I might have made a better castle.

No, but I have.

Oh, there's a task coming up in this series that we're filming at the moment in the main show, which I can't go.

It's about transforming one thing to another.

So it starts as one thing and the contestants have to.

Well, I don't want to say too much.

But anyway, I think

I might have changed that sandcastle into another, a better thing.

Okay.

Which wouldn't have been a good thing.

That's exciting.

You've given us...

You gave us a little bit of information about the new series of the main show there, but then almost gave us less than you did when you started.

Well, also, that's for series 20.

So I think

it's a year away.

so we can all chill out.

Series 20.

It's loads isn't it?

And junior and junior.

20 people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

25 kids.

Anyway.

Kevin wanted to punch it.

Yeah.

Kef, Kef wanted to punch it.

I love it when they go to the shed and there's a selection of stuff in the shed in Junior Taskmaster is fantastic.

And he just comes out with a flipper.

Perfect.

I can see the logic.

It's the right shape.

I can see the logic, but once you get there, it's very thick on the bottom, the old flipper, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah because they've got to glide through the water but they don't have to be completely thin at one end.

No.

No they don't they don't have to slide under sand and pick up huge bits of sand because

the disadvantage yeah yeah and Billy says there's not there's not really much point building sandcastles but he's on the wrong show if you're looking for things that have a point to it I think.

No but it's that moment where he's sat there and you said you like building sandcastles and he's the only one who said that he does like doing it.

But then obviously I think bowed by the pressure of the rest of the children, sort of goes, now I've thought about it, not much point, actually.

Poor old Billy.

Yeah, well, Billy's about 80, isn't he?

There's a few bits.

Later on in the show, when we're talking about caravans,

you suddenly realise he's different to the others as well.

Jamie gets fly swatters and tennis rackets.

Yep, tennis rackets.

Well, both things had holes in it.

See, this is why I like it that Rose can say that to.

to Jamie and goes like, famously got holes in.

So there can be some sarcasm and there can be a little bit of ribbing it's great oh completely i think this is classic boys using brute force and girls using uh intelligence i mean that's a broad generalization but in general the boys tended to use physicality instead of brute force well in in this case there is some truth to that but then we've got to talk about emily who runs in there all guns blazing um running around top speed huge energy going you'll see you'll see you'll see so so delighted to be outside doing this you'll see you'll see um yeah daddy daddy rose that just nonsense the what where is daddy rose where is daddy rose it's just all her energy is amazing i bet you wish some of the adults had that energy every day yeah you'll see who which which i quite often think which adult she was like i mean there's a bit of loo in there a bit of loo's maybe yeah you'll see you'll see you'll see and obviously you don't see yeah

yeah no very fond of emily but

I don't know if you'll notice that the time limits on the kids ones tended to be shorter than with the grown-ups.

And that did encourage a bit of panicking.

I think is that why was why just because you can't make them do things for like half an hour, obviously?

There's a bit of that, there's a bit of attention span, and also I think if you leave them too long, they will all settle on the same.

There's a chance they will all end up in the same place.

Whereas we kind of want to see their first instincts

rather than

too much thought process.

Emily ends up with just like a pile of sand and

a bowl on top of it.

Yes.

Do you think she fully understood it at any point?

I think she did, and then it all fell apart.

And then in the studio, she said, Oh, you never said anything about the Sandcastle not being together.

Yeah.

Damage, I think, was the term, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just there for fun.

Judy love in her as well, maybe.

Just sort of fun, but also supreme confidence that, well, I've done it.

I've done the thing.

I think I should get at least three pins.

But I'm enjoying all of the kids' ability to just lie to Rose and Mike in the face of overwhelming evidence.

So Kef says there's no damage to his, but

it's just the turret stuck out of a pile of sand.

Yeah, I like his little face as well because he's got a few tells when he's lying.

Yeah.

He's quite an innocent boy, I think.

Let's talk about, well, Billy and Kyra.

They both ended up doing the same thing.

They start

trying to move to Sandcastle, but then eventually decide that they're going to switch the letters around.

The controversy here is that Kyra takes the letters off the plint, then switches them around.

Billy gets tape and puts new letters on top.

Now, Kyra seems to be suggesting that that is not as good as what she

yeah, I don't think she's got a leg to stand on.

Yeah.

I think they've done the same thing.

I mean,

if I was one of the other kids, I might be saying, have, it does say transfer in the wording.

Have they transferred any sound at all?

I mean,

obviously we all encourage outside the box thinking, but arguably they've just transferred the pedestal.

Or they've just transferred the letter.

There has been a transfer there.

The sand is no longer on pedestal A.

It is now on pedestal B.

So I don't know.

You've got to allow a little workaround like that, surely.

I think if Greg was doing it, it would depend who the person was.

I think if you had done that, you're not going to be.

That's true, actually.

Oh, no.

If Lisa Tarbach had done it, she's getting five points.

Well, anything Lisa Tarbach does, she deserves five points.

Quite right.

I'm not putting it down.

I'm just saying, yeah, if Greg respects the person, he will allow it.

But if it's you, he won't.

No way.

No way, because he likes to see me get ill angry.

Yes, I guess what I'm saying is, I think Kyra and Billy did the same thing.

Yes.

So should get the same points.

And you're right.

They'd successfully protected the castle, and it is now on pedestal B.

Pedestal?

I think he called it a pedestal.

Pedestal, he's saying.

He says pedestal a lot.

And I just.

This is why I could not have done that job.

Right.

You're having a real go at him for that.

I'm not having a go at him.

I'm laughing every time he says says pedestal.

And then all the kids say, Ed, why are you laughing?

And then

I'd say, I don't know.

I can't tell you.

But justice for Billy, because he only got four points.

Yeah.

And it was Kyra arguing it.

And I again think, actually, if you argue successfully, then well done you.

Because we want that.

We want a bit of arguing, but we don't want too much.

And it's hard for the kids to judge what is too much.

But

she did persuade Rose.

So well done, Kyra.

I think this episode gets just towards the too much arguing.

Just Just on the line, I think.

And it all spills out.

Bear in mind, you're seeing an edited cut as well.

Yeah.

Task one, work out the following information about this sleeping person without waking them up.

One, their name.

Two, age, three, their job.

Four, nationality, and five, most recent meal.

Let me tell you, Nishkuma I love this task it's one of my favorites of the series so far it feels like the sort of thing you'd see on a very very good kids TV show but also feels distinctly taskmaster let's not even talk about the task yeah let's just first of all talk about this task specifically carrying on the noble tradition of taskmaster production team finding some of the randomest people

Where's this guy?

Where do they find this people?

Also,

it just wouldn't be Taskmaster without, and like again, I say this as a a former competitor.

It wouldn't be Taskmaster without you walking into a room and seeing some guy that they seem to have pulled off a roundabout in Chiswick.

It's just some dude or some lady.

Well, normally it's

like a family member of a member of production.

Yeah, yeah.

Someone who's actually on production.

I don't think this guy's on production.

But he might be a family member.

Yeah.

But we never find out who that guy is.

No.

There's no further discussion of who he is.

But I love it.

I just, the image of it was great and the way the kids entered into the room like some of them being quiet they were like that's the game we can't wake this guy up zach enters shouting at the top of his head just so loud straight away who's this just so jack black it's jack black again yeah

um so funny and just the whole

yeah the whole feel of the task really made me happy i thought it was really good it was really really great really good fun um a lot of them spot the Welsh thing straight away.

That's the ring.

Yeah, Gwen, Shanaya, Zach guesses it.

Yeah.

Jamie said Scottish initially.

There was a mild, and I genuinely was concerned for his safety.

With Kyra in the room.

Yeah, because Kyra would be, you know, like, we wouldn't have a dragon.

Like, or something.

Yeah.

That's not.

Yeah, just really, really funny, but I'm glad he picks himself up on that.

Yeah, yeah, he picked himself up.

You can feel the relief in the studio audience that he's not going to have to go in front of nicola sturgeon's niece

yeah there is genuine tension when he when he makes that mistake

um let's let's talk about um possibly the most disastrous attempt which was kyra's because kyra first asks if the man comes from ebay good guess fantastic really where'd you find the man from ebay gets gets whales straight away that's fairly obvious yeah guesses sausage roll wrong yeah um and then explores for no more clues.

She stands back.

She's like, you know what?

I'm absolutely going to guess this.

This is Taskmaster.

Surely the task is to guess a man's age and name from sight.

That is exactly the kind of thing I would have done.

Yes,

this is a Nishkumar attempt.

This is a real MK-47 job here.

Yeah.

Just at no point considering that there might be any other element, just thinking, actually, you know what?

I respect this person's boundaries.

I don't think I can physically interact with them in any way.

So the game must be to just guess and see who can get as close to it.

Even though he has a bad wallet's hanging out of his pocket.

I would have considered none of that.

I wouldn't have even bothered engaging with it.

So I respected this as an effort hugely.

I mean, I did as well.

If that's what you think the game is, just guessing what's going on.

She guessed 61 years old and John, which is what you would guess.

Yeah.

He looks like a John.

He's an Ian, which is damn close to John.

Also, he's 65.

Massive compliment.

Is Ian the Scottish version of John?

No idea.

Welsh?

Welsh and Welsh?

Is Ian?

Is Ian the Welsh version of John?

I don't think it's the Welsh version of John.

I think it's the Welsh version of John and John.

Ian, Jan.

I'm trying to get some extra points here.

You saying it like you're like you've been put into slow motion.

It's not helping in any way.

Welsh is not just English slowed down.

Sometimes it sounds like it, man.

And 61, a solid guess she gets within four years.

I think, I think it was, I think it was very, very good guessing.

But I just, Kyra's vibe is so good.

Coming back to the studio and Rose being positive and being like, your guesses were so good.

I damn terrible.

It was so funny.

Yeah, it's so good.

Yeah, really, really strong effort from her, bearing in mind she doesn't look for any of the clues.

I I want to address this pasty controversy.

Okay, here we go.

Why do they all think it's a bake?

Well, it looks like a bake.

You know, you've been eating.

Yeah, right.

Is this?

I thought this was like to do with like the sort of Gregg's industrial complex because I really only associate getting a bake from Greg's.

Otherwise, I think of them as like sausage rolls or

pasties, really.

Yeah.

But I mean,

I think it is Gregg's.

I think it is something to do with Greg's.

You know,

they've got a bit of a monopoly on pastries

and some very nice pastries they make too.

But the sausage and bean one.

Yes, please.

Yes, please.

I like the Christmas one.

Yeah.

To be honest with you, I actually can't go into Gregg's anymore.

Why not?

That's not because there's been an incident, just because I don't have the discipline.

I don't have the discipline.

If I go into Gregg's,

it's never going to end.

You're never leaving.

No, I'm never leaving.

When we were at university together, I used to eat those sausage and bean bait so often.

Yeah, and they are nice, but they are source of disgusting as well.

Yeah, listen, my guts are a nightmare.

To quite rosematophobia.

But Zach, so a few of them guess sausage roll, bake, and they don't get given the point.

You've got to look at what's in it.

Because as soon as you look at it, you go, that's pasty.

That's absolute pastige.

The consistency of whatever.

cat meat or whatever it is that's in there.

I don't know, man, because Zach guesses meat pie and doesn't get the point.

What's a pasty?

It's a meat pie.

Okay, we're having an interesting philosophical discussion here.

I think a Cornish pasty is quite distinct from a meat pie.

Well, it's a what is it then?

I think a Cornish pasty is its specific

pasty is a specific thing.

I think specifically it has the it has the crust and then it has the

semicircle.

I think a meat pie properly has hunks of meat in it.

I think that's the thing that's the difference here.

Okay, well, look, to me, a pasty

is like a pastry casing with meat in it, which is a meat pie.

And I think they should have been a little more lenient on Zach on that occasion, especially since he read the party invitation and thought the man's name was Lan X.

Well, let's talk about

this white Welsh man who's clearly the most confused member of the Nation of Islam that's ever existed.

Lan X.

Lan X.

He's on his way to a Nation of Islam meeting.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

He's on his way to open for Malcolm.

Yeah, he's bitten into the meat pasty.

Lan X is one of my series highlights.

Yeah, Lan X is great.

What I like about it as well, he's like, Lan X, and he thinks that's right.

And cut into the studio.

He doesn't seem bothered that he's done that.

Not embarrassed at all.

And why would you be?

No, but he's actually what I like about it.

Is that not only is he not bothered about it, he's actually offended on his own behalf.

Yeah.

He actually says,

Who puts an X on a letter?

Like, I like that level of like,

like, it is real opposite energy to Kyra, who's like, I did a bad job.

He's like, no, no, you shouldn't be writing X on things.

This is an invitation, not a treasure map.

And that sort of confidence in a silly mistake will get him straight to the top of government.

Yeah, I can riff with you.

Guesses he's 64, an even better guess than Kyra

based on just because he says the man looks like his nan and his nan 64.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

That man looks like my nan.

This poor guy pretending to sleep must have just been absolutely gutted day after day coming in and having those kids absolutely tear fucking shreds off him.

Rinse him.

Just rinse him.

I really liked the fake out of dressing him as a chef, then finding out he was on his way to a fancy dress party where he had to dress as something being with C.

C is so, so good.

The more obviously costumed job of a football referee.

Now, Nish, you're a footy head.

I'm not.

I'm one of the biggest footymans.

Do the refs tend to bring the ball?

The refs don't tend to bring the ball.

I'll say that for them.

They don't tend to bring the ball.

The red card and the yellow card, fine.

The ball was a real surprise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't think so.

I've never seen that.

I do like the idea of the referee if the players were dissenting too much, just going, you know what, it's my ball, and I'm leaving.

I'm off.

I actually think that would clamp down.

There is, there are constant and have been constant rolling conversations about how to stop players yelling at the referee.

Because the ref's ball and the ref could just leave with the ball.

That might solve a lot of the problems.

Just storm off with the ball.

That'd be great.

I've got to go to my wife's birthday party.

I loved that they were nicking the cash as well.

Gwen, who to me seems like she's very well-behaved.

Yeah.

25 quid coming out of the wallet and presumably never going back to production.

That was referenced in the studio.

Yeah.

Gwen, where's this money gone?

And then she tries to bribe Rose.

Amazing.

But yeah, she does very, very well.

I mean,

it was good efforts all around, regardless of whether they found any clues whatsoever.

My favourite answer to the stealing money, though, was was Jamie taking it out of the wallet and Mike saying,

why are you taking that?

And him say, because I want it.

Oh, so honest.

That was brilliant.

But the real, for me, my personal highlight of this round is Mike Wozniak shouting out slow maths.

Slow maths.

Shout out to Slow Maths.

Jamie does some very fast maths that is arguably much too fast.

So fast.

Guess it's 72.

I mean, he's way off.

It's It's really funny because all the other kids that do the maths, it is genuinely impressive.

Like, I was watching this with my partner, who, and I do, this did slightly worry me about her.

Where she was like, man, these kids are really good at maths.

And I was like,

I think you might be bad at maths.

But yeah, then he swung right in, blew past the correct answer.

72, baby.

72.

Yeah, shout out for Slow Maths.

That was a real, that's the series I like for me.

Task two, work out what two things are in each pile of mash.

You may eat one, sniff one, lick one, put your little finger in one, and throw one on the floor.

Most correct answers wins.

Your time starts now.

Again, this feels like a classic Taskmaster task.

Very much so.

Very much so.

And

if you've never seen Taskmaster, you might read that and think, well,

how can a group of five people do that differently?

You've just told them exactly what to do.

So how can that?

And then

there we are.

We have Anita who seems like she's like the expert of throwing mashed potato across a room.

Like really reveals all of its secrets immediately.

As opposed to Ruben, Jay, who does exactly, as opposed to Ruben, who does, I think, what I would have done and just sort of slammed it like a sort of like a puck.

So it's it's holding its secrets even more firmly than it ever did before.

Nothing spilled out of it.

It's just sort of dense and perfectly smooth on the top.

I had great sympathy with him.

Yeah,

he doesn't get an amazing amount right.

He only gets two out of ten in this.

But he seems to have a lot of fun while he's doing it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and he's giving it his all, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the smelling, he's just like, well, it just smells like mashed potatoes.

I mean, he's got a point there.

He's got an absolute point.

Like, how can you guess anything from smelling mashed potato?

The dominant smell will be mashed potato.

But yeah, Anita's chuck is incredible.

She really goes for this, but she sniffs it and gets Brussels sprouts.

I was impressed by that.

Yeah, I don't, I've never thought of them as having particularly strong smell.

I mean, you're you're the food expert here.

I mean, well, if they've been boiled, they are quite smelly.

I'd say, I think that's what puts a lot of people off, actually.

Really, is it the nose?

Okay.

With Brussels sprouts, yeah, and then obviously they've got quite a sort of bitter.

I've never thought of them as having much of an aroma at all.

Well, even when they're boiling, like the steam that...

I'm also able to get through them quite well.

So maybe, yeah, maybe I'll just have a bad sense of smell.

Maybe that's why I'm able to smell it.

Yeah, maybe that's it.

I mean, look, I don't want to take it down a food track too far, but they're much better roasted.

You get all of the pleasant,

the pleasant taste and also the texture of a crispy outer Brussels.

Do you cheetahs or do you sprinkle little bits of bacon or nuts on them?

Are you one of those guys?

Sometimes.

Yeah.

I can, yeah, I'd chop them in half, olive oil uh roast them in the tin with some pancetta maybe put some uh maybe put some parmesan on the top towards the end right this is what we're gonna do

this is why we're giving the rise the far right mate my uh my favorite thing about anita's uh anita's effort is it says you can smell it but what put what bit of the tar said you had to pop it on the floor to smell it like a doggy amazing amazing

Just such an interesting interpretation of it.

Loved it.

She got an awful lot of potato on her face, that kid.

Because

initially, she seems very sort of like calm and very sweet, like I say, but it seems like she really relished the opportunity to chuck some stuff around and get her.

I think she, she's, yeah, she's, she's got a bit of grit, doesn't it?

As well.

So I think if there's, you know, when she's presented with, okay, a bit of a puzzle or a bit of a bit of a challenge, she's going to...

She's going to, well, what's the facial equivalent of rolling your sleeves up?

She's going to, yeah, she's going to roll her snut down, you know, and she's just going to get into it.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I think what's good about this task as well is that it gives the kids free license to be messy, as with a lot of the tasks, to be fair.

And they can do things that

polite society would tell them that kids shouldn't be doing most of the time.

Yeah, and Anita's exactly.

I think Anita is the sort of person I could easily imagine in life people might underestimate because she's, you know,

because she's sort of small and sweet and, you know,

and comical.

But she's,

kids got grit, for sure.

Yeah.

Were you a messy child, Mike?

Would you have enjoyed doing this when you were a kid?

I would have enjoyed this immensely as a child yeah

i was actually astonished that no one threw a large lump of mashed potato at me or the camera that was the yeah yeah yeah that was that was a day where i definitely brought you know change of clothes just on the off chance but again this is the thing because none of them they weren't really playing to the camera once they're once you get in taskmaster yourself once you're in the task that that's all you're thinking about so yeah If there wasn't this sort of ticking clock or whatever, maybe one of them, oh, this might be funny to do, but they're just thinking about, I'm going to get the answer to the, I'm going to do the task.

I'm going to do it brilliantly, my way.

Well, it's the laser instinct, isn't it, of drawing on your face.

You would have thought.

Yeah, that's done because he'd finished the task.

You know, that's, you know, the.

But he did a very good job in this task because he is the one who

cracks the little cheat code and finds the answers all written on the table, which was very, very impressive.

I feel like,

did you get the impression that they'd all watched the show before?

It was quite a a mix, actually.

There were some who'd seen an awful lot of the show, and there were some who'd seen a bit of the show.

There are a couple of there are a few out there who I, to my astonishment,

I hadn't really seen much of the show before getting the gig.

I assumed that all of them would be Taskmaster fans.

But yeah, there are a couple of outliers who just sort of, I think, yeah, sort of watched an episode or two on the way to the gig.

Because it feels like, I think Laser even says they might be written down somewhere.

Laser definitely was sort of, yeah,

knew the deal and knew that tables are things to be checked on all sides.

And he's got a great outfit on for Tarsus as well,

the Skeleton Get Up.

I'm jealous of that.

I wish I'd gone with the Skeleton Tracky.

It's amazing.

Yeah, stunning.

He finds the answers.

Nayara, heartbreaking, walks around to the one side of the table.

Doesn't quite see them and just carries on.

Still does very well.

Still gets five out of ten, which is impressive without seeing the answers written down.

Still does very well.

And you really want her to find it at that point.

Do Do you know what I mean?

Because

she's had a tough start to the episode so far.

I was willing her to find them.

You have to have the David Attenborough.

You have to, you can't debate.

Of course.

Yeah.

Is that how you felt?

At any point when you were filming the task, did you think, as an adult man, I should really step in here to help these children in peril and then had to hold yourself back?

Repeatedly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Often the internal monologue was going,

this is ethically concerning at the very least.

Yeah, there's a later episode that

the listener wouldn't have seen yet where they're just

pouring water onto a fat fire and stuff as well.

And you're just standing back letting them do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who gets the can of petrol?

Do you know what I mean?

Persia, I was really impressed with this, guess his cucumber on sight and gets Brussels sprouts from sniffing.

That's what I mean.

I think it's like she can sort of see the matrix, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And my favourite thing was, which made me suspect that maybe Persia has seen the show before.

Guess is boiled egg, but then is so specific about the type of boiled egg because she doesn't want to get marked down.

So it's boiled egg that's that's boiled but still slightly runny.

Really, really strong.

Our own footnotes.

And it's a good idea.

Play it safe.

Place a number next to each word, then open the task.

Part two, do each thing the number of times you've chosen.

These are the things.

Name a country, eat an olive, get completely in and out of the sleeping bag, do a star jump, throw a paper ball into the bin, pretend to sneeze.

Fast this to complete all six things wins.

You have a maximum of 15 minutes.

Your time starts now.

Now, again, a great two-parter.

A great two-parter, yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, two-part, two two-parters back-to-back is quite funny, actually, within the context of the episode.

I think

this is less of a surprise two-parter, though, because obviously putting the number next to a word is not going to be the task.

Like even Persia preempts it, right?

And says, you know, what's this going to be now?

Yeah.

But then you never do, you don't know what it's defined by, you know, you don't know what you're going to have to do to opt, I guess.

Which is, you know, really,

I can't believe it's such an imperfect choice of something for kids because it's like the the most divisive thing and yeah i was i was firmly in the pro-olive camp as a child so i i i i i connected with a couple of contestants more so than the others but yeah i love i love this task no prizes for guessing if i was pro-olives as a child of course

well you know what that's great about this task as well is that you're getting a different task for every contestant like i like those ones where it's like it's not exactly the same it's kind of fate has sort of you know um yeah dictated that.

You know, they all get tripped up on different things.

One thing I did notice, and this is more of a question for production, is when they all pretended to sneeze, they all sneezed into their elbows.

Yeah.

And I don't know whether this is because post-COVID, maybe, post, you know, that every, you know, they've had that drilled into them, or was that someone on set saying,

you need to pretend to sneeze into your elbow to set the proper example for any children who might be watching?

I think if production were were worried at all about the children setting good examples for other children watching, I think a lot of other things would have been intervened with.

So you think they all just, they all just sneeze like that.

I really do.

I mean, I sneeze like that now because of COVID.

So it doesn't, you know, and they would have, they wouldn't have known anything different, really.

Yeah, because the way I sneeze, I don't put anything over my mouth and I scream my own name while I'm doing it.

That's why, and your eyeballs kind of squirt out a bit, you know?

Yeah, Yeah, they do.

They pop out as steam comes out of your ears and all and stuff.

Yeah,

I do think that it's probably just a manners thing now.

Yeah.

But it was very responsible.

And some of them were just so

Anita's sneezes were so funny to me.

Just like, they were like kind of like dabs, but also like pantomime kind of.

It was almost like holding a cape or something.

She really likes shouting, Anita, because she's such a quiet, polite, sort of very funny kid.

But then when she gets the opportunity to be a bit wild, she really goes for it.

She totally goes for it.

I do love it.

I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of the sinezes were great.

I mean, we should talk about some of the olive haters.

Oh my gosh, yes.

Jamie was, I mean, just saying 18 olives, you're joking, just made me laugh so much.

And then

just really like some of them were gagging on the olives.

Gwen, trying to shove the olives down, really, really hated it, nearly throws up multiple times.

Persia had one olive to eat, and for the rest of the task, kept going, oh, that olive.

Oh, that olive.

Got me good.

It's like an adult

describing indigestion or something.

Oh, God, that got me.

I'll be paying for that later.

I really love it.

Yeah, I love it.

I mean, it's so.

I mean, do you, did you have things as a kid that you just would not eat?

Because, because the fussy eater stuff is really interesting is for kids, you know, how like everyone, all they're all like beige foods, essentially, and you have to really try and get them into.

Um, I mean, I don't have kids, and I will never have them, but um, so I'm never gonna sort of experience this, but I can't remember being

really against certain foods as a kid, but maybe I'm blocking it out.

I don't know.

No, I mean, I, I, I am, I'm well in

touch with how I felt as a kid with food because I'd written about it extensively in a book.

And I, what I would do is I didn't have anything I didn't like when I was a kid,

but then saw that all my friends and everyone I knew had foods they didn't like.

So I picked tomatoes as something I didn't like.

Yeah.

And told everyone I didn't like tomatoes.

So it didn't seem like I was weird, even though I did like tomatoes.

Oh.

Oh,

but I did.

I did like them.

Oh, now you got a good relationship with tomatoes now?

Oh, good.

Celery for a long time I was like not bothered about, but

I don't care for celery now.

Yeah, but I'll eat it now.

Oh, yeah you're an adult now yeah that makes sense feels refreshing you know i might my parents would just because i was the third born they would just mix whatever they were eating for dinner uh in with mashed potatoes so i think that's why that's my why my palate is so vast

but i do need potatoes that's why

potatoes is my sweet yeah with everything

yeah

um lots of fun country namings

across the board uh

a lot of confusion with states and and cities as being country.

So I was glad to see that

they're not good at everything these days.

No.

And also, geography, I think, is one of the, I mean, I honestly am, I don't know, I don't know where anything is now as an adult.

So I was pretty impressed, you know, that some of them knew

certain places.

I really loved Persia, just being like, I was just talking about how I wanted to go to Japan.

Turns out it's a country.

But she says it in the way as if to say, did you guys know?

Japan's a country.

I mean,

I was sat there willing Persia to say Iran.

And I'm really glad she got to Iran eventually.

Yeah.

Because if she didn't get there, you're like, okay.

Come on.

Come on then.

Yeah,

it was great to watch.

Yeah, Mike, Mike, not helpful in this, you know, especially with Persia.

She loses count of how many countries she said.

Mike will not tell them how many they've said.

And, you know,

I assumed they'd all do this but there's only one of them it's only gwen who who does all of the tasks all the way through poor shanea does i think what a lot of us would do gets to a thing like throwing the paperball in forgets about the number element and just does it once and she's like yeah fine there we go completely completely i would have done so poorly on this yeah especially at their age my attention span for like the details are just you know absolutely flubbed here yeah um but yeah the sleeping bag one was annoying as was annoying there's nothing well it's really annoying because they were all doing different things in terms of it's difficult to define what getting completely in and out of means

because Anita really tries to get in and out of it, as in zip it all the way up, get in it and then get out of it.

And the zip breaks.

And I mean, look, she still does five tasks in 12 minutes 59.

She still does a good job.

Also, special shout out to the chat she has with Mike at the beginning before the task starts of what's the food of a winner.

And she runs through

her whole menu of the day.

she said carbonara yeah carbonara is the food of a winner but then she runs through the whole menu and she gets the dinner and then mike says and then the carbon carbonara and she sort of says it at the same time just like a perfect sitcom script

carbonara yeah carbonara yeah

i mean

i'm just i love how the the sort of variety of like different voice like actual voices these kids have had across the the yeah like i was always obsessed with

maisie i mean she was one of my favorites but the way she spoke, and it's similar to Anita, like such

awesome,

singular,

like

delivery.

Like, if there were stand-ups, like you'd be like, that is just absolutely incredibly unique.

Like, Maisie speaking like a 70-year-old woman.

Yeah.

You know, Anita, she's got incredible comic timing.

And I do think she knows she's being funny a lot of the time, which is quite true.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Yeah, she definitely does.

Can you see

any of the kids that you met across across the whole series thinking about doing comedy?

Because Alex asked me this.

Yeah.

Because, you know, he can see in those kids' eyes that when they get their first laugh in the studio, they're like,

it's like, you know, having Sherbert for the first time or something.

Is there anyone in particular that you think definitely wants to?

Did anyone ask you about being a comedian?

No, none of them.

None of them.

And I think, you know, I don't think the idea of what a stand-up comedian is, it was probably very foreign to them.

Yeah.

They'd probably be like, you know, how do you become a TikTok comedian?

Or something, you know what I mean?

Like, it is nothing.

That's true.

We're like vaudevillian

acts to them.

The fact that we're hygiene, that we go and tour the country doing the live shows.

And it's like, who are you?

You ancient dinosaurs.

So, no, they weren't.

Yeah, we to them, this is going to really upset you.

We to them are what Bruce Forsyth was.

100%.

Yeah.

Oh, Christ.

Do you, do you know that?

That's, I mean, that's, it's fine.

We need to put more clips online, I guess.

Yeah, one day they'll be performing at the Bill Murray and someone will say, do you know Ed Gamble's ashes are under the stage?

Yeah, it was an accident.

They even didn't mean to.

They just spilled them there.

Ruben, definitely.

I think Ruben is got...

He would like play to the audience a bit in a really charming way.

I think it would like, it wasn't actually, you know, he was just like, yeah, this game, this gun's fun.

I think he would be a great warm-up guy.

Yeah.

I think Ruben would be an incredible warm-up guy.

I think is it olivia would be yeah i think she would be on the alternative comedy circuit definitely yeah she was like a little a little baria bamford she was she totally was and it was like these wide eyes kind of all be plaza vibe of just like you know her monologue about dissing like just was perfect um and like scarlet will be hosting like i'm a celeb and she'll be the most incredibly popular she'll be the best entertainment host of all time yeah yeah she'll go far So yeah, I think a lot of them will, but then I honestly hope most of them don't because they should do real jobs.

We need engineers.

We need climate change scientists.

We don't need more comedians.