Taskmaster The Podcast *Best of Series 18*

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Welcome, Emma, to the Taskmaster podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Ed Gamble.

What a pleasure and an honor. Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to have you on the podcast.
Of course, it is.

And I just need to let the listener know we were going to start the podcast in a normal way, but we just had to pause the beginning of the recording there because you were doing something.

Will you please let the listener know what you were doing?

Oh,

I was finishing a smoothie.

It's not a persona, guys. Emma loves smoothies.
I do.

Oh, God. I do.
But that's actually, that speaks to what goes on in those tasks. Because they say you have 20 minutes or whatever, but it actually always feels like less.

Or I think it kind of is less because you're sort of against the clock. You're working with people, whatever.
Smoothies and making smoothies

is a massive part of my life I'm not even exaggerating when I say massive like a massive part of my life so it's the first thing that came to mind oh I mean how how often would you say you know there's that whole sort of meme thing about

how often is it how often do men think about um

the war

in the fall of the roman empire that's what it is

Is your equivalent the smooth the smoothie?

It's hard to say. I do think it, I think it's fair to say that the smoothie is my Roman Empire.

But

at the same time, I probably don't, I don't know how, oh no, no, I'm gonna lie here because, yeah, the truth is, I do think about it all the time.

Anytime I'm in a supermarket, I might pick up some extra nuts or go, oh, pumpkin seeds, I'm about to run out of them for my smoothie tomorrow.

Yeah, because I sort of, it's become my breakfast.

So I do it Monday to Friday, and then I treat myself on Saturday and Sunday to two smoothie-free days. So it's the borderline become a burden.

I think that moment where

you're discussing the smoothie,

making the smoothie as the multi-headed beast with your team who you've just met. I mean, we should talk about this as well, in a, I think, potentially the most awkward.

introduction of any team in Taskmaster history, apart from Richard Herring and Daisy May Cooper.

Yes, I think there's a few, there's a bit of competition, but you know, I was there and my God, it was awkward. I would actually say it was worse in real life than it is on camera.
It was shocking.

Because there's a lot going on. Because Bubba, I think,

you'd not met Bubba before. I don't think he'd met either of you before.
No. He was probably quite...
He seems quite unsure of what the show is.

Certainly that there would be a team day and who else was going to be on his team. So he's gone in, he's met a cricketer.

And he's not really giving much because Andy is of an age where he's just himself and he's yeah socially he's not he's not going to be over the top no no need so baba's confused andy's just being andy then you walk in dressed as a detective so that's immediately out the window because he doesn't know what's going on and you introduce yourself with your full name oh my god i think for poor baba he essentially thought am i just meeting non-playable characters in the sims or something like who are these extras that you have paid 80 80 quid to be here for the day?

And I also, I know it's mad that I introduced myself by my full name. Like, obviously, that's terrible.
But

I was so sure they'd have no idea who I was. And now I'm seeing Babba, I don't think he did know who I was.
I'm not sure he knew there were any other contestants.

So,

so obviously it's crazy, but I kind of don't have any regrets. I was in a situation where I was like, these guys need to know my first name and my surname.
Let's go.

I think you were right to do that.

It did feel like that was the right thing to do, but can you see how it increased

the awkwardness tenfold? Oh, I can see.

I can see, I can hear, I'll never forget it. It was awful.

I mean, they were asking for trouble with this, with this prize task, which was the best thing that has been inside you.

As the first prize task is really setting a stall out early in

this new series of Taskmaster.

And look, we're going to go through what everyone did, and

it's a chance to talk about contestants for the first time, which is always exciting on the Taskmaster podcast.

We should talk about what you did straight away because you didn't go for a cheap or sexual or grotty option. You went with Jamaican oxtail stew.

Yeah, so

all right.

I really thought they meant meant real prizes. So I'm like, okay,

have some Jamaican oxdale stew because it's delicious. Yeah.
Right.

And then I clocked straight away. Like,

oh,

you're supposed to actually take the piss.

So now I'm going through all my prizes in my head. I'm just like, oh, this is about to be a long day, boy.

There's always one contestant every series who on their first prize, you see them in their eyes, they're just scanning through everything else they've got to come in the next nine episodes.

That's definitely this year. But I agree with you, right? That's how, when it started, Taskmaster, that people would bring in things knowing that they would be given away at the end as a prize.

So they bring in things that would be a good prize. And it is slowly, it's naturally evolved into being weird and occasionally disgusting things.

And they're jokes that you can get a big laugh in the studio for. But

I respect you going, this is what I like to eat. it's absolutely delicious it's the best the best thing that's been inside me

exactly so I went for that and then yeah I clocked straight away I was like oh man this is about to be mental so yeah just the prizes

expect good prizes from me people just expect

expect absolute prizes like gifts that I really want to give to people from my heart right there you go look you're a very pure-hearted man. So, you know, this is, I think this is a wonderful thing.

This certainly, out of all of the prizes offered here, it's certainly the thing I'd like to receive the most.

What I would say is Greg does sort of try and

try and knuckle you a little bit and say, was that actually inside you? Is it the same batch?

I think what he was saying is the only way it could have fitted within the remit is if you'd eat an oxtail stew and then brought in. Yeah.
Yeah.

See what I'm saying about Greg? See what I'm saying? Like, these are the things, bro.

This is why me and Greg, we buy him so many times because I was just like, bro, you know what I mean by when I bring in oxtail. I've had it before.
It's delicious. Just give me the points.

Well, it didn't work on this occasion, sadly. Luckily, Andy Zultzman, again, very excited that Andy's on.
He's an absolute legend, Andy.

So funny, so unique.

There is no one else like Andy

working in comedy today.

He brings in what he claims to be his own lung.

But

I mean, if this is the first time you've worked with Andy and the first thing you see of him is he's saying he's bringing in his own lungs and then refuses to say that they're not his lungs.

What are you thinking at this point? You're sat next to this man.

I'm not going to lie. Throughout the whole time with Andy and Rosie and Jack, and then doing the tasks and just the whole time, I'm thinking,

why have they put me in this room with these crazy white people? That's what I can do.

I was like, Andy is mad.

But he was making me laugh so much. Like when he was just like, oh, yeah, I brought in my own lung.

The first initial thing I was just like, what? Like, I was like, brother, I wanted to be moved. I was like, can I move chairs? Because I don't feel safe around this guy.
You know what I'm saying?

Like, he's got the whole whole hair thing going on. I was like, I don't want to be here.
But no,

he is a creative guy. Like you said, there's no one like him.
Yeah. At the moment.
And yeah, he's brilliant. Brilliant guy to work with, man.

But it was, I mean, it was definitely a worse prize than you because it was a lie. Hell yeah.

Clearly, not something that would be inside him. And not even a nice prize.
He didn't even go for that angle. Who the hell wants a lung?

Even if it was like a cheap slung or something, like you got this from the butcher's. I don't know where this guy got got this from, but even if it was that,

who wants that, bro? I don't want that.

No.

No one wants that. I remember we had to, at school once, had to dissect a sheep's lung in science class.
And I brought the lung home to feed to the cat. Oh.

My mom. You must have gone to private school or something.
We didn't do that in Tottenham.

They never let us dissect anything in schools in Tottenham. They were like, there will be no dissecting in this school.
You guys are crazy.

Welcome back, John, to the Taskmaster Podcast. Hello, Ed.

It's a delight to have you back.

Of course, your third time on the Taskmaster podcast in, you know, obviously early on in the last series then your lap of honor episode as the winner of the previous series of taskmaster but now you're back to talk about the new the new batch the new breed how does that feel that there's a new there's a new lot well ed the phone has not stopped ringing since i won taskmaster with the record all-time score a lot of key players in hollywood just working out where best to position me um and i'm just taking my time yeah you've got to take your time time.

Don't rush into anything, man. Yeah, and also, flights are very expensive if you book them like on the day.

I think maybe 2027, I'll head out to LA and I'll say, guys, you pitch to me.

So hang on, they're making you pay for your own flights.

They're not flying you up on the PJ. Is that not normal?

I thought it would be a PJ. Because, no, because the phone rings and I pick it up and they say,

hey, John, get your ass out of here

out here. Oh, Oh, that's a key difference, though, isn't it?

Is it get your ass out here or out of here?

It might be out of here, actually.

And do you know what? It's just come back to me. Their call is in response to all of my missed calls.
Okay. That I've left for them.
Okay, so do wait till 2027 for that.

Yeah, 2027, I'm just going to book a couple of flights when they're cheap.

And I guess you just rock up in LA Airport, and there'll be someone with your name on one of those little signs at at arrivals they take you to mr big of big records bish bash bosh you're in the latest next judd appetow film yeah who's judd appetow

quite a famous uh film film writer and director and stuff so i think still going or cancelled still going still okay great yeah i'll do one of his films actually yeah yeah yeah he was actually um that

That's talking chop too much. I'm going to move on.

He did always be comedy recently, I'll tell you that.

Did he really, of course?

I wonder if he invoiced for the 60 quid.

I would love it.

I'd have so much respect for Joe Dappertow if he invoiced James Giller, Always Be Comedy, in Kennington, for £60.

No VAT, of course, because he's based in the US, unless he's got a UK company. And even then, he wouldn't have to register for that unless his UK earnings were, I think, over 80 grand a year.

Which I'm sure they would be.

This is what you get when you put John Robbins, right? We've got. Oh, yeah, not entertaining, not entertainment, but you get detail,

analysis. Talking of detail and analysis, we had to briefly wait to start the recording because you said you were getting some stats together.

Well, obviously, I'm watching the new Taskmaster and the couple of little episodes you've sent me. And my first thought is: is the record safe?

And how's it looking? Well, I was just checking and

the first team task scored lower than, both teams scored lower than any of the team tasks I was in.

So I was just making sure I never scored a tour.

And I think, so I watched episode two and interesting, the team dynamics.

Very interesting. Is there chemistry?

We will come to it. We'll get there.
We'll go through in order.

What I first want to know is your initial thoughts on this new lineup. Oh, I really like it.
And I also like the costumes. I love Andy's.

He actually said on this podcast, I guarantee Andy will wear full cricket whites. I gave you, you'll be happy to hear, I gave you credit for that in the previous episode of the podcast.

I said on the final episode of the last series, you predicted that Andy would be wearing full cricket whites.

I love that he's keeping his helmet on.

An industry insider did tell me that as the filming progressed,

an argument about Andy taking his helmet off became more and more heated.

I think Andy stuck to his guns as long as he could. Yeah.
I love Emma's detective outfit. That's right up my street.
And also, in this episode, she does some great detection in the detective outfit.

Yes.

We had Bubba on last week, and he said he he felt like the two costumes really actually played to who those people are.

So Andy's obviously a cricket obsessive, is genuinely, I didn't realize until watching this series of Taskmaster, an odder man than I expected, way more eccentric than I expected.

So the fact that he keeps all those cricket whites on is perfect. And Emma is, she is a detective.
Yes, she is.

And Jack's come dressed as a grumpy man who doesn't really care what's going on, which is great. Yeah.
And Rosie is just an absolute ball of fun. Yes.
And her costume reflects that. So there you go.

It's a clean sweep.

Let's talk about the prize task in this, which is episode 5 of Series 18. The prize task in this one was the thing that is best when you add liquid to it.
Yes.

And of course, we start with you, and you brought in a swimming pool, Jack. Yes, I did.
Yeah, I thought that was.

I think it's quite clear

and everyone watching it will will know this that my prize was the best one

I mean it really is obvious because I don't think anyone else put any effort in at all

and Andy I think went off on one of his

on one of his kind of kind of

dream dream sequences and came up with

but frankly a fictional idea that no one was impressed by

And yeah, the swimming pool. And

I can prove that it works and everything. So,

yeah, the video of you swimming in the swimming pool. Is that really how you swim every morning, tethered to the side of the swimming pool? Yes, it's true.
I do that. I do that.

And it's in my back garden. It looks like an unlicensed fish farm or something.

It's really ugly thing, but

I'm still doing it now. The water's about 10 degrees.

But

it's what I like to do for fitness. It's very impressive, Jack.

How did you come to arrive at that?

There's so many impressive things about me. As you get to know me, you'll realize in the course of the podcast.

How did you come to arrive at that

as a fitness regime

with a rope attached to you? Yeah, well, when we

decided

we thought there was going to be a heat wave last year in May, and so I said, I know how to fix this.

We'll get this swimming pool,

which I bought on Amazon. And

And then I had this idea that

I could strap myself to the edge of it with an elastic cord. And it turns out that there are other people who've had this idea, and those things exist.
So I bought one, and

now most people in show business have them.

Sandy Toxwig's got one because she was intrigued.

So she's got one as well. And, you know, I think Stephen Fry's got one, he said he was going to get one.
Uh, yeah, that is most people in show business.

Topswig and Fry covers off all of show business, it more or less does, and uh, I think, I think if you get one, yeah, that'll square the circle.

I can't see Alex getting one, and no, they don't do them big enough for Greg. That's the trouble.

Greg, as we know, has a hot tub. I know Greg's got a hot tub on his balcony.
That's that's what I know. Does he? That sounds quite seedy.
Yeah,

it feels seedy when you're in it with him as well um but no it was great and i was glad to see it was a one of those swimming pools you buy off amazon because as soon as you said it's got to be a swimming pool and started talking about your swimming pool i thought here we go the comedian who started to become very successful in the 90s this is what happens but starting to yeah dazzle people with my rich and famous lifestyle but no it's a it's a plastic thing that that someone delivered in a van no i mean if you're looking at it objectively i think you're probably right it the swimming pool is the best thing.

Yes. When you add liquidity, certainly compared to, I mean, Rosie's, for example.
Rosie flips between being amazing at prize tasks and quite bad at prize tasks. And this is one of her weak weeks.
Yes.

The balloon.

The balloon was not.

It didn't quite go. It wasn't received terribly well, the balloon, was it? And I can't remember what Babatunde brought in.

Babatunde brought in jelly powder.

I mean, it took a while to get there because there was a slight bit of confusion when he was trying to set the scene of the jelly powder, where it did sound almost 100% like he was calling Greg's mum a slag.

He kept saying your and your mum's like, but when he said it, it sounded like your mum's a slag.

He did himself no favours in selling that one to Greg.

And I think we were all confused by the idea of jelly powder because most of us know that

real jelly comes in a pack, doesn't it? Yes.

If you've had any kind of childhood, you would have eaten without making it into jelly first.

Well, but that's the confusing thing about the jelly in a pack because it is the consistency of jelly. Yes, exactly.
So, why would you then put it in water to make it

jelly again? Yeah, exactly. Just eat the packet.
Just eat the packet, and

that's very much where I stand on jelly.

But look, jelly powder, again, yeah, I'm not aware aware of jelly powder really, really is a thing. So I couldn't really call it the best thing.

I think Greg saw through it and said, look, this thing doesn't really exist, and

so we're not having it. Why didn't apply that criteria to Andy's trampoline?

Andy's clearly having some sort of breakdown on this show.

So it's best to just let him live in his fantasy world because he brought in, yeah, powdered trampoline and claims that he also has powdered grandma.

And he is getting weirder and weirder every episode, I think. Yes, yeah, I think we all agreed just not to question him too much on anything he said or brought in.

What was the reaction? So, obviously, in the last episode, he was dressed as a wizard in the studio, yes, and in this episode, he's dressed as a snooker player. Yes, that's all right.

Did anyone ask him anything about that before you started recording? I don't think we, I don't think we, in the end, we didn't care

because he was he came as things, uh, he was a cricket player most of the time, yeah, and then he just randomly turned up as

It was yeah, it was it was what he it was what he did, but in the end you I don't want to go up to him say oh Andy you that tell us about this amazing outfit because he's obviously going to tell tell us an in the studio anyway and

He sort of does he sort of does sort of explains it, but yeah, I it was also I think he just was kind of in in in overdrive by then

just just trying everything he I think he is probably someone who didn't have a lot of friends when he was younger and

is

getting the sort of dressing up thing out of his system.

Welcome, Rosie Jones, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Oh my god, I am so excited.

I have blocked out

the next

10 hours.

Are you ready?

I'm ready. I'm going to leave after an hour if that's all right.
And then you can just carry on for nine.

Actually,

that is an ideal

situation.

Because

I'm already gonna say the worst

part of this episode

will

be

you.

That's fair enough. That's always the case, I'd say.
I very rarely bring anything to these episodes, Rosie.

It's nice. It's nice that even within the first minute you managed to absolutely take me down.
Yeah.

But would you want anything other than that?

No, I'd be really creeped out if you were suddenly nice to me, Rosie. It would be so weird.

Eggambul, you need to accept

that you are

and you always

will be a

piece of

shit.

Well, that is wonderful. Thank you so much, Rosie.

What a delight it is to have you on the Dusk

podcast.

Look, you can afford to be this arrogant and this horrible to me because you're absolutely killing it on Taskmaster.

You are one of my favorite contestants of all time. I'll say it.

Thank you, and I'd like to really

question

your definition

of

killing it because

if

I don't know, you're doing all right because everyone is pretty much on the same level. I mean, look, we're on episode nine.

We're going to be talking about episode nine, so maybe everyone started pulling away from you a little bit at this point, right?

But killing it in terms of you are very, very funny on it. You are nailing a lot of the prize tasks, you're very good at those.

And you introduced the world to Mr. Pooh.
So

I don't know what else you could ask for. Mr.

Pooh, a lot of people say,

How did you come up with Mr.

Pooh?

And I really just say

Mr.

Pooh found me.

It was honestly, I've never seen anything that's more up my street and it's so immature, so gross. Just and no no one else is gonna do that on there.
It's all this that's classic Jones.

But that was the thing so many

taps

I had done

and as you know, there's about

four or five months between the hats.

So what you do on your own,

and then they studio

and fall so many

on my test.

I was like, Well,

I did the most obvious

thing,

and then you see what everyone else

does,

and you go,

Oh,

oh no,

Oh, there's something

very wrong

with my mind.

Like

a great

example is

the push the envelope

task.

I honestly thought

all five of us

would eat

the emerald,

but it's it's obvious

not at all. I just love the idea of you smearing Nutella all over a big fake poo going, well, everyone else is going to be doing this.

Obviously,

also,

I did

up

them find

as we'll talk about later in the episode,

my mind

often went to

if I can't eat it,

can I shit it out?

And that's the binary

of

my journey across a service,

eat it or shit it does that count as a journey when you went in thinking eat it or shit it and you finished the series thinking eat it or shit it

yeah

yeah

yeah and really

that's what we're talking about

and

I should say over the whole service I am all on up and

I am

bringing you a whole new concept,

a whole new idea.

Oh,

I cannot be fucking asked.

And

I am bringing you a sack shed bowl.

And that's it.

That was exactly what I thought of when you were saying that because your prize tasks, I'd say half of them have been the best prize tasks I've ever seen. I'm talking about the coffin in particular.

The letter opener was just a genius stroke way to kick off the series.

And then suddenly the quality drops off so rapidly with a saxophone and a picture of you giving the double thumbs up wearing a saxophone on your back.

Oh, Ned said, I'll give you everything,

or I will give you nothing.

Either go

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Plus, Shopify's social media tools help you connect all your channels and create shoppable posts so you can sell everywhere your customers scroll. Managing your business is easy too.

From shipping to taxes to payments, Shopify handles the details on a single dashboard, letting you focus on what really matters. Growing your business.

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Task two, this is of course a location task. Take a bite out of Alex's carrot.
Alex will ring his bell every 10 seconds. You must laugh constantly throughout.
You must both walk only at a gentle pace.

Fastest wins. Your time starts now.

Now, is it... You filmed in Thorpe Park, is that right? Yes, that's correct.

Was that exciting for you to have the run of Thorpe Park?

Well, it would have been if we'd been allowed to just joyride all the roller coasters, but they were pretty insistent that that would have contravened all manner of health and safety protocols.

But they're quite atmospheric places, deserted theme parks. Yeah.
And as yeah, and they sort of crop up in horror films, don't they, as spooky places?

But it was, yeah, it was quite atmospheric. It was quite cold

in winter.

The sort of deserted theme park vibe was

quite striking, I think. But that specific task was in, I can't remember

what the building was normally used for. Well, there was just some, maybe that's all it was anyway,

a mace, but it was

quite creepy. I know they have a saw-themed ride at Thorpe Park, so maybe it might have been used as part of the part of the queuing for that perhaps.
Right.

It's got that sort of vibe. Yeah.

But it did look it looked pretty spooky. It was spooky and atmospherically filmed until Rosie's first shot where she just

screamed hello down the camera.

But this this was a this was a really fun task. Is this one that you enjoyed? Do you get scared easily, Andy?

Not too scared. I mean I guess there's it sort of implied that something terrible isn't going to happen to you because it is not generally the vibe of Taskmaster, isn't it?

People suffering genuine life-changing trauma or serious injury or even death.

So you kind of rely on that, you know, them sticking with that formula that's been very successful for them, is avoiding major accidents on set.

So not scared, but it's more, again, that the fear of

completely failing in a task, particularly one that might get frustrating. And they did feel that it was the kind of task that I think, as with as M I found, felt like it might just go on forever.

So, yeah, I was quite relieved when

I managed to, I think I did quite a sneaky maneuver where I cut off a corner and

managed to catch up the carrot-wielding horn.

Did you realise quite quickly that

there was a doppelganger roaming around the maze as well? Do you know? I can't remember that I'd even noticed that there was.

I must have done it.

I can't quite remember

how obvious or how soon

that became clear. I was more concentrating on

trying to laugh constantly, which once you've been laughing for 30 seconds deliberately, you become aware of quite how ridiculous laughter is as

a noise.

And then, yeah, everything just becomes a bit of a blur.

Well, I think everyone sort of struggled with the laugh apart from Rosie, because obviously when she was reading the task out and you've got to laugh constantly, she says no problem there.

And the next thing is walk at a gentle pace, no problem there.

So she's just laughing throughout anyway, as she's doing for most of the tasks this series, which is absolutely joyous. Emma's laugh

is very monotonous with, and then she seems to get really angry and frustrated, and some of her laughs turn quite sinister, to be honest.

But no one can work out how she walked the same amount of distance as everyone else, but managed to do it in eight minutes rather than

Yes.

Well, I mean,

tasks like that do make people do weird things and

also make you question, and it makes you question a number of things. The nature of reality.

Again, this gets very philosophical.

It makes you question exactly what you've done with your life that has led to you wandering around a deserted theme park, chasing a man with a carrot title with his back

whilst wearing a camera on your head. I mean, that's, you know, there's a difficult question to answer, Ed.

If you're my age, I'm nearly 50 now. And

I feel that my days of chasing people round mazes whilst they're wearing a carrot on their back, they should be long in the past. But Taskmaster puts you in these situations.
But

it rejuvenates people. I guess that's one way of looking at it.
Rejuvenation or just making you think, no, I've really wasted the last 30 years.

But to me, you don't seem like someone who's on the show being like, oh my god, what are they making me do now? You take it all, but you're also not going, oh, but this is so weird.

You are taking this in your stride as if this is something that you do every day.

Well, yes. I mean, I thought I did when I started doing it, I thought

I just decided just to embrace the lunacy of it and the humiliation of it. And I think that sort of that opens up

I guess avenues in the show to enjoy it.

If you've, if you've,

There's a line in

Band of Brothers,

and I'm not for one moment comparing being on Taskmaster to the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944. Not for one moment.
Let me make that absolutely clear. But one of the, I think

one of the soldiers says the only way

to get through this is to accept that you're already dead. And so with Taskmaster, I think the only way to get through it is to accept that you've already made a complete idiot of yourself.

Yeah, and you might as well keep doing that.

You're going to run headlong. Episode after episode after episode.

Task three: place all the balls in the gutter and the gutter on the cow. The gutter must not enter the dome.
You must not use anything floppy during your attempt.

For every ball you touch, one minute will be added to your time. For every ball that touches the floor, ten minutes will be added to your time.

The task is over when the full gutter of balls is balancing by itself on the cow. Fastest wins, your time starts now.

So, very complicated when you read it out loud.

You seem really perturbed by this one, Rosie. Yeah, basically,

this was a point in the series

where I thought

by Alex Horn

really

does

hate disabled people.

I was very

offended at the

rule that stated

you cannot use anything floppy,

which

essentially

discounted

me

from

taking

part

in the task.

The fact that it was

Barbara, Andy, and Emerson, three,

absolutely

norm floppy, able-bodied people

doing their tasks

compared to

Jack

having to a cigar. A very

floppy lady

holding a curly, whirly drain

just

a fucking disaster

from

start to finish.

I mean, Emma's point was that your floppiness aside, you didn't have to pick the curly pipe.

The curly pipe was very much within your control.

I said it about Mr.

Pooh. I'll say it again.

I didn't pick the curly pipe.

The curly

I mean it was it was so funny every time the ball went in one end of the curly pipe and then flew out the other end it was like the Chuckle Brothers or something

oh it was great I loved it I mean look you you you laid the cow on its side using the spoons and that that was it that was all smart yes that's it I was very,

very

happy to think

about lying a cow on their side.

Did we do a little bit worse than the team of three non-disable

people

absurd fucking loosely?

But we tip the

red cow

really who are they real winners.

They are by about an hour and a bit.

I think this is the task where you shouted at Baba in the studio as well. It really made me laugh.
Just absolutely, completely just went, Baba, I've got cerebral pause

that I think

they've been been times where

Greg has,

rightly so,

been quite harsh on me and

called me out for

using the disabled house willy-nilly.

But they say probably

there was one time in the series that I was out

now,

which

was not fair. So

for fucking Baba to come at me, I was like,

absolutely fucking not your bastard.

You're gonna get it.

Yes, you dropped six balls as a team, which meant you added on quite a lot of time there. Emma, Andy, and Baba, of course, they did it in eight minutes.
They didn't drop any balls.

They managed to unlock the kitchen. When Baba finds the key, Emma shouts, Oh my god, I'm obsessed with my team.
It's a very positive team atmosphere.

Yeah, well done them.

Well that's it we did. Really?

They did win that hat button the grand game uploads

did they

not breathe for 17 minutes at birth?

Are

any

of them

literal living miracles?

No,

no. So,

really,

who was the real winner

here?

Again, it is them if you're thinking about points, but no, I see,

I take your point.

Task three.

This is another epic task, actually.

Win the pub quiz by cheating. The team that wins by cheating in at least five different ways wins.
If

the quiz master notices you cheating, you'll lose a point and you must use a different method of cheating. The quiz will start in five minutes.
Your time starts now. This is chaos.

Did you enjoy watching this? I did, but I also had in the back of my mind, I bet it was a fucking nightmare to edit.

Yes, oh my god, I bet. So, my view on this: I hope it's fun for people to watch.
In real life,

this was the most fun I've ever had,

ever, ever, outside of like

a few great nights. Yeah, I

this was so much fun. Yeah, I think it, I think it went on for like two hours at least.
It

was so

long.

So much is cut.

This is just a total joy. And I think also because it was the last day of filming of tasks.

Yeah, my task day. I think for all of us, it was our last day.
So we had got to know the crew by then as well.

So the other people doing the pub quiz with us, we like know you know, because everyone's so great on this show, you kind of know and love them already.

So you feel like you're in a pub with these people you like.

It is so sandbox as a task, as in you're absolutely right how long it take to edit because, oh,

this was my bliss.

It's really, it's really, really fun because it's got that almost escape room-y, immersive theatre experience to it. Yeah.

And if you enjoy something like that, I'd imagine that that would be that would would be a lot of fun.

It sort of kind of reminds me vibe-wise of the hotel task in series 16,

where Alex is playing a role. So he's having to do a character, and you can interact with him, and there's other people to interact with.

Oh my god, I don't think I've seen that one. Have you noticed that it's a team task in Series 16? It is, they have to run the Taskmaster hotel.
It is

amazing. God.

Okay, and I've seen most of I think with all the series, I've seen most of them and then missed the odd bit. Okay, I have to go back and watch that.
That's so extreme.

This especially, it's Sam Campbell, Lucy Beaumont, and Julian Clary running the hotel is demented.

But let's talk about this because we're going to go straight in and talk about

your constant suggestions of marital cheating.

Not constant.

Well, it was shown twice, but

I got the feeling that you were doing it you were asking a lot more because the way andy eventually offers his hand without looking at you while he's getting on with something else okay this is my story on that so i mention it and like i said this this awkward meeting it's also only happened today you do all the team tasks in one day so this has been an awkward old day right

so i bring up the concept of romantic cheating quite early on like you see in a thing yeah it is met with total disapproval and like i really am saying let's go and shag so i'm like okay i'm gonna respect these guys's boundaries maybe you know they're on very tight leashes i completely respect that so i didn't bring it up again then about an hour later when we were failing in various cheating ways and i'm like i really know because i had the numbers in my head of how many times we'd cheated and not got caught I was like, we're going to need to do this now.

And I thought to myself, I'll bring it up once. And if I get destroyed, fine.

I bring it up you will notice Andy gets his hand right up there he's ready for it he has been the back of his mind yes he poo-pooed it but now it's come along he's like I can't I can't miss this opportunity and it's true that I do suggest I should kiss their cheeks they're not happy with that but the hand comes straight up like a little dog's paw and we go and we cheat

I don't know if you were watching the same show as me because

at no point did I think the way Andy popped his hand up there was like, okay, let's do this thing. Watch it again.
I'm telling you.

It pops up like the way his leg popped up, and he goes, Let's never speak of this again.

It's tender. It pops up because he's like, right, just fucking get on with it.
We're done. And he goes, right, there we go.
We'll never speak of this again.

Yes, but Ed, you have to understand, I've only mentioned it once before. I have not been going on at these guys to cheat with me.

I've planted the seed. I come back to it.
The seed has already flowered. They're up for it.
They're ready to go. I'm telling you.

I love also that really the only interactions that you and Barbara have had on screen so far is you suggesting a smoothie and him looking baffled, and then you suggesting cheating and him looking baffled and worried.

Yeah, yeah. But then we again, I have to say this: when we actually cheat, he's down.

And I've got to clarify, I don't, yeah.

Oh my God, it makes me laugh so much. And you can, I do love that Alex is what.
So we don't even get the point because Alex sees us cheating and he sees us refund to keep cheating. And laughs so much.

And laughs. I love that.
Absolutely loving that.

Yeah, look, the magic has been happening on Taskmaster, the Zeltzmann magic, not least of all last week on the show, of course, where you were dressed as a wizard in the studio. Yes.

Well, I felt that not enough people had

tried that gambit. I know that Greg Davis is scared of wizards, so

it's a psychological game, isn't it? Those key 1% at that level, you've just got to find the little micro-advantages where you can. And if the others weren't prepared to dress as a wizard, then

I was.

Is this your attitude going into the show? Is it to get in Greg's head? Is it to take him on rather than try and ingratiate yourself?

Well, those two aren't mutually exclusive, I don't think. I think you could ingratiate yourself with someone whilst trying to destroy them from within.

In fact, in many ways, that's often the best way to do it, history shows.

But yeah, I mean,

you've got to understand the motivations of both Greg and Alex, I think,

to do Taskmaster.

So I've, you know, I've been tracking them both using a range of private detectives and a legal surveillance kit for several years, even before, you know, way before being asked to do the show.

So, you know, I felt that I'd got to understand them over the years, their sleeping patterns,

their eating habits, exact

time of each hour they're most vulnerable. When you factor that into

the studio recording, you can get that.

I'm not sure that's a 1%. I think that's about a 0.04%.

And in terms of tracking them before you were asked to do the show, did you do that with the idea that one day you would be asked to do the show or were you just doing that for your own? Oh, just fun.

just for fun, you know, just for fun.

Yeah, well, it's paid off, yeah, it's paying off. You know, you dressed as a wizard, you got in his head, you've got the points.

Um, there's a look, and I don't want to give any spoilers, but um, there's, there's, I think there's more to come from uh, from your sartorial uh flourishes, yeah,

yeah, I've worked the wardrobe, I think. That's fair to say.

Um, I want to talk to you about your team, first of all, before we get into this episode, episode four.

Um, i we had uh emma on uh last week uh and she briefly talked about the the introduction of the team um so obviously yourself baba and emma are on a team and i mean this is my personal rankings but i've put it as the second most awkward team introduction in taskmaster history oh wow

i'm happy with that how did it how did it feel in the room andy

well i don't Given that we'd never met each other before, I'd certainly never met either Emma or Baba Tundo before, and I don't think they'd met each other either.

So, I mean, when you meet two complete strangers in a situation like that,

then there's going to be a natural awkwardness, particularly, you know, you're factoring in the presence of

cameras all over the place. The fact that Emma is dressed as a,

I don't know, 1930s detective, and I'm in a cricket kit.

You know, it's

as blind dates go, that's a bit of a

tricky start, isn't it? You know, It is, yeah.

I mean, it's, I guess it was like a fancy dress party where, but also maybe a weird sort of swingers' party, like a blind date thing where there was no sexual tension. Right.

I mean, your frame of reference for that head clearly is better than mine.

Sure. Sorry, you know, like a swingers' party, like we all go to.

Many, many memorable moments so far. I do want to briefly talk about the team task with the quiz cheating.

Yes.

because we had it we had emergen last week and i want to clear something up because she was suggesting that um you all tried uh sort of extramarital affairs as a version of cheating yes um and event what it seemed like to me is eventually you capitulated and just sort of put your hand up you didn't even look at it she kissed your hand and you went right well that's that's that done with never speak of this again yeah did you know from her perspective

She said your hand up went up like a shot it went up like a shot that you were you you were like very keen.

That's why you put your hand up quickly. Oh, right.
Oh, I mean, that's what that's an interesting interpreter. I've not seen it that way.
I just, you know, it's purely functional from my perspective.

I'm sorry if I

gave the wrong signal at any point.

Well, that's what it seemed like to me. It seemed like she'd been suggesting it a lot.

And then you, because you didn't, I think they just asked a question about snooker, and I think you were doing some calculations. Yeah, yeah.
So it's usually quite a good way to distract me, actually.

A question about

a sport involving numbers, and I'm gone. Yeah, your hand just drifted up, I think.

Well, it was to get, you know, it was all about the efficiency of getting the extramarital infidelity over and done through the medium of a peremptory kiss on the hand.

And I think that

works in terms of briefest ever affairs. I think it's got to be right up there.
Yeah, and you know,

pretty, pretty weak, sort of soft affair, I'd say. But I think it counted, but Alex saw it.

Right, yeah.

He's like a hawk, that guy. But my wife and I are working through it, and you know, we're thinking

every relationship has its little moments of difficulty. And, you know, I hope that as time passes in 10 or 15 years, she can forgive me for that.

Did you let her know that this had occurred before the broadcast of the said affair? No, I mean, it's very hard to know how to bring something like that up. Isn't it?

By the way, darling, I'm having a 0.1 second affair on national television. Thought we should know.

Again, that's an awkward conversation. Yeah.

Did you enjoy doing the live tasks, Bubba? I did. I really did.
I did.

This one, it's a big one to start. Drink vinegar.
On your turn, you can either drink from one straw or not drink at all and get a clue from Alex instead.

You must stand on the spot when choosing your straw, and you must never stray from the spot. Only the vinegar drinker wins.
You approach this with some caution, I think, Bobby.

You seem to be quite worried to drink out of these straws. Hell yeah, vinegar is disgusting, bruv.

What would have been your worst thing?

Because we didn't really get through many of the drinks before Rosie won because she, without a clue, she managed to work out what a clue might be and go with the number 17.

And even though that wasn't the clue, she still got the right one, which was very, very impressive. I thought that was pretty amazing.
Yeah.

But if you'd worked your way through these bottles, we don't really know what was in the rest of the bottles. What would have been the absolute worst thing to have drunk by accident?

Oh, other than the vinegar, oh,

probably like

some type of

cheese sauce or something like I don't know how, because you know they can just put whatever in there, something like that. Because I hate cheese, I think it's disgusting.
So, like melted cheese, or

I would have just absolutely just, yeah, all over the place, bro. I don't think we even talked about this when you did off-media.
You don't like cheese. I hate cheese.

So, I said that real passionately, didn't I? No, you got to be passionate, but you know, I thought, I thought we got on really well, and it turns out we're completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

I love cheese. So, you love cheese, aren't you? Yeah, Ed, man.
What's wrong with you? Pizza, pizza. Do you like pizza? All right, so this is what we worked out.

No, no, just work. We did work this out.
Yeah,

apparently, I don't like cow's cheese.

So, mozzarella, that's uh bull, right? Buffalo, yeah, you can't, yeah, buffalo, yeah, buffalo mozzarella, yeah. Buffalo, yeah.

So, it so I can have halloumi, I can tolerate halloumi, yeah, and uh, mozzarella and American cheese, because that's just not that no one knows what that is.

So, those are the only things that I can tolerate. Other than that, when you start bringing out your blue cheeses and

then all these weird ass names that all these French people pick up the French, all these French people be like, oh yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That kind of stuff, I hate.

Bro, imagine I went to Paris, yeah.

I've gone to, what's this? I think it's Monet Prix or something. They're Sainsbury's, basically, yeah.

So I'm walking in the supermarket. I'm like, yo, who let one rip? This place stinks, bro.
I turn around.

It's not someone.

It was a whole row of cheese. I'm like, but it was like stacked from to the ceiling.
I'm like, brother, all of this for cheese? And it stinks, bro.

I've just remembered, we did talk about this on off-menu, and I've just remembered from the phrase, who let one rip?

Let's talk about the live task. Land your skydiver closest to the seal.
You must catapult your skydiver with the catapult. Furthest from the target, each round is eliminated.

Last player standing wins. Did you enjoy doing the live tasks, Jack? Yes, I enjoyed this one.
And there's one with a

there's one with a big round wheel that we click, you know, you have to sort of spin it round and see where you land. I quite like that.

Some of them are very complicated, and even I think even Alex felt a bit ashamed of them

as he was explaining them because they were very complicated and not wildly entertaining.

But I did enjoy the parachute one because I did a lot of that kind of thing when I was a child. Yeah, so

I had a I spent a lot of time on the garage roof

where I lived, and you could throw all sorts of stuff off the garage roof, including I love doing parachute stuff, yeah. And

I would put parachutes on my soldiers, make them out of hankies, and I got I was quite good at that. And at one point, I actually parachuted off the garage roof myself with an umbrella.

How did that go? Not well. I really hurt myself.

But you've been training for this task, essentially. For your whole life, you've been training for the military task.
I knew what I was doing. I just thought, I've got this.

I've got this. And

I could see the others were out of their depth.

Well,

it came down to you and Rosie, despite Emma getting one of them right on the seal, which was incredible.

But it came down to you and Rosie in the final, even though she wasn't confident it was going to go well. I don't think anyone else was confident that she was going to be able to nail this one.

But down to the final, laid a challenge at your feet saying,

if you want to beat a disabled girl, you do you. And you did do you, Jack.

I smashed it out of the park.

Absolutely loved it. And even more cruelly, it was one where it's five points for the winner and nothing for anyone else.
Yeah,

that was very satisfying, actually.

It was. The only way,

and Rosie is a fan of doing stuff like this, like really, really trying to make it awkward.

And the only way to get out of it is just to go into it headlong and unashamedly win. Totally, totally.

No, it's not, it's not, you can't, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, no one's taking any prisoners on this program.

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