Ep 176. Jack Dee - S18 Ep.5

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Your time starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast.

It's me, Ed Gamble, back again to talk about series 18 of Taskmaster, specifically episode 5.

We are halfway through the series.

What a series it is so far.

And I've got to say, so tight on the leaderboard.

Like

this is an evenly matched group of people.

Everyone's winning episodes.

We're going for it.

Who knows what way it will work out, but we're enjoying it along the way all the same.

Very excited to have one of the stars, one of the contestants on the current series of Taskmaster, the wonderful Jack D.

Very excited to speak to Jack about his Taskmaster experience, about this episode specifically, about his team dynamic with Rosie.

There's so many things to discuss.

We might just get on with it.

Hopefully, you've seen the episode.

If you've not, get yourself onto channel4.com to catch up on Taskmaster.

Better yet, watch it live 9pm every Thursday until the series is over.

And then come over here to listen to the podcast.

Make sure you go and see Jack on tour, by the way.

He's touring all over the place.

JackDcomedy.com for tickets.

And listen to his podcast with Sean Walsh.

Oh, my dog.

But without further ado, this is Taskmaster Series 18, episode 5, as discussed by Jack D.

Welcome, Jack, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Thank you very much, Ed.

It's yes, I didn't know there was a Taskmaster podcast.

I'm excited.

You're the only person in the country to not know, Jack.

This is the, well, it's the biggest podcast on the planet.

So I don't know what rock you've been living under, you know.

Extraordinary.

I barely knew that those podcasts existed until a couple of weeks ago, so I'm really

trying to catch up.

Well, good.

Well, we'll help you catch up on the absolute phenomenon that is the Taskmaster podcast.

Yeah, obviously, it comes off the back of the phenomenon that is Taskmaster, which everyone was very excited to see that you were finally doing.

Were you aware that you were Alex's answer in every interview for the past 17 series on who they wanted to get on the show?

I didn't know it was that desperate.

And

it's very flattering and I wasn't avoiding it for any reason other than it never quite sort of worked with

the other stuff I was doing.

And

this time it did and that and that in conjunction with my agent saying

you really must do this

and

so I did.

Yeah,

it wasn't a deliberate avoidance on my behalf.

Yeah, no, I'm sure.

But I know I'm sure Alex is very excited to finally have you on.

In fact, I'm, you know, I sense sometimes with Alex on the episodes we've seen so far,

not preferential treatment, but just

a slight adoration coming through to the surface.

Is that something you felt when you were filming it?

I can't say I did, no.

I think the tasks that I'm fat, I'm pretty sure some of the tasks I have were harder than what the others have.

I don't know fully how this thing works, but it seemed to me I was having quite a difficult time.

Do you think that was the task itself, or do you think that was the way you approached the tasks?

In fairness, it probably was me not with my task head on.

And I mean,

you can always sort of, hindsight's a great thing, but with that program,

it's quite easy just to sort of, you get given a task and you think, oh, I don't know about this one, I know, but actually,

they're all really important, and you have to give everyone the full effort.

And that's not my

default setting to you know, really try your best.

Yeah, I think when you announced for it, obviously, everyone was very excited, and they were saying, I can't wait to see how Jack approaches it.

He's going to be so grumpy about the whole thing, he's not going to want to do any of it.

But I have to say, there's a fair amount more enjoyment coming from you in some of the tasks people were expecting.

Yeah,

it was,

there's a very playful element about the whole show, obviously.

And if you're involved in the making of the show,

it does feel like,

in a sense, a lot of it felt like being back at school where you've got a really, you know,

a really sort of malleable supply teacher

Who you sort of can waste hours of time with.

And that's kind of what Alex is about, I think.

Yeah, I think that's a perfect description of him.

He's set some tasks that are pointless in terms of education.

He's just trying to fill time, and you can distract him.

Yeah, so

you almost want to say to him,

Oh, sir,

we usually play games on Fridays.

He would be the perfect sucker for that, I think.

But of course, you know, it is him setting it all, and

it's

very, very cleverly done.

It is.

I mean, it's a fantastic experience to film.

And I think

a lot of your enjoyment and a lot of your happiest moments seem to be when you're with Rosie

on a team.

Your team dynamic, I think, is absolutely perfect.

Oh, that's good to hear because I'm glad about that because obviously you don't know in advance what your team's going to be or who you're going to be with at all.

I don't even think I knew who else was on it, actually.

And so

when it's announced that you're going to be in a team

or when you meet your team mate, I think that can go one of two ways, can't it?

You either be

pleased by it and thinking, oh, this is all right,

this is good, or you can think, oh, this is going to be a bit of a nightmare.

And I was

the secret third option Jack which Bubba had where he didn't know who either of them were

I think yeah I think to be fair I think Emma might have been the same yeah yeah yeah

so and I didn't of course I know I knew who Rosie was but I didn't know her well and

and so it was a good it was a good pairing really I think there's there's a kind of

eccentricity that comes with Rosie that I I immediately relate to Definitely.

I mean, you say you didn't know each other well.

That surprises me a bit because she immediately starts speaking to you as if you've known each other for 30 years.

I know, I know.

Calling you Jackie.

I know, I know.

She's very, very forward.

But

really, you know, you know what it's like in this business.

It's part of the job.

You have to get to know people very, very quickly.

And, and, you know, and I wanted it to be, I wanted it to be on friendly terms rather than, you know, a big, big grudging thing.

I think everyone loved the moment where Rosie claims she can do a handstand,

and then when she obviously fails, you just go see.

I told you you can't do it.

I know.

I did find it unlikely, and

I was proved right.

So

I can't be accused of any form of prejudice there.

Let's talk about the prize task in this, which is episode five 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 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 and I and I can prove that it works and everything so

yeah the the video of you swimming in 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 realise in the course of the podcast.

How did you come to arrive at that as a as a as a fitness regime well with the rope attached to you yeah well when we uh we decided when there's gonna be we thought there's gonna be a heat wave last year in May and so I said I know how to fix this

we'll get this swimming pool

from which I bought on Amazon and then

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 and now most people in show business have them I've um

I've I gave I um Sandy Toxwig's got one because I she she was in pre intrigued and uh yeah 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

yeah that is most people in show business Totswig and Fry covers off all of show business it more or less does and uh i think i think if you get one uh 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 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.

Starting to, yeah, dazzle people with my rich and famous lifestyle, but no,

it's a plastic thing that someone delivered in a van.

No, I mean, if you're looking at it objectively, I think you're probably right.

The swimming pool is the best thing.

Yes.

When you add liquidity, certainly compared to, I mean, Rosie's, for example, Rosie flipped between being amazing at prize tasks and quite bad at prize tasks.

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 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 of jelly powder really, really, as 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 he apply that criteria to Andy's trampoline?

Well, you know.

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 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, in the end, we didn't care how he

because he came as things, he was a cricket player most of the time.

Yeah.

And then he just randomly turned up as.

It was, yeah,

it was what he did.

But in the end, I don't want to go up to him and say, oh, Andy,

tell us about this amazing outfit because he's obviously going to tell tell us in the studio anyway and

he sort of does he sort of does he sort of explains it but yeah I it was also I think he just was kind of in in in overdrive by then yeah just just trying everything he I think he is probably someone who didn't have a lot of friends when he was younger and and

and is getting getting the sort of dressing up thing out of his out of his system

did you did you know Andy before you did the show?

I didn't actually, no.

Obviously, I knew of him.

Yeah.

He's

very brilliant on News Quiz, isn't he?

And

so I like his voice.

I didn't know him, but yeah, I got to know him quite well on it.

Was it a good dynamic backstage?

Was everyone on good form?

It was.

I think everyone had their moments where

they hit rock bottom.

I don't think I did, but I think there were some recordings where w one one person if it's one person each week would be just a little bit more doer and downcast and I thought uh at one point I thought Babatunde had sort of given up the the will really with it

and uh and I I didn't know whether to sort of approach him and give him a fatherly you know chat or but I just in the end I left him to it because it's it's as his lookout, isn't it?

It's a competition after all.

I love that you as Jack D saying a lot of people had their their dour and down days yeah are you do you think because you sort of start at that is it easier then because you can build yourself up rather than ever dropping below yes i i i've never had a problem with like that kind of thing because i'm ultimately

i think i think what's been misunderstood all along is that i'm i'm um i'm a massive optimist yeah and the the downside of being an optimist is you can be quite easily disappointed because lots of things go wrong all the time yeah um so what my my task really was to make sure i got to the studio or on the days when we were met doing the tasks is that i arrived at the house and i was in absolute tip-top form and i think that comes across it definitely does yeah we should talk about emma's prize task which was she added liquid to her brother and got him drunk yes and got her to use watercolor pencils which she of course added liquid to i thought this was such a fantastic idea really well well thought through.

I thought it was brilliant.

Yeah, yeah.

It was typical of Emma's.

And I didn't know Emma before at all.

And

I really liked

how she thought that through.

But

it was very funny, and everyone followed the story and enjoyed that.

And

also,

it did sort of highlight

what a very, very poor effort Rosie had made that week.

But

rosie's as enthusiastic about her bad prizes as she is about her good ones oh she was yeah she threw herself behind that balloon idea couldn't showing the video laughing like no one could believe what was going on i i honestly i you hands hand it to her she absolutely commits even when she has a terrible idea she's totally on board with it and uh yeah

Just briefly on paintings, that's reminded me, we should talk about your Van Gogh painting.

Did you know beforehand how much you looked like Vincent Van Gogh or was it a surprise to you?

I've always thought,

you know, if ever there came an opportunity, I could show the world.

No, it was a complete surprise.

With Taskmaster,

one of the pleasures of it really is meeting all the art departments and the makeup and people who are just so into helping you achieve whatever you want to achieve.

And so when I said let's do that painting or dress me up like that,

it so happened I was wearing a coat that was exactly right for it.

And it so happened that Andy the director had a hat that was exactly right for it.

And

it so happened that Alex was wearing a toupee that I was able to use and just slip underneath the hat.

and

it gave the perfect look.

Even I was surprised how striking the similarity was.

I mean, that task in general, everyone did so well.

People were gasping in the studio.

Yeah, it was incredible.

I really did think it was extraordinary what they all came up with.

Again, Andy, didn't he did Guernica or something, didn't he?

Yes, he did.

Yes, yes.

I mean,

what an ambitious guy to do that.

Just, you know.

That's the framework.

I think when we were asked to do it, I think

almost as a joke, I said, you know, let's do Guernica, thinking that's the most ridiculous idea possible.

But yeah,

they all did really, really well.

And Baba Tunde did

a Banksy, didn't he?

He did, yeah.

And yeah, again, a stunning effort.

And yeah,

Emma's climbs was amazing as well.

Yeah.

Well, on this prize task, it was Baba with one point, Rosie with two points, three points for you, Jack, despite your claims that it was definitely the best one.

Andy's powdered trampoline gets four points, and Emma's Drunken Portrait gets five points.

So

how did you deal with it in the studio when you felt like you'd been underscored?

I just cling to the seat very tightly and try not to explode.

I think that's the smartest way of doing it.

I would explode every time, personally.

It's fine.

It's fine.

You know you can't i i'm i'm happy for emma i think that was i think that was uh the right way round uh but you know

even greg makes mistakes i suppose is what we what we come away with

oh baba all right just take your mind back to your childhood okay you're sitting at home okay right yeah and now your mum's just like would you like some dessert just for a second i thought you said your mum's a slack

i would not say that to you all right

yeah just take cast your mind back in the the day.

You're sitting at home, your mum's just like,

I did not say you use mums a stack.

Did you hear it?

He said it twice now, yeah.

Do you want to show them what I brought in?

Bubba's brought in jelly powder.

Cast your mind back.

Back in the day, back in the day.

You're in the garden, you're running around.

One of your parents

calls you in, and she's just like,

Let's talk about task one.

Direct the robot to its charging station and plug it in.

You must give the robot an instruction every 10 seconds.

The robot will ignore any instructions that contain the letters O or E.

You may not touch the robot.

Fastest wins.

Your time starts now.

How was this for you, Jack?

You know,

it was a good task, I thought.

And

everyone has made a big deal that I said pursuit

without realising that pursue has an E in it.

So

that was all it was.

So pursuit was

what I said.

Although I suppose I could have said, look, it's pursue, but I'm not spelling it with an E in my case.

But

yeah,

I don't think the robot would have followed that, though.

I think pursuit is your only option if that's what I'm saying.

If that's the base verb you're after.

I have to give credit here to little Alex Horne because he was a very, very good robot.

He was very good at that.

And

I mean, because you have to think quickly not to accept a wrong command in that situation.

And I mean, I think a lot of the time he doesn't get credit where it is due.

And

in that task, I think he actually knocked it out of the park.

And also,

you could see that he was quietly pleased with it.

And no one said well done Alex and sometimes sometimes everyone needs that so I'm gonna say it now well done Alex.

Well you're good at giving people their flowers Jack because of course you you toasted the whole crew with a a a champagne a glass of champagne a champagne toast didn't you yeah yeah yeah yeah

which I thought was lovely well I think it was the only thing I could think of really about with with bubbles without it becoming you know messy yeah

and and I was hoping it would be a proper drink but it wasn't it was alcohol free

What was really making me laugh in your effort in this was

every time

you were seemingly asking the robot where the plug was,

and Alex was just showing you the plug on the back.

And the more you asked, the more frustrating it got.

And then eventually you just ended up laughing because you just couldn't.

You were just so annoyed.

I was.

Yes,

you know, those things are designed to madden.

and

madden they did.

But

I think I got there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I came third in that, didn't I?

That one.

You did come third.

It was the second three points.

But I mean, it was fun to see Andy getting a genuine flap because he's normally a very in-control guy and pretty straight down the line.

But he, you know, for some reason, he gets the robot to sing

and then tries to make the robot eat its cables.

He makes it do star jumps.

He's all over the place, as Andy.

Yeah, he really, he lost the plot, really, didn't he?

Which is always fun to see.

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

Rosie didn't lose the plot because I think she lost the plot a long time ago, to be honest.

She walks the robot all the way over to a piece of cardboard in the corner of the garden, thinking that is the charging station.

I guess that is

the most confusing thing about this task, isn't it?

You've got to find the charging station before you leave the room.

I suppose you could go off and find it and then come back and get Alex, aka the robot.

I didn't think of that.

I just thought, well, you know, Alex is enjoying his role so much.

I don't want to leave him out of this while I go and find the thing.

But of course, you don't really know what you are looking for.

I mean, that's the truth of it.

You don't really know what you're looking for.

You never know when it could be a trick or something like that.

Loads of tricks.

Is that something you dealt with a lot when you were doing the tasks?

Then watching them back, did you think, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that?

And you just, it doesn't occur to you in the moment.

In the studio, you, when there are some, um,

there are some tasks where you genuinely are, you, I just, I was kicking myself for a day or so afterwards, thinking, yeah,

it is like, you know, like a crossword, you know, and you just can't get it, and then you find what the answer is, and

you're sort of hitting yourself because you know it was there all along, you should have guessed it.

And that, yeah, there are lots of tasks like that where you should have done better.

And somewhere I just, I, I just stopped trying.

Um,

There was one where we had to knock a load of cans down with balls.

Yes.

And it had to be a specific number of cans.

And Alex said, are you going to count the cans?

And so you know how many you've got left.

And

I just couldn't be bothered because

they're all lined up in triangles.

And so

it was just too much of a faff.

And looking back,

I wish I'd tried a bit harder in that respect.

Would it be fair to say you're not competitive then, Jack?

Well, I don't want it to sound like

kind of this is my alibi that I don't care.

Of course, I am competitive, but

at times

I couldn't suspend my disbelief constantly and make myself think this is terribly important.

But I should have,

I should have.

And of course, I am competitive in hindsight, thinking, you know, should have done this, should have done that.

Well, it's too late.

It's too late now, Jack.

It's all done.

It's all, it's all, yeah, it's all water under the bridge.

Yeah.

Baba does quite well.

He does it in 7 minutes, 39 seconds, but says he wanted to floor the robot.

He absolutely hated the robot.

Yeah.

He hit upon, I think the key with this is to hit upon a direction for the robot that works within the rules of the task straight away.

So he has this way, this way, which works perfectly.

Yeah, that works.

That's fine.

Yeah.

And

Emma just said things with lady at the end of them.

So she was saying, run, lady, turn lady.

Meaning herself.

Oh, that's okay.

So turn lady means turn to the lady, but she couldn't say turn to the lady.

To okay, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To and the.

So,

but

she loved the robot.

She seemed to really, really be into the robot.

She describes it, I think, as platonic arousal.

Yes, you know, it takes all sorts.

And

it's, I think Alex is, yeah,

he's got that thing about him, hasn't he?

He had a twinkle in his eye that day, that's for sure.

He's certainly got something about him, for sure, yeah.

No, I think this task would have absolutely maddened me because not only was Alex sticking to the rules like religiously with the words, he was also sometimes doing things deliberately to get on people's nerves, I think.

I think there was a little bit of that, a little bit of mischievousness that he was perhaps enjoying more than he should have done

in what is supposed to be a family-friendly show.

Yeah.

But it was Andy who took the longest and gets one point.

Rosie gets two points.

You get three points, Jack.

Four points for Baba and five points for Emma.

Very strong showing from Emma there.

It was, yeah.

Hi, Alex.

Robert.

Robert.

Robert.

Robert.

Your name is Robot.

Robert.

Robert.

Task two.

This is one of my favourites in a while, I think.

Make the strongest smell.

You must seal your smell in this jar, and the taskmaster will open it in the studio.

You have 20 minutes.

Your time starts now.

And of course, the part that only Emma read, which is, you must smell your smell in the studio before the taskmaster smells your smell.

If you refuse to smell your smell, the taskmaster will not smell your smell and you will receive zero points.

I love little, it happens so rarely in Taskmaster, but something where you plan it months in advance and it only comes to fruition in the studio.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I was quietly, well, I was just interested.

So I was excited and interested with mine

because as soon as I walked out the door, it just

there happened to be one of those hideous electronic air fresheners.

I just had this idea if I could fit that into the jar and leave it on

and just let it let it you know just keep pumping the stuff out for the two months it took before we get in the studio and see what happened i i don't know if they were being telling the truth but they said that they they were they had some health and safety worries about it and had to had to open the jar at some point with uh you know someone in a in a you know a bomb-proof suit or something to make sure this thing was just pushing if you think about it it would be creating gas within a sealed canister.

Yeah.

It's potentially dangerous, you know, and I wouldn't have wanted anyone to get hurt.

No, of course not.

But, you know,

it was a lovely, lovely idea.

I mean, it felt quite outside the box as well, because I think the route one thing to do, and my first thing I probably would have done, is what Rosie did, which is pack in as many sort of

like objects and

foodstuffs that are going to rot very quickly.

That's right, yeah, yeah.

I think, yes, I mean,

that was obviously my first thought, but

I always like to not go for messy things, you know.

And I suppose if I'd done eggs, though, I would have just maybe cracked two eggs into a jar and left it at that.

The mistake I think she made was

effectively diluting the effect of the egg by putting all sorts of other stuff in there.

But just

an egg.

in a kilner jar left for three months would have been cracked open of course That might have been absolutely lethal.

Yeah, that could have been awful.

Because if you think about it, when you buy a pre-packaged hard-boiled egg, even

the smell that comes out of that when you first open it.

That is just, it's just not worth talking about it, is it?

Yeah, that is a motorway services snack, isn't it?

And you have to have the car windows open before you open that thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I was on tour not three days ago, and my supporter at chloe pets bought an egg and bean pot from marks and spencer's opened it in the car and it was it was absolutely rancid i think that that that is really inexcusable and i hope i hope you left her at the next service station yes she's been fired yeah um but yeah no i thought the air freshening was was really outside the box and really interesting and obviously that would work when you think about it because those things are designed to go for months aren't they just

spritzing a tiny little bit into a massive room making and and it is a it's also in its own very unique way.

It's a vile smell,

whatever the scent is, if it's you know, if it's you know, meadow or you know, ocean glade or whatever they call it.

Um, but because you associate that smell with being in a lavatory anyway, yeah, um, you're just your brain is always thinking this is masking the smell of something far worse, and therefore making a nasty thing even nastier.

Yeah, so yeah, it's a mental thing that makes it.

That's a very good point.

Yeah, well, it's obviously

the strongest smell.

Greg is very hot on the idea that it has to be the strongest smell because I think there are more unpleasant smells.

For example, Andy's, I mean, you all seem to, you all recoil, and you're sat many, many feet away from it.

Yeah.

Mouthwash and vinegar and grated rubber boots.

Yes, that's...

Yeah, that's it.

Yes, I can remember he just put all that in.

But the thing is, that's never going to get worse than it is when you put it in the jar, I don't think.

Yeah.

And in a sense, vinegar will have pickled it and sort of

stopped it from getting worse.

It would have just ended up like a sort of very rare Chinese dish or something.

I think at one point, Alex does say,

to Andy, you are putting in things that...

are designed to get rid of bad smells because he's just pouring in things from the bathroom cupboard.

Yes, quite.

Yeah, but it does seem to it seems to hit all of the contestants, which I

thought was quite impressive.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about Rosie's, because I thought this was going to be disgusting when she put everything in.

She called it Eggie Milky Cheesy Surprise.

She's so excited about it.

She said she's been thinking about it every other day since she did it.

And then she opens it up, smells it.

There's nothing there.

There's nothing to it.

No, it seemed to have just gone...

done its own thing.

So

perhaps a scientist would be able to tell you that,

what the forensics are on a thing like that.

But yeah, no, it was a big disappointment of the evening.

Or a huge bonus.

I think it would have been.

Imagine it, because I think I would have gone fish, maybe.

Yeah.

Fish would have been interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, like just a bit of raw fish, if that was knocking around,

could have been really bad.

Bubba's was interesting.

He used coffee and Marmite, which to me just smells like breakfast, I think.

Yeah, I would have thought so.

Maybe he just

didn't sort of spend long enough looking around the house to see what there was.

Yeah.

But

I think also he doesn't like Marmite crucially, which means he thinks that's a strong, horrible smell.

Well, famously, he's, you know, that's going to split the jury anyway.

Split the room.

But yeah, I think, again, it's about strength, so he ends up doing quite well there.

Whereas Emma,

I don't know what Emma was thinking with this, because she uses some perfume, some tea, and some citrus fruits.

Yeah.

So that just, that's all right.

That smells just

lovely.

It's like

your nan's front room, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But

not like you did, which Greg says is like his nan's come back to life.

Not as intense.

Not as intense as a nan's front room.

Emma's is very mild.

Greg says it's mild and spa-like.

Ah, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, you know, she's, yeah, I think she probably

missed a trick there.

Yeah.

But then

Emma will have read it carefully and will have noticed that it said the stronger smell.

So she wasn't going for nasty.

Yeah.

Which is, you know.

And she was the only one to read that she had to smell it in the studio.

So I wonder if that affected what she put into the jar.

Could have been, could have been, yes.

And

I didn't read that.

I can't remember seeing that bit of it.

No, she was the only one.

All the rest of you just went straight to the fridge or just went and caught an air freshener out the wall, just storming ahead.

Um, but no, this it was really fun to watch Greg smell all these things.

He, what a horrible job he had.

Yeah, um, one point for Rosie, two points for Emma, three points for Andy, four points for Baba, and of course, five points for your air freshener, Jack.

Yes, yes, I was pleased with that.

It is just strongest smell, that's all we want.

Strongest, right?

So it doesn't have to be foul.

Strongest smell, you monster.

Happy your birthday.

I've

Rosie called it eggy milky cheesy surprise.

The only surprise is going to be, as well as puking, am I going to ship myself?

Let's talk about task three, which is present the heartwarming final story for a local news program.

You have half an hour, and your story must last no more than two minutes.

Your time starts now.

Another team task, of course.

Yes, me and Rosie.

We,

yeah, I felt that those

heartwarming final stories on the news are always about, aren't they?

They're always, and finally, a baby panda's been born or whatever it is.

There's a lot of small animals.

It often is little small animals or people finding each other again or something.

And I think ours had a ring of truth about it.

Even if it was, yeah,

I thought we did okay with that, and I don't know, again, I was a bit surprised

by the harsh judging on that.

Yeah, I was surprised by that.

I think Greg in the end says he prefers Andy Emma and Bubba's because they did

the local woman becoming the oldest woman to win the tour de France, and there's some insinuations that she's been doping, which to me is not a feel-good story if you're into that.

No, it's not what they wouldn't finish on that, would they?

No,

you wouldn't go.

And finally, a grandmother has been found guilty of cheating

and becoming a drug addict.

But I think what Greg liked about it was Isabella Cratchinton, Andy dressed up as the old lady.

I think that's what gave them the edge.

Yes.

Whereas I was a big fan of your newsreader character with the light on.

I felt he was a good,

yeah, it was a kind of.

I got that from every sort of local.

I love watching local news

more than the actual news.

And I actually sometimes try to make sure I miss the actual news just to see the local news.

Because

it's usually something about a school that's going to have a new roof.

And that's the sort of level of news that I can engage with.

I can't do geopolitics.

So

I felt that what I gave was pretty accurate from what I'd experienced of local newsreaders.

I thought it was bang on.

I thought your character looked a lot like Van Gogh, but apart from that,

and there was a lot of interplay between you and Rosie's character.

Yes, there is.

A lot of hatred.

So

you put in some backstory there.

Well,

we're trying to capture that thing.

You know, when there are various couples who present the news

during the day,

and they all, I think they all kind of, there's a sort of

an undercurrent of hatred between them always, isn't there?

Yeah, that

they don't laugh at each other's little quips or that they all just slightly undercut each other.

And I've always, I always, that's what I watch it for anyway.

I like that.

There's also always a sense that either the person

doing the outside broadcast is angry to be out in the cold or they think they're more of a proper journalist than the person in the studio.

For being exactly, even if they're just reporting from

a soup kitchen or something, it's not.

Yeah,

you can see that they're like, yeah, this is proper journalism.

I always remember on News Round, the children, the CBBC news programme, that Lizo Mazumba was the Harry Potter correspondent, and he was not happy to be given that role.

Yeah, that doesn't sound good on your CV, does it?

No,

that's not why you did a degree to do that, to be honest.

No.

So unfortunately, you did get one less point, but you still got three points.

I thought

that was a solid effort.

But it was four points for Andy, Emmett, and Bubba's Croydon Today Isabella Crutchington cycling champion news story.

Even though Andy's first suggestion for a heartwarming story is barbecuing some hearts because it's literally heartwarming.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, okay.

Yeah.

That's classic Zaltzmann.

He did so many things like this, like the Soul, the Soul Prize, where it was a

soul in a soul in a soul.

Yeah, he brought all sorts of stuff in like that.

Yes, either a pun or being very literal about things

is quite strange.

But no, I'm glad they didn't do that.

Glad they didn't barbecue a heart.

So three points for you and Rosie, and four points for Andy, Emma, and Bubba.

It's very good.

Very good.

I think Andy was very, you were sort of very inspired by this story.

Yeah, I've taken up road cycling and I've won the Tour de France myself.

Have you?

I think that Isabella Crutchington looks younger than Andy.

It's probably their blood doping.

We don't generally see real news anchors going, there's more I can tell you about that but I won't.

Yes!

They don't say it with words, but they do say it with their eyes Greg.

Theona Bruce definitely says that with her eyes.

Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Let's talk about the live task.

Land your skydiver 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, Joe?

Yes, I enjoyed this one.

And there's one with a...

There was one with a big round wheel that we clicked, 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 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 loved doing parachute stuff.

And I would put parachutes on my soldiers, make them out of hankies.

And 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 a parachute 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.

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

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

Totally, totally.

Oh, 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.

And, uh, no, yeah, so uh

now we should talk about this tiebreak because it ends up with you and Emma, who both have 19 points at the end of the episode.

Yeah, we see a tiebreaker, which obviously you film in advance.

Were you aware when you were filming the different selection of tiebreakers that that's what they were being used for?

No, I don't think I was, really.

I don't think I was.

Or if I was, I thought, well, what are the chances of that being used?

You know, so I did, I think it's fair to say I did not approach those tiebreaker tasks with my usual Ilan.

Yeah, I would say that might be true of this one, which was how many days old will Alex be on Christmas Day 2024?

That's really difficult.

It's difficult.

And with a thing like that, if you're going to go through all the mental gymnastics of working it out,

you've got to care about the answer, haven't you?

And

I don't care how old he's going to be then.

So I was working against that as well as it being quite a difficult sum to do in your head and also you have to look at him in the eye don't you do you can't take your eyes off him yes that's and he and he's talking to you

and um and i just all of these things put together um

just forced me to the conclusion that i had to give up i love i it's so rare you see on taskmaster that a contestant actually just give up because

Especially in a task like this where Alex says, do you have a guess?

You could have said anything as a guess and that wouldn't have been giving up.

And you went, No, I'm not even going to give you a guess.

I give up.

That's what giving up is.

You could have said four and walked out the room, but no, you refused to give him an answer.

No, and

you know, it's

I hope I don't, for the sake of the future of the programme, I don't, I hope I haven't set a trend that others will follow.

I mean, I think Andy gave up on one maybe last week,

the pick-in-the-pocket one.

I think Andy drops out of but no it's very rare to see anyone give up on anything but no I don't think you've set a trend I think

I think that is I think only you can get away with that Jack I'll say that yeah well I I I'm I'm not I'm not proud of it either because I've always I've always sort of brought my kids up to say never give up and that you know always do your best and everything like that but on that occasion I just I'd I

just sort of I'd reached my moment where it was the nadir of it for me you know um are you how old are are your kids, Jack?

Are they Taskmaster fans?

Well,

they are Taskmaster fans, and so they range, you know, 20s, they're in their 20s and early 30s now.

So they are more than aware of it and have been for a long time.

So it's too late, you know, if they saw you giving up, it's not like it had it damaged them moving forward.

It's too late by now.

I hope not.

I mean,

they haven't talked to me much since, you know, so it's,

I don't know if I've disillusioned them and they just think, oh, it turns out he's a bit of a loser, actually.

He just gave up.

He quit.

Well, Emma did not give up and quit.

She guesses 17,223, which is so close.

The actual answer is 17,530.

But what I love about it is all her victory is stripped away by the fact she would have won if she'd said two because you just gave up.

But also, don't you think

it's weird to get that close but not get it right?

Yeah, I see what you mean.

Yeah, she was so in the ballpark.

She's so right.

She was obviously doing the right kind of calculation, but not getting it quite right.

But, you know,

I can't quibble.

She at least she had a go.

Yeah,

you can't criticise her on this occasion, Joe.

But as you say,

she could have said five

and still won.

So the victory was to Emma.

You came in second place with 19 points.

Baba gets 15 points.

Andy gets 13 points.

And Rosie gets 12 points.

I mean, this sort of sums up with how the

series has been going.

If we just look at the series scores now, you are in the lead with 84, Baba on 77, Emma on 76, Andy on 73, Rosie on 71.

I don't think there's been a series that's been this close at this stage, Joe.

Ah, well,

I don't know.

I haven't watched enough to know

how unusual or usual that is, but I think we were all pretty, we were all kind of, yeah, taking our turns to be in front, it seemed.

Yeah, because I think this is episode five, and I think you've all won an episode.

Yeah, so you wouldn't want to call it at this point, would you, really?

Yeah, so you've, I mean, you've all been either equally good or equally bad.

We can't quite work it out yet.

What is one of the two?

Now, Jack, we must talk about the fact that you are on tour.

You're on tour.

I'm told it's mostly sold out, but there are a few tickets with dates.

Where are you off to on tour?

Which ones have you got most?

Everywhere.

Well, I don't know.

The early ones have sold quickly, which is very rewarding.

But I know that there's places like Southampton that I'm going to, and it can be a bit more difficult to budge tickets occasionally there.

I honestly don't know.

I'm going everywhere.

Going everywhere.

I am going everywhere.

And if anyone wants to come and see me, the chances are I'll be somewhere very near you.

So yeah, that that would be lovely.

I hope people will come out and be

able to see them.

Are you ready for the new influx of people coming to your shows who watched you on Taskmaster?

We'll have a lot of questions about Taskmaster.

Is there a Taskmaster effect that people

are good?

They'll be there.

Yeah, good.

Well,

I'm looking forward to that and hopefully maybe meet some of them as well.

But

it's a great thing.

It feels as though,

from what you're saying, it's a bit like if you're on Doctor Who or something.

If you're in Doctor Who and then you get invited to conventions and stuff,

and maybe there will be a Taskmaster convention.

They'll start happening so that by the time I'm in my 70s,

I could spend my retirement just going to Taskmaster conventions and talking about it.

I hope that will happen.

I mean,

I'll see you there.

That's going to be my life as well.

That's

the one that's going to be jackdcomedy.com for tickets um you also we should mention you have a podcast with the brilliant sean walsh called oh my dog i do yes thank you about dogs it always i always laugh when people call it that because it was sean walsh's idea that podcast so it pleases me enormously when people say you have a podcast with sean walsh

yes you you are you are kind enough to let sean walsh guest on your podcast oh my dog exactly yeah yeah so yeah it was you know it was his idea and uh we

we both have dogs and

thought we'd try and monetize it somehow.

Thank you for being honest about podcasting.

Thank you so much for coming on the Taskmaster podcast, John.

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

We hope you've had a good time, but please give us a point score today.

Oh, no, it's a five.

It's an absolute five.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

We will take that five gladly.

Well, as you know, I know how much it hurts not to get a five, so I couldn't do that to anyone, even though Greg can.

Thank you so much, Jack.

Cheers, Ed.

Thank you so much to Jack for coming on the podcast.

Absolutely love that chat.

Jack is a total legend,

which, you know, I hesitate to call people icons or legends because it sounds like I'm saying they're old, but I suppose he is.

But thank you so much to Jack for coming on.

We'll be back next week to talk about Series 18, Episode 6.

We have another special guest, and our special guest next week is not a contestant on the current series of Taskmaster.

Why, no, they're a contestant on the last series of Taskmaster.

The brilliant Sophie Willen will be coming on to talk about the next episode of Taskmaster.

Don't forget to watch live channel 4, 9 p.m.

on Thursday, and come straight back here to listen to the podcast.

Goodbye.