Paul F. Tompkins - Series 20 Ep. 9

Transcript

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Speaker 2 Hello, and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble.
Of course, it is. Who else would it be? And rather excitingly, today we will be talking about Taskmaster Series 20, episode 9.

Speaker 2 We are so close to the end, guys. What an incredible series it's been.
What an amazing series.

Speaker 2 loved series 19 so much a difficult act to follow and i think this has done it with flying colors an incredible lineup you've met some incredible new comedians that you might not have known before and this episode is a belter as all the rest of them have been and we have a very special guest for this episode it is the wonderful one of my favorite comedians in the world the brilliant paul f Tompkins Paul has been on the podcast a couple of times before.

Speaker 2 He is fantastic. He's a fan of Taskmaster.
but this time he was in the UK. We interviewed Paul in the caravan and what a delight it was.
You're going to love this episode.

Speaker 2 Chatting all things Taskmaster, all things Taskmaster Series 20 and All Things Taskmaster Series 20 episode 9. You're going to love it.

Speaker 2 If you haven't seen episode 9, of course, go to channel 4.com, watch it, then come back and listen to this, but you know that drill by now.

Speaker 2 Just enjoy it, guys.

Speaker 2 I mean, in terms of Paul's stuff, I've said it before. Go and listen to all his stand-up comedy albums.

Speaker 2 Go and watch his episode of Very Important People, which is a recommended show anyway, but his particular episode of it, I won't tell you anything about it. Just go and watch the show.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 2 Let's get on with it. This is Taskmaster Series 20, episode 9, as discussed by Paul F.
Tompkins.

Speaker 2 Welcome back, Paul, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Speaker 2 Thank you for having me. What a dream.
It is.

Speaker 2 It's a lovely dream to have you in the caravan because, of course, we've only ever done these over over zoom correct um and i feel like we've laid on the ultimate british experience for you today because a we're in a caravan and b it is pissing it down raining it is indeed and to me it's that is the full experience it's what's been in the brochure

Speaker 2 and uh i also think it's very cozy yes um and i think that people watching this listening to this are probably drifting off to sleep already i know it's the it's the rain sounds because you know if i need to get to sleep i i might pop on some rain sounds of course Very rarely will I be speaking over the rain sounds.

Speaker 2 That won't get me to sleep. But I feel like this is the one that's going to knock people out.
I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I also think that if it stops raining, we should just start chewing.

Speaker 2 So there's no interruption in the ASMR. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Is

Speaker 2 the chewing, does that put you to sleep?

Speaker 2 It puts me right out.

Speaker 2 I've never made it through dinner.

Speaker 2 Your own chewing can send you to sleep.

Speaker 2 And to add to the British experience, there's now a van reversing down the driveway. As it should be.
Yeah. This is absolute chaos, Paul.
And I apologize. It's quite all right.

Speaker 2 Do you know I live in America? Yes. Yes.
Yes.

Speaker 2 You don't need to apologize for absolute chaos.

Speaker 2 Now, we're watching series 20, obviously. How are you enjoying it so far? We're going to be talking about episode 9.
Absolutely loving it. It is

Speaker 2 one of my favorites. And I mean, it's hard to say because I love the show and it weirdly gets better and better as it goes.
And, you know, it's such an imaginative team. And

Speaker 2 it's wild. It's one of those things you expect, is this the one that I'm not going to like?

Speaker 2 For a while, for me, it was Wes Anderson Films. Yes.
Where I was like, I keep going in thinking I'm not going to like this one. Yeah.
And then I like it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, it's a tremendous season. It's a tremendous lineup.
And I am very much looking forward to talking about it. So this lineup, how many of them were you aware of before

Speaker 2 you started watching? I think

Speaker 2 Phil and Annia are new to me. Yes.
But it feels like they've lived in my heart forever.

Speaker 2 But everybody else, yes, I was familiar with. Fantastic.
And

Speaker 2 it's a tremendous group. Now, of course, there's no Americans on this series, but

Speaker 2 we had an American on the last series. Did you?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 You're well aware of this, Paul. I don't know if I saw that.

Speaker 2 Did I see that? Well, you tweeted about it. I've got a tweet here.
You tweeted about Jason Manzuka's being on Taskmaster.

Speaker 2 Jason Manzukas? Yeah.

Speaker 2 How are you feeling? Check that out. How are you feeling about that, Paul? Now you've just found this out.
I'm going to say good for him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 No tension, no tension.

Speaker 2 No, why would there be? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Why would there be tension?

Speaker 2 Well, it's quite a specific tweet, actually.

Speaker 2 You're going to have to explain the tweet to me. I'd love to.
Now I know how Shiana. Sheena.

Speaker 2 sheena felt when ariana got dancing with the stars yeah take me through that one by one this is a reference vibe this is a reference to the reality program uh vanderpump rules

Speaker 2 and there's an episode where

Speaker 2 ariana who became uh uh very celebrated because she was cheated on by tom

Speaker 2 Sandoval. I almost said Scandoval.
It was called Scandoval. Okay.
What happened? Yep. Tom Sandoval.

Speaker 2 And it was an earth-shaking scandal for the show.

Speaker 2 And he was completely in the wrong.

Speaker 2 And so everyone loved her. And then she was invited on Dancing with the Stars.
Well, it turns out, and we did not know this,

Speaker 2 Sheena, another cast member, her dream was to do Dancing with the Stars. And then Ariana gets picked over her.

Speaker 2 She wasn't even considered. Yeah.
Then Ariana gets cheated on. She gets to go on Dancing with the Stars.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 of course, I knew in advance.

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 I had to when it was, I was waiting for it to be announced so

Speaker 2 I could put that out there.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 let's talk more about Vanderpump Rules.

Speaker 2 I've met Lisa Vanderpump. How do you feel about that? I love Lisa Vanderpump.
Yes. I love her.

Speaker 2 Are you friends with her? No.

Speaker 2 Never met the woman, but a fan of hers from the show.

Speaker 2 and her ruthlessness in

Speaker 2 making as much money as she could off of these poor people's lives. Yeah, really.
I mean,

Speaker 2 I've seen bits of Vanderpunt Ruhl's. Obviously, a big fan of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where she found her fame.
Yes.

Speaker 2 I met her when I was doing a show where I was pretending to be a member of the royal family. Which I've seen.
Thank you. Yes.

Speaker 2 And we went and interviewed her. And she is one of the only people who called us out on it.

Speaker 2 During filming, went, this is a joke. Yeah.
You're not in the royal family. Don't bullshit a bullshitter.
No. Yeah.
Don't bullshit a bullshitter.

Speaker 2 The only other person to call us out was Gwyneth Paltrow's guru.

Speaker 2 And I think that don't bullshit a bullshitter goes for that. Supplies? Yes, absolutely.
Well, enough about that. Let's talk about Taskmaster.

Speaker 2 Now that the American Forbidden Door is opened up,

Speaker 2 of course, there must be some hope that

Speaker 2 you're going to pop yourself over. Hope Springs Eternal.
Or are we waiting on the hopefully inevitable American Commission? We talked about this.

Speaker 2 I believe on the last episode we did, I suggested you'd be a good assistant. And you got quite angry with me and said, why did you say that I would be a good assistant?

Speaker 2 Because I feel like you'd be a good assistant. No, but there was a reason why you said I couldn't be the taskmaster.

Speaker 2 Too friendly, maybe? Yeah, fuck you.

Speaker 2 How's that? That's my audition. Yeah, that's good.
Also, I think you're always a very well-dressed man and you dress quite distinctly. And I feel like that plays in perfectly to be an assistant.

Speaker 2 And also, I think you'd want to be on site for the whole thing. I don't think you'd want to just drop in for the studios.
You're out of your mind.

Speaker 2 Why would I want to be standing there watching people do these things? But you could comment on it, Riley. I could do that in the studio, too.
Yeah, that's true, actually. That's part of the job.

Speaker 2 After it's all edited.

Speaker 2 What better than to sit in here and say, look at these dumbasses? I think I've misjudged your character, Paul. I think you have.

Speaker 2 I thought you'd be quite an enthusiastic assistant. Turns out, no, you just want to do the studios and be horrible to people to their faces.

Speaker 2 No offense.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about the prize task in this episode. Episode nine of series 20.
The most respectable item that retains its credibility when you talk about it in a high-pitched voice.

Speaker 2 Just when I thought they'd run out of prize task categories.

Speaker 2 They come through with the high-pitched voice.

Speaker 2 Did anything jump to your mind straight away, Paul, that you thought I've got something that would be perfect for that? And how is your high-pitched voice, of course?

Speaker 2 Oh, I think it's pretty good. Yeah, that is good.

Speaker 2 I didn't have an idea.

Speaker 2 This was not one where I put myself in the show. Okay.

Speaker 2 Some of the prize tasks for sure. Yeah.
But this one, I just,

Speaker 2 I think because it started with Maisie,

Speaker 2 who

Speaker 2 Maisie has been, I think, so good at the prize tasks. Really, really inventive and

Speaker 2 clever and funny. And then this one, it's like that,

Speaker 2 this is something you could get very cheaply on eBay. Yes.
Right? Yeah, oh, God. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think she, she certainly didn't have an anecdote about meeting Alad Jones. No.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. If there had been a video of him signing it to her and all that, but

Speaker 2 no, there was no, there was no to Maisie. It was just Alad Jones.
Just the signature. Yeah.
Not to anyone. Not even to Greg.

Speaker 2 So she's just gone, she's thought about that. She's gone, I'm going to get a photo of Alad Jones.
Yes. And I will not go into the double digits price-wise.
Yeah, yeah. I'm ordering this online.

Speaker 2 How aware were you of Alad Jones's voice? Zero. No, yeah, yeah.
Zero awareness.

Speaker 2 He sang a song, but then he wasn't the one who sang it in the movie. You see, I didn't know that.
I was piecing this together by context clips. So the Snowman is an animated film.
Oh, not the one. No.

Speaker 2 Mr. Police, I gave you all the clues.
No, no, no, no, not that one. No, imagine if that song was in that.
That would not, that would not work.

Speaker 2 It's close to a lot of our hearts in the UK. It's sort of a very Christmassy film.
It's about a snowman that comes to life and flies around with a young boy.

Speaker 2 The more I say it, the more sinister it is. Well, there's also Frosty of the Snowman.
Frosty, there's Frosty of the Snowman. The Snowman who comes to life.
Yeah, but we're not really into Frosty.

Speaker 2 We like the snowman from Raymond Briggs is the snowman. How old is the snowman? It's pretty old.
Yeah. 60s? 60s? 60s, I think.
60s, okay. Yeah.
How old's frosty

Speaker 2 the song is pretty old yeah the animated version which is i don't think very beloved in the states um but they still show it yeah christmas you get the same shit every year and you shut your mouth about it

Speaker 2 we're rolling it all out again gay same song same shows it's the same thing here but i do think that the snowman is a sort of it's a wonderful sort of heartwarming film although as i said it is about a snowman that comes to life and sort of kidnaps a boy

Speaker 2 but but the boy is a willing participant? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's exciting.
Yeah, he's flying. He goes flying with the snowman, and then the snowman...
The snowman just can fly.

Speaker 2 He just possesses the ability to fly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Are you not happy with that? Well, I don't know. I like when there's a thing that enables them to fly.

Speaker 2 Well, I can hold on to this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I can't necessarily remember the details. There might be some sort of magic powder.

Speaker 2 Isn't snow a magic powder when you think about it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And thank you.

Speaker 2 But yes, this is Ala Jones, who sings Walking in the Air, I believe, on the single version, but not necessarily on the film version.

Speaker 2 A detail that undermines Maisie's prize task even more.

Speaker 2 Because I don't think I love Ala Jones, but I don't think he's credible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, what does, I mean, she says he's a national treasure. Yeah, but that's not credible.
No, national treasures. I think if you're a national treasure, you're immediately not credible.
Right.

Speaker 2 Credibility is a very slippery word in this context. because what does that mean? Credible is believable

Speaker 2 or it is something that is sort of established that,

Speaker 2 I don't know, then somebody brought in a gravestone. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 But I think of it like cool and

Speaker 2 never violated their own principles, you know, like. Interesting.
Yeah. I would not have arrived there.
Oh, would you not? And I didn't. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's the proof. Like a credible band or a credible comedian or, you know, street cred even.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Now we're talking about a different kind of thing.
Yes. Yeah.
But I feel like there's, it was all there to be used. Yeah.
Different meanings of credibility.

Speaker 2 And I don't think any of them actually used any meaning of credibility. No, I don't think so.
No. Certainly not Sanjeev, who brought in a book of kittens and puppies with a fluffy cat with fur.

Speaker 2 I absolutely did not understand that.

Speaker 2 And I've watched it twice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The second time, even less understandable than the first time. Well, no one understands it.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he didn't explain it. He didn't explain it.
He didn't want to. He just kept saying, look at how cute this one is.

Speaker 2 I think at this point in the series, we're all just grateful he's not brought in his own piss again.

Speaker 2 Still one more episode to go. Yeah, still one more.
Fingers crossed. We'll get some more piss.

Speaker 2 But yeah, this felt like watching a man have a full mental breakdown.

Speaker 2 It really is. He has his good days and his bad days.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Sanjeev, what are you talking about? He's like, kittens and puppies.

Speaker 2 And then the back. What did he say? This

Speaker 2 ups it or this seals it or this confirms it? He's like, oh, there's another one on the back. Yeah.
Yeah. And there's sort of like a weird fuzzy thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
And I think he'd added, had he added that? It seemed like he had. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It seemed like he had. He's going, that's not credible enough, this kittens and puppies book.
I'm going to have to make my own crude cat head and stick it on the back. And then it's five points.

Speaker 2 It was one point, in case anyone's wondering. Um, Anya, I mean, again, this feels like they've all brought in prize things that were left over

Speaker 2 before they got the categories, and they're like, I'm gonna have to cry by this in somewhere. Because Anya brings in a rug that's modeled on the Boots branch in Piccadilly Circus.

Speaker 2 Yes, I have to say that rug was very impressive.

Speaker 2 She made it, yeah, she said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was impressive.
I don't think it's got anything to do with.

Speaker 2 I loved her explanation, though. Yeah, that boots has taken the place of church in our modern society.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That feels good. I bought that.
More people go to Boots than go to church. Absolutely.
And Boots is for everyone. Boots is second.
It's a non-denominational. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Have you been to Boots while you've been here? I have. Of course I have.
First up.

Speaker 2 Have you been to the Piccadilly Circus Boots? Of course I have. First stop.

Speaker 2 Two floors.

Speaker 2 Got out of the airport. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Left the doors of Heathrow and said, take me to Boots Piccadilly.

Speaker 2 And the taxi driver was like, I know, that's what everyone does. I was going to.
Yeah, I'm going there anyway. You don't have to pay for this cab.
I'm on my way there now.

Speaker 2 Come on.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 it was a beautiful rug, and I did enjoy her saying Piccadilly Circus in a high voice. The high voice thing feels like it's quite Greg-coded.
And I think this because...

Speaker 2 I helped Greg write his sitcom Man Down

Speaker 2 for a few seasons.

Speaker 2 Thank you. I was paid.
Oh. And I got a part in it as well, which is where this story goes.
That's it.

Speaker 2 I wrote myself a part in it playing a

Speaker 2 thank you.

Speaker 2 Actually, the original part I wrote myself in it, Greg then decided it was not me

Speaker 2 and changed the part. So he was like, well, I've got you another part, and you're playing Peter, the Christian man.

Speaker 2 at the church who looks after Greg's character and shows him how to garden.

Speaker 2 And then I still had to audition for it, even though I wrote the character. Fair, fair.

Speaker 2 And I arrived on the morning of the audition, and in the script, Greg had gone in and changed the character to have a long beard and a very high voice.

Speaker 2 So on the fly, I just had to do that very high voice. And it's out there, you know, that's who the character was.
The beard was down to about like belly button level. It's a long beard.

Speaker 2 It's a long beard. And I had to speak like this for the whole thing.

Speaker 2 So I think Greg would have enjoyed this. He finds that very funny.

Speaker 2 Making people have a high voice. It is funny.
It is funny.

Speaker 2 We enjoyed the boots rug.

Speaker 2 Reese brings in, I love this. Actually, let's talk about Phil first.
Phil brings in his Nana's headstone.

Speaker 2 So I couldn't quite...

Speaker 2 His Nana didn't have a headstone, so this is one he's made for her. Yes.
Phil's life...

Speaker 2 Every time I'm surprised by it, but also not surprised by it. You know, I'm sure that you know people like this, where

Speaker 2 they tell a lot of stories, and a lot of them you think like, yeah, okay. Yeah.
And then there's some people

Speaker 2 that you immediately know, no, this happened. Yeah.
This actually happened. And I did not doubt for a second that all of that was true.
His auntie's buried on top of his grandma. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 With the two Chihuahuas.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I did love, I love the headstone.

Speaker 2 It included a picture of Winston Churchill.

Speaker 2 And that it said,

Speaker 2 what did it say? Wife, mother, et cetera. Et cetera.
Yeah. That's when, and you don't initially find out that he's just made it.
Yeah. And I was like, is he really going to try and sell this?

Speaker 2 Is this genuine grandma's headstone with the word, et cetera, on it? Imagine a headstone with this.

Speaker 2 I loved it immediately. Yeah.
And I thought, when I go, I wanted to say, you know, devoted husband, for example.

Speaker 2 That's it.

Speaker 2 That's really good.

Speaker 2 Would you have Winston Churchill on there? Sure.

Speaker 2 Why not?

Speaker 2 I'd have Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill. Fantastic.

Speaker 2 You know what? I get all the Winston Churchills. Get Brenda Gleason on there.
Everybody who's ever played Winston Churchill. John Lithgow, get them all on there.
Yeah. Yeah.
The League of Churchills.

Speaker 2 Can you?

Speaker 2 What an amazing memory you have that you can remember everyone who's played Winston Churchill. You can't? No.
You're a disgrace to England.

Speaker 2 He's actually a more complicated character than people realize.

Speaker 2 I think people are catching on.

Speaker 2 But they will never let us make a film where we do like the dark side of Churchill. Of course.
I don't think. No.

Speaker 2 But happy to play him if they do.

Speaker 2 Just put that out there. Yeah.
Happy to play him and happy to do the work and put the weight on. Sure.
I'd love to do that sort of that way body transformation for a film.

Speaker 2 I think I'm willing to do that. Did you do that? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I do it in a week.

Speaker 2 I could do that so easily. Because you've been there before.
Been there before. In your younger days.
And you know what? Desperate to go back.

Speaker 2 People don't talk about that. No, exactly.
I lost all the weight like I windows fatigue.

Speaker 2 You know, I hear about actors putting on weight by drinking, just leaving ice cream on the side and just necking liquid ice cream. I'm like, oh, that's heaven.

Speaker 2 No?

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 2 Eat the ice cream. It's enjoyable.
I think just to get it down quickly, just... What's the rush?

Speaker 2 I'm filming next week. Next week?

Speaker 2 I've got to be church on by next week. Oh, no.
Everyone's going, we just shove cushions down there. It's fine.

Speaker 2 I would love to see that a major motion picture.

Speaker 2 And then it wins the Oscar. You can see the corner.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 there's a zip poking out of the top.

Speaker 2 Finally, Rhys brought in a hand-painted commemorative plate of the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla. It's really ghoulish, and I wanted to have it.
Oh, I really wanted to have it.

Speaker 2 I want that plate so much. I mean, that goes for a lot of Rhys's prize tasks, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think his aesthetic is very, very enticing to me.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Now, he did do a credibility thing because he had, I would guess this, this gentleman, Joe Pasqually, Joe Pasquale, could not wait to, in the first section of this podcast, ask you how much you knew about Alad Jones and Joe Pasquale.

Speaker 2 This is perfect. Nil-nil.

Speaker 2 He's some sort of, is he like a sort of antiques roadshow kind of guy?

Speaker 2 He's an appraiser of some kind? No? He has nothing to do with this world?

Speaker 2 I can see why you think that now. Thank you.
This is fantastic. Maybe, can we start a new podcast where I just get American Comics on and ask them if they know who Joe Pasquale is?

Speaker 2 We could do it with other people as well. But

Speaker 2 no, Joe Pasquale is not an antiques appraiser.

Speaker 2 But that would be credible.

Speaker 2 Joe Pasquale is like an 80s and 90s comedian from the UK. But he has a high voice.
That is his voice. So that's why.

Speaker 2 Yes, that is his natural voice. So he's like, he was a huge star.
I mean, still is. He can still, you know, he can still pull the crowds in.
Very funny.

Speaker 2 But I would say not even within the world of comedy are you going like

Speaker 2 Joe Pasquale is credible. Mr.
Credible. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's not like, you know, if you got Stuart Lee to read out what was on a plate in a high voice, maybe more credible than Pasquale, but he has a credibly high voice. Isn't that good? That is credible.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That is credible.
Yeah. And I love Joe Pasquale for the record.
For the record. For the record, please.

Speaker 2 Pasquale, if you're watching this, I love you. I prefer you to Stuart Stuart Lake.
Here is Pasquale.

Speaker 2 It was one point for Sanjeev, two points for Maisie, four points for Rhys, four points for Anya, and five points for Phil.

Speaker 3 This decorative 12-inch commemorative plate features two detailed portraits of King Charles III and Queen Camilla wearing their magnificent crowns, perfect for serving of sandwiches or a big pile of rich teas.

Speaker 2 Task one, Build a tower of bricks on this trolley, then push it down the slope. You may not touch the trolley after it passes the start line.

Speaker 2 The tallest tower that passes the finish line wins, as well as bricks. All the contents of one of these bins must be part of your tower, but nothing else.

Speaker 2 You may only look inside the bins once, and only for as long as you can scream. You must replace each lid before looking in the next bin.

Speaker 2 You have a total of 10 minutes and three attempts during which you must also scream. Your time starts when Alex screams.
Chaotic, this. Very chaotic.

Speaker 2 This was one that made me anxious if I had to to do it because I don't think I would construct a very sound tower. Yes.
If I had discovered the bungees, I would have been thrilled.

Speaker 2 But watching everybody do it, it all looked wrong to me, the way everybody was doing it. Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a way of actually.

Speaker 2 Also, the crazy thing to me was people who were building the tower at the bottom of the slope. Yes.
And then pushing it up. That really worries me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Which I thought the first time I watched it, I thought, well, you have to do that. How else are you going to get the bricks up if not using that trolley? Yeah, yeah, the brick trolley.

Speaker 2 But I guess you could just load them onto the trolley and then build it up there.

Speaker 2 There's nothing that said you couldn't manipulate it once you were at the top. But Anya just saying, bring those bricks up.
Yeah. And he did it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think that was a good system. Sure.
To be honest.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. She was the only one who got nought points.
But I think up until that point, I think she'd done very well. How's your scream, Paul? Could you have done a good scream?

Speaker 2 I think so. That's good.

Speaker 2 Don't do it now. But could you have extended it for the whole time when you were looking in the bins? I feel like I could have.
Yeah. I feel like I could have.

Speaker 2 Because I sing a bit and I have increased

Speaker 2 my breath

Speaker 2 control.

Speaker 2 So I think I could have done, I would have taken a big, deep diaphragm breath. Yeah.
I think I could have screamed. What notes do you think you would have hit?

Speaker 2 You say you're singing a lot, do you think? Oh.

Speaker 2 It didn't occur to me to sing-scream. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But why not? Yeah. I mean, you're a fan of the death metal, so you understand sing-screaming.
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Like a cookie monster voice.
Yeah, cookie monster voice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Which is an incredible trick that people do with their voices because how do you do that every night without exactly? Yeah. Without shredding your vocal cords.
Yes. Developing nodes.

Speaker 2 I'm also a big fan of Betelgeuse the Musical. I don't know if you're across Betelgeuse the Musical.
It's fantastic. I've heard it's great.
And obviously, Betelgeuse has to sing with that.

Speaker 2 And his raspy Betelgeuse voice. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Again, a wonderful skill um what would you have selected because obviously there was the option for cement which was just flour and that seemed to be there for people to go well i'm obviously not doing that because i've got 10 minutes yes and ya picked it and you picked it maisie picked it

Speaker 2 i i i don't know why they picked it did they think that the the weight of the bag would well maisie didn't obviously do they think the weight of the bag would uh would would create some sort of base like a strong base from the way anya picked it and talked about it it, she seemed convinced that she could mix the cement, build a full wall slash tower with the bricks, let it dry, and then push it down the slope in 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 In her head, that was going to work.

Speaker 2 Which is, I mean, welcome to Anya's head, I think. Oh, yeah.
Well, well, when she tasted it and realized it wasn't cement, then she saw, I won't be able to do this. Why not taste it as well?

Speaker 2 Like a cop.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Heroin raid.
Rubbing it on her gums.

Speaker 2 It's your flower we got him what i love is that the other option was that it was cement and she was going to taste that and go definitely cement yeah yeah i'm always i'm always tasting maybe she thought that's how she was going to mix it yeah

Speaker 2 just swirling it around

Speaker 2 like a gecko

Speaker 2 um maisie yeah also also does that what's i think maisie picks it because she only looks in one bin

Speaker 2 she screams she opens one bin she gets what's in the bin while still screaming. Empties it over the top while still screaming.
Just completely misread the thing. The thing.
Okay. Maisie is

Speaker 2 she's extremely funny. Yes.
She's very sharp. She's very quick.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And yet, she is like skimming the instructions of these tasks every single time. She misses a crucial detail.

Speaker 2 She interprets it in a weird way. It's like she's in a hurry to get started.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so many times, whenever, whenever they go to the video, I will always look at Maisie in the studio first to see what her reaction is

Speaker 2 because she saw either she has no recollection of doing it or

Speaker 2 she realizes, oh, I didn't see that at all. Yeah.
I had no idea that was part of it. It's amazing to watch.

Speaker 2 We, um, I mean, we've probably, I've probably mentioned this on the podcast before, but I'll say it anyway.

Speaker 2 Um, we did a pilot for a food, sort of food-based taskmaster where I was the assistant because I wanted to be on site.

Speaker 2 Thanks for Sunday. Thank you.

Speaker 2 And one of the tasks was

Speaker 2 make this food cool again or something like that. Create an advert to make this food cool again.
And it was a cabbage.

Speaker 2 And everyone else who was doing it in the lineup was like, all right, cabbage, make an advert of some cabbage. Maisie looked at it and went, I've got to make an advert for a lettuce.

Speaker 2 And we just said nothing, obviously. And then made this like high-production advert for lettuce.

Speaker 2 Which was obviously fantastic in the studio.

Speaker 2 She must be thinking of something else. All the time.
While it's being explained to her. Yes.
Even while she's reading. Yeah.
She's thinking of something else. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I, at the very least, would have asked, is this a cabbage or a lettuce? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think I would have had to answer at that point. Also, I think cabbage, is it only when it's cooked that it has a distinctive smell? Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 2 but it was so, I can't stress how clearly much it was a cabbage. Did it say cabbage? No, no, no, no, no, but it was a cabbage.

Speaker 2 You're saying looking at it, you would say that's clearly not a head of lettuce. Yeah, yeah.
Also, like, it's rock hard. Like, you pick it up, it feels like it's made of wax.

Speaker 2 Like, it's absolutely rock hard. It's clearly not a lettuce.
You could have thought this is a stale lettuce. Yeah, but I don't.
It's been left out.

Speaker 2 But famously, when lettuces are old, they just wilt and go soft, don't they? That's very true. Yeah.
Yeah. They don't go to rock hard with a sort of waxy coating.
Honestly, same. Yep.

Speaker 2 But anyway, enough of this.

Speaker 2 Sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm telling that to myself, Paul, to be honest.

Speaker 2 Yes, Maisie pushes it down, covers it in flour, rather than, I think, your option of using it as a weight, maybe a big bag of something. How perfect would that be as ballast?

Speaker 2 Because it was the idea that once you saw something, you had to then put it on the trolley? Not that you saw it, because you could look in all the bins as you're screaming. Yes.

Speaker 2 And then make your choice. Make a a choice.
Make a choice, yes. You didn't have to, but I mean, if you, did you have to choose something?

Speaker 2 Or could you say, well, there's no point in putting that on there? That's a really good point, Paul. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes. No, it must be.
All of the contents of one of these bins must be part of the screen. Must be.
Okay, yes. Yes.
Yes, yes, yes. So you do have to choose something.
Everyone else realized.

Speaker 2 Let's look in all the bins while screaming. Maisie looked in one of the bins, used immediately what was in front of her, and that happened to be flour, and she tipped it all over.

Speaker 2 But also, at no point, she seems bothered by that as a thing, or in the studio, she's like, Yeah, that's what I did. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It did look good, though, when it was coming down the slope.

Speaker 2 This is a great opportunity to talk about how beautifully this show is shot. And a big shout-out to

Speaker 2 the camera crew because

Speaker 2 there's like when

Speaker 2 Phil is opening the task, there's this beautiful shot of him,

Speaker 2 you know, backlit by the morning sun, windmill. Yeah.
He's in his, you know, strongman outfit. It's like a painting.
Yes. Doesn't have to look that good, but it did.
It does. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 It's a beautifully made shot. It's beautiful.
And also when

Speaker 2 they went to slow-mo for Maisie's trolley coming down, and as she crosses the finish line right after it, the jump. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's beautiful. It was stunning.
It was poetic and looking. With the clouds of flour coming off and

Speaker 2 Greg teasing her afterwards, saying, you're going to have to be disqualified because so much flour came off, and she looks like she's about to flip out.

Speaker 2 That was tremendous. Yeah.
That was tremendous.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about Anya and Phil. They were shown together.

Speaker 2 I mean, the veering of the trolley was stressing me out. Yeah.
Because they do then cut to the crew who nearly got hit by the trolley. And they're not laughing.
No, they're not.

Speaker 2 Those guys,

Speaker 2 those cameras are serious to them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not even about them getting hit. Yeah, they don't care.
It's about don't fuck up my shit. Yeah, Yeah, break my legs.
Yeah. Just leave my camera alone.

Speaker 2 These lenses are expensive.

Speaker 2 Phil has the sleeping bag, the reflector, and the poles.

Speaker 2 It doesn't, I mean, it doesn't seem like he actually uses it. I mean, he does well here, but

Speaker 2 I like the system. He was like, that's great.
I can put the poles through the hole. And they clearly don't fit like when he's putting them in.

Speaker 2 This task is mad.

Speaker 2 This would have stressed me out, I think.

Speaker 2 It did seem stressful. I will say for the two of them,

Speaker 2 looking at the

Speaker 2 driveway,

Speaker 2 the little slope,

Speaker 2 you know that nobody's driving the trolley. So they're not going to follow the curve of the driveway.
You have to just, you have to, you have to angle it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just going to go straight. So it stays on.
It's just going to go straight. There's not a little guy in there.

Speaker 2 That could have been an option. Oh,

Speaker 2 we didn't see all the bins, right? Could have had a little guy in there.

Speaker 2 I'm a professional driver.

Speaker 2 Little helmet.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Anya's sadly the only one who doesn't manage to cross the line

Speaker 2 using the two bungee ropes, which would have been a good thing to use, I think, and a jug.

Speaker 2 And she has the highest scream,

Speaker 2 the 1970s camping kettle. But very sad that hers doesn't cross the line.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about Reese.

Speaker 2 The first time, the first attempt broke my heart, Paul.

Speaker 2 I felt that so deeply. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he handled it much better than I would have handled it. Which is unusual for him.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 He was so calm during this whole thing. And I would have,

Speaker 2 that first time would have broken my spirit. Yeah.
The second time, I would have walked off the set.

Speaker 2 I would have said goodbye.

Speaker 2 Your dream to be on the show. Yeah.
You're so excited to be on the show and you're walking off. There's no way I'm doing that again.

Speaker 2 Would Sheena have walked off the set of Dancing with the Stars if she'd been asked?

Speaker 2 No, she probably would just been eliminated.

Speaker 2 That would be devastating if Taskmaster was an elimination system, wouldn't it? Oh my God. Every episode someone goes,

Speaker 2 oh God,

Speaker 2 chills me to my core.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the way that tower falls apart in the first place, where it's massive and then it gets quite close to the finish line and then it's like all the bricks make a decision.

Speaker 2 It looked like a controlled demolition.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's getting too close.
Now.

Speaker 2 All off at the same time. Yeah, it really did.
Bricks were saying we have to jump off of this. We're done.
This is our moment. Here we go.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it reminded one of Andor. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Of the prison breakout in Andor.

Speaker 2 Amazing.

Speaker 2 Shout out to Sanjeev for using the camera and creating that incredible shot. Now, here's the thing.
You would, I think you would assume it would be more fun to have the camera facing the hill. Yes.

Speaker 2 And watch it cross the finish line.

Speaker 2 The genius of it being trained on Sanjeev and him getting screaming as it gets further away

Speaker 2 was fan.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So good.
So good. It was like a POV.
If you're the trolley,

Speaker 2 you're Alan Rickman at the end of Die Hard.

Speaker 2 And And Sanjeev is Bruce Willis.

Speaker 2 So a lot of Fs. And he stayed in frame the whole time.

Speaker 2 The framing was perfect. The guy's a movie.
Camera on a stick. Yeah.
The guy knows how to hit his marks, all right?

Speaker 2 He's working with Keanu Reeves. Come on.

Speaker 2 But yeah, incredible. And he actually manages to cross the line, 105 centimeters tall using a cardboard Wellington boot shaving foam camera.

Speaker 2 I do think now that every time Sanjeev's like used to the show, this task might have been a little bit further into the process. And now he's just so exasperated with it all.

Speaker 2 When he pulls the welly out and it's covered in shaving foam, he's like, yeah, all right. Gonna see him.
Here we go. Yeah, nice again.

Speaker 2 It was nought points for Anya. It was two points for Rhys, three points for Maisie, four points for Sanjeev, and five points for Phil.

Speaker 2 The screen's finished.

Speaker 2 Right, you didn't have to scream while you. Oh, I didn't have to keep screaming while seasoning it.
Only while looking in it. Oh!

Speaker 2 Right.

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Speaker 2 Task two, make your jockey weigh almost the exact same as Alex. If your jockey weighs more than Alex, you are disqualified.
You may only get two readings from the scales.

Speaker 2 There is a bonus point for the sexiest jockey. You have 10 minutes.
Your time starts now.

Speaker 2 People's ideas

Speaker 2 of how much things would weigh

Speaker 2 were very curious. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 every single one of them puts it on there. It's like, oh, it's two stone.

Speaker 2 How did you think you were even close? You put two sweaters on a mannequin? Yeah. You can feel how heavy the mannequin is.

Speaker 2 You can't put a wig and some sausages sausages on something and go, what, what's that? Five or six stone?

Speaker 2 That's got to be really heavy.

Speaker 2 They're lighter than normal sausages. They're plastic sausages.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 But then

Speaker 2 Rhys is obviously just like,

Speaker 2 he knows that you need to add a lot of weight to it. But he does it by adding a roof's worth of lead.

Speaker 2 The lead made me a little anxious because I don't know, I couldn't see a good way to secure the lead to the mannequin. Yeah, to make it part of the costume.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I don't know what would have done it. I mean, you know what? Sanjeev's had a had a belt.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So if maybe you could have tied, like, put them in the belt, but I could already feel how difficult it would be. They'd be falling.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You'd be trying to get, hold them in there and then tighten the belt at the same time. Yeah, it's a nightmare.
Yeah. I guess like in the pockets of things or.

Speaker 2 But then he puts them in

Speaker 2 the trousers and they fall down.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or, yeah, I mean, there's no way in a lovely bra, maybe. Oh, a lovely bra.

Speaker 2 Big, heavy lead. Oh, a big, heavy lead-laden bra?

Speaker 2 Oh, Ed, now you're talking about.

Speaker 2 I think it's a very difficult task, or they certainly seem to make it difficult. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Also, the shape of the lead pieces

Speaker 2 did not lend itself to. The lead feels like a red herring, but then how else are you going to get the

Speaker 2 weight up there? It's not going to be a feather bow. I'll tell

Speaker 2 why even put the feather bow i mean i know they all seem to focus so much on the sexy thing especially maisie for one point one for one point and that clip of maisie going like right so it's it's sexy for bonus point but mainly worried about the weight yeah and then first thing she does she's like this is this is sexy the lightest

Speaker 2 leopard print onesie

Speaker 2 my only thought paul and this only works if as a contestant they are sure they weigh similar to Alex or less.

Speaker 2 It doesn't say that you have to use the mannequin to make the jockey. It says make a jockey.
It says make your jockey. Make your jockey.
So you could be the jockey. Right.

Speaker 2 So you could put stuff on and get on the scales. If you're positive, I would not do it because I feel like me and Alex are there or thereabouts or I'm slightly more.

Speaker 2 But if you think you're going to get up towards what Alex is but not cross it, I think make yourself look like a sexy jockey and hop on those scales. I think that's a great plan.

Speaker 2 For me, the flaw is there's no fucking way I'm weighing myself on television.

Speaker 2 I did think where there's going to be a close-up of the scales. No.

Speaker 2 It does make you think how far apart the tasks are films, because one day Alex was like 14 stone one.

Speaker 2 And one day he was like below 14 stone. He even seemed surprised by it.
Yeah, he's like, oh,

Speaker 2 it's been a good month. I take it there was a little bit of distance between between them.

Speaker 2 Alex was bloating on one of those days.

Speaker 2 We know all about Alex's cycle now. Sure.

Speaker 2 Did you guys all sync up when you were on the show? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Of course. We're in the house together.
During team tasks or during the studio's records? Team Tasks and Studio, but yeah, that's the rules, isn't it? If you're in a house together, you all sync up.

Speaker 2 It doesn't matter. How long? It doesn't matter what the construction is.

Speaker 2 Any building with a roof.

Speaker 2 We're all syncing up right now. Everyone here.
I can feel it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Isn't it weird how

Speaker 2 similar Phil and Anya's jockeys were?

Speaker 2 This was very strange. They both went for sausages.
They both went for the pigtails.

Speaker 2 So they were trying to work out if that's something that they both find sexy or whether that's their idea of what Greg finds sexy. Yes.
They didn't.

Speaker 2 I was surprised at how little they put on the mannequins. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, I've got them here. They are.
I mean, apart from Rhys, who just went overboard, obviously.

Speaker 2 But Phil's...

Speaker 2 I should remind you of what Phil's is like over on the side there. Yeah.
That is less than a human would wear to go out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, which is admittedly sexy.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 2 And same with Anya's. Like, there's...
She put a picnic basket next to it, but that doesn't feel like part of

Speaker 2 the jockey outfit.

Speaker 2 But it was there. It was there, but

Speaker 2 then I think it has to be part of the outfit. As Sanjeev found out, he was not part of the jockey outfit.
You know what?

Speaker 2 The piccanik basket, if I may port Yogi Bear, that would have been the perfect receptacle for the lead pieces. It would have been, yeah.

Speaker 2 So if you dressed yourself up as a jockey

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 put a few of those in there,

Speaker 2 You would have been okay. But I just don't I don't think it can be considered as part of a jockey outfit if it's just a bag they're holding.

Speaker 2 Have you ever seen a jockey with just like their tote bag on their shoulder as they

Speaker 2 as they gallop down? Have you ever seen a jockey with a string of sausages around his neck? Ed, what are we doing here?

Speaker 2 Ed.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but there's got to be a line here, Paul. And the line does not issue.
Are we the ones to draw that line? I feel like this is what the podcast's about. This is line drawing.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 I wish I'd been told that.

Speaker 2 But I feel like string of sausages is acceptable because around the neck. Separate bag? No, no, no.
Extra man? Definitely not.

Speaker 2 Now, why don't you ask your wife if she considers a nice bag part of a nice outfit? Oh, good point.

Speaker 2 Good point. You don't see a woman wearing a ball gown and a knapsack.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's a good point. I've not thought sartorially here at all, have I? But she always has a go at me when I have my sausages on.

Speaker 2 It's part of a nice outfit.

Speaker 2 She's like, you keep getting chased by dogs.

Speaker 2 Maisie goes with the Greg Davis policeman look with a feather boa. Why does that onesie exist? I do not.

Speaker 2 I mean, look,

Speaker 2 we're not here to kink shame.

Speaker 2 People like what they like. We are.
That's a podcast. Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Knock it off, furries.

Speaker 2 Yeah, people like, yeah. What are you going to do? They might like a blonde Greg Davis with a muff, as Maisie says, and cricket pads and a feather boa.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the Sanjief, I don't think the Sanjeev

Speaker 2 technique works for me. I had a real problem with this

Speaker 2 because Greg says when he's scoring, well, I can't give you no points. Yeah.
You absolutely can't. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is cheating. Yeah, he cheated.

Speaker 2 He should not have got one point.

Speaker 2 Because Anya got zero for two tasks. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Why is she exempt from this? I can't, I can't not give you a point. Yeah, and I feel like Reese went over the weight, so he broke the rule.
Yeah. Hence, he got naught points.

Speaker 2 And it does feel like, even though it's not an explicit rule, maybe, that Sanjeev broke, it's clearly not within the spirit of it. Yes.

Speaker 2 He could have just stood on it. Yeah, exactly.
And pointed at the job. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Even though I realized that was my technique I mentioned

Speaker 2 earlier in the chat there. But never mind, I am nothing if not inconsistent, Paul.

Speaker 2 It was one point each, though, for Reese and Maisie for top sexiness.

Speaker 2 I don't know why Reese gets any points for sexy here.

Speaker 2 I remember seeing it and thinking,

Speaker 2 I get it.

Speaker 2 There's a beard, there's a little top hat. But for me, it's the shorts, it's the life jacket, which I don't think are ever sexy.
Never. They're practical.

Speaker 2 If you were drowning, you'd find it pretty sexy. I wouldn't find it sexy.

Speaker 2 Do you think? Do you think I'd find it sexy? Well, maybe I've been closer to drowning than you.

Speaker 2 So, you've been in a situation where you've been flailing around in the sea or a pool. Somebody throws me a lifesaver and you're immediately

Speaker 2 horny. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm gonna live.

Speaker 2 I'm horny for life

Speaker 2 in every sense.

Speaker 2 I only have one more hour. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 Rhys gets the sexy point for his, well, as he admits, looks like his jockey's cactus pants

Speaker 2 with a lot of lead in his shorts and Maisie for the sexy policeman. But

Speaker 2 it's one point for Sanjeev in the task, three points for Maisie. Anya gets four points, and Phil gets five points.

Speaker 2 Does a man become more or less sexy when his trousers are down

Speaker 2 and his pants are full of 11 stone of lead?

Speaker 2 Well, that was a miscalculation. I thought the pants would keep everything in place, but they came down.
It looked like someone that would just catch themselves.

Speaker 2 Yours both were almost identical for a lot of people. We've got a type.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a sexy Scandinavian sausage girl. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think it's because

Speaker 4 we must be thinking, like, what is Greg going to find sexy?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 And so it's with you in mind.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it is. Yeah, it is.
It's a girl with pigtails and sausage.

Speaker 2 Task three, make the most fantastic 15-second film with your face in full frame. You have 15 minutes to film your fantastic 15-second full-frame face film.
Those 15 minutes start now.

Speaker 2 We should mention, first of all, Paul, the Task-O-Matic.

Speaker 2 Yes. The sort of steampunk-esque machine that opens the task for them.
Absolutely beautiful. Which you've just got to do.
I got to see it in person. Yes.
Wonderful.

Speaker 2 Not many people come to this house and don't see the Task-O-Matic in in real life because coming to the Taskmaster house and if Andy Devonshire's here, it's like you've gone over to a seven-year-old boy's house and he is desperate to show you his new toys.

Speaker 2 Just like even if you're just a friend of the family, he's never met you before. He's like,

Speaker 2 come in here and have a look at this. Look at that.
Whoa, isn't that cool?

Speaker 2 And show them to me. He did.
Yeah. I got the full tour.
It was wonderful. But you...
You enjoyed the tour, didn't you? I did, of course. That's, you know, you're a fan of the show.

Speaker 2 It must be, it must be wild. It's surreal.
It was surreal coming through the gate and seeing the house and everything. And also how small everything is.
Yeah, it's tiny. Absolutely tiny.

Speaker 2 Are there any other TV shows that you'd like a tour of? Is there anything else that you're like? I wish I could see the set.

Speaker 2 The news?

Speaker 2 You'd love to go there. I'd love to go to the news.
See where it all happens.

Speaker 2 Have you been to Pump, Lisa Vanderpump's restaurant? No,

Speaker 2 when we were watching the show, we had loose plans to hit all of the properties. Yeah.
And we hit none of them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because anytime it actually came to maybe leaving the house and doing that, we're like, yeah.

Speaker 2 That's crazy. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 To hang out with those shitty people.

Speaker 2 Eating mediocre food. Also, do you know the

Speaker 2 big special menu item at Pump? Do you know what it's called? I don't know if it's still called this, but it certainly was when we went to Pump to interview Lisa Vanderpump. I do not know.

Speaker 2 It's called the Pinky Pump Burger.

Speaker 2 How do do you feel about that? I don't like it.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about this. It's getting worse the more I process it.
I'd imagine that's the same with the burger, to be fair.

Speaker 2 This task would terrify me. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think just because you want it to be so good because it's sort of within, I've said it before, within the world of what we do anyway.

Speaker 2 So it's not like get an egg into a bin, which I very rarely do in my day-to-day life. Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 2 Because this is a task where it's like be creative, yeah, and for us, that means and also be funny, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like, oh, now I have to prove it, yeah, I can't just be passively funny by not knowing how to do something,

Speaker 2 they were all very good, yeah. Would you have an instinct as to what you might like to do? Did you put yourself in this task? Um, I did put myself in that task a little bit, and um, I

Speaker 2 when I saw what everyone else did, especially like uh, Anya's was

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 was really lovely. And, you know, the drawing on her forehead, the landscape on her forehead, and the stop motion of the two figures, the bang bang and all that was like,

Speaker 2 I'm so impressed by her with everything she does. She's so creative and so

Speaker 2 interesting. You know, she thinks she, I love it when you see somebody and you think, I never would have thought of that.
Yeah, yeah. That never would have occurred to me.

Speaker 2 And I know I wouldn't have been that. I wouldn't have come close to that.
Mine probably would have been closer to Sanjeev's, I guess, if anything, you know. But Reese's was great,

Speaker 2 you know, very much in character. And you could tell that was the first thing he thought of.
Yeah, well, he said, I've got, I've got it, let's go. Yeah, do you have any papier-mâché?

Speaker 2 And they said, yes, of course, they do, they have everything here. Isn't it a thing you have to make?

Speaker 2 It's not just you don't buy a ream of paper-mâché, like a bucket of

Speaker 2 money.

Speaker 2 Can I have seven pounds of papier-mâché?

Speaker 2 I wonder if you did do papier-mâché in the end because

Speaker 2 it takes time to set that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember at school, we used papier-mâché, just put it round a balloon and then pop the balloon. But I don't know why we did that because then we just had a sort of balloon-shaped hard.

Speaker 2 It's tradition.

Speaker 2 You did it for tradition. Oh, yes, of course.
To remember the fallen. It was on Remembrance Day.
That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 um yeah well it was beautiful rhys's was absolutely stunning and obviously like a a nod to that film where that happens yeah a nod yeah

Speaker 2 an exact

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 2 i i can't you know look it's been a while since i've seen that movie sure

Speaker 2 but um

Speaker 2 did uh uh

Speaker 2 some sort of fluid come out of the eye. I don't remember the fluid.
I feel like perhaps the fluid was the Rhys Shearsmith.

Speaker 2 That was was a modern touch yeah like moon goo like yeah well of course the jelly of your eyeball would explode yeah if a rocket hit it yeah yeah and then it would drip down your face well i think that would have horrified people back then when they released that film they were scared of that train in when they released it in yeah 19 something yeah something 19 13 30.

Speaker 2 um yeah they were scared of the train of course yeah they thought the train was gonna hit them do you think that's true if it's convenient i i accepted that as truth the first time i heard it and then think about it years later like no, they weren't.

Speaker 2 They knew what it was.

Speaker 2 They were told in advance. Also, they would have been scared from the moment the film started if that was the case.
They'd be like, why is this a huge window looking at a train track?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's nighttime. Why is it daylight out there?

Speaker 2 They'd be gone.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 People weren't as stupid in the past as we think they were, Paul. No.
But those filmmakers were hanged as witches. Yes, yeah, and quite right.
So we have to remember that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 RIP, pop a balloon.

Speaker 2 Sound Jeeves was called Dali Breakfast. Dali breakfast? I nearly said daily breakfast.
Breakfast is daily, I suppose. If you eat it.
Yeah. Clever pun.

Speaker 2 So they're sort of flying up and down

Speaker 2 the foods.

Speaker 2 I couldn't see if there were

Speaker 2 like when he the Apple obviously was reversed.

Speaker 2 He had it in his mouth a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 But everything else, was it because it was so perfectly in profile to the camera? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Was it on a little string? I did not see any little string. I wonder if they reversed and then

Speaker 2 played foot, whether it was all spliced together. There was like some bits that were reversed.
But even if they dropped it, for it to be so perfectly symmetrical seems unlikely to me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Maybe I don't know enough about physics. Well, we can ask Andy Devonshire.
He's on site. So we can ask Andy D about about physics and the process.
I don't care though, man.

Speaker 2 Oh, so I thought you were going to say you didn't want the magic ruined, but it's because you. I don't want the magic ruined.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you don't care.

Speaker 2 It looked great. I don't know if I want to involve a third party.

Speaker 2 It's a lot, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Be nice was the message as well, of course. Greg always wants a meaning and a message.
Yeah. And be nice.
Yeah. Not what I got from it, personally.
What did you get from it? Breakfast.

Speaker 2 I'm not a fan of subtext, really, to be honest. Really? No, I like people just to say what everything means.
You like it spelled out. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 2 In films, especially, I want this thing has happened, so then these people need to do a thing. Right.
There's an explosion, and then they did the thing at the end.

Speaker 2 And then maybe there's a bit at the end where it turns out they didn't do the thing, and that sets up the next one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Jason Staith in films, but sure.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I was shocked to discover that in the beekeeper, he actually does keep bees.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, it blew my mind out there. I thought, wow.
Yeah. It's not a code name.
He keeps bees, but it also is a code name for the job he used to do. Right.
So that means he was...

Speaker 2 You've got this job as a beekeeper. You're this like highly trained assassin or whatever.
And then he's like a beekeeper. Yeah, but he finished that job.
And then he went, what am I going to do now?

Speaker 2 Well, I will literally keep bees. Yes.
Yeah. I'll leave my life of covert espionage behind and become my code name.

Speaker 2 I loved every second of it.

Speaker 2 Is that the scammer one? It is the scammer one, isn't it? Where he takes down the scammers. I've not seen it.
Oh, yeah, he does. Yeah, he takes down scammers.

Speaker 2 There's an old lady who lives near his bees.

Speaker 2 Who lives near his bees?

Speaker 2 She gets scammed out of all her money. Yeah.
And I think, sadly, takes her own life because of that, maybe.

Speaker 2 And then he tracks down the scammers.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's a good film, and I believe they're making another one.
I would have left out the part where the old lady takes her own life.

Speaker 2 I've got to be honest about this. Good, good.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 he could still do it on behalf of her without her having to die. I might be wrong.
Maybe I'm rewriting it in my head, but you just didn't like that character. No, no, no, no, no.
Awful.

Speaker 2 You should see the beekeeper, though. It's very good.
Should I?

Speaker 2 Well, I've sort of told you what happens now. Yeah.
But they don't. In a way, I've seen it.
Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Maisie does a short film where it's sort of a Star Wars parody.

Speaker 2 I didn't even make that kid.

Speaker 2 It even says it a place far, far away or something. I think she's.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be a Star Wars.
I guess it was because of the spoken aspect.

Speaker 2 Because you imagine if that crawl in Star Wars, like, oh, long time ago, you got it too far, far away.

Speaker 2 But yeah, all written on her face.

Speaker 2 And it's the story of her in the Taskmaster house. Again, it's like

Speaker 2 she can't get even two steps away from the immediate.

Speaker 2 What should the story be? What's happening to me right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she did that in an earlier episode as well, yeah.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Where she had to tell the story of her life.

Speaker 2 Maisie is going to write like an autobiography, but it's going to be about her writing. I'm writing the book.

Speaker 2 I remember I'm writing this book.

Speaker 2 And when I think about it, I'm writing the book.

Speaker 2 She'll love this, by the way.

Speaker 2 But she does look good with the scraped back gelled hair on it. She looked very cool.
Yeah, very sort of like future punk. Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, I have to also give her credit for the jockey task when she put the wig on the jockey and said, does this look like me? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because if I were in that situation,

Speaker 2 I would have that fear. I would never speak it aloud.

Speaker 2 I would be thinking, I hope no one notices because it looks like me. But that's such a dangerous thing, because they are going to notice it in the studio.

Speaker 2 You have to, of course, the move is to get out ahead of it. You've got to eight-mile it.
You have to eight-mile it.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't, it's then the best you can look like is a good sport. Yeah.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Anyas, we've discussed. Stunning.
Stunning work. Like, real, like, an understanding of aesthetics.
It stood out from all the others. They were the bang-bang.
Maisie had

Speaker 2 the end on her tongue. Yes.
Which, again, fantastic. Yes.
Phil's was sort of like a cheeky northern radio head.

Speaker 2 He had his head in the tank of water and then released. Is that a reference to a radio head video? Yeah,

Speaker 2 no surprises, I think. Okay.
Tom York's head

Speaker 2 is in a tank and it slowly fills up with water. Okay.
I don't know if that's exactly what Phil was going for, but. Do you also have the nose clip on?

Speaker 2 He didn't have the nose clip on and he did not release any

Speaker 2 animals from his mouth or give a cheeky wink to the camera.

Speaker 2 Opportunity missed. Yes.
Tom York is a lot of things. Cheeky is not one of them.

Speaker 2 And look, shout out to Tom York if he wants to come on come on the New Year's treat, Taskmaster New Year's treat. I think it'd be fantastic.
Yeah. I would love to see that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But yeah, lovely work from Phil. I mean, they were all good to the extent,

Speaker 2 how do you feel about everyone getting five points, Paul?

Speaker 2 And if you were the Taskmaster, as you've said, you'd be a great Taskmaster. Do you know?

Speaker 2 You'd be ruthless. I'd be ruthless.

Speaker 2 I do see Greg's point that they were all enjoyable to watch. I would say that

Speaker 2 I could see gradations, though. Yes.
I'd probably at least give somebody four points. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Do you want to tell us who that is now? I would say Sanjeev. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I would say Sanjeev and

Speaker 2 Phil. I probably would have given four.

Speaker 2 And Macy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But Anya and Rhys, I would have given five. Yes.
No,

Speaker 2 I think maybe in this one, it felt like they were all very proud of what they'd done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think Greg was sort of tiptoeing around also that thing of it being a creative task. Yes.

Speaker 2 And if suddenly you're like, you all get five points apart from Maisie, who gets two.

Speaker 2 Would have been very funny to see her reaction,

Speaker 2 which is what I would have done, because quite frankly, she just scribbled on her own face.

Speaker 2 And told them. And she didn't even do that.
No. No, someone else had to do that.
If she'd tried to do that, that would have, it would have been unreadable.

Speaker 2 She did say that her hair stayed gelled for three days. Yeah.
That has to get something. Yeah.
That's inconvenient. Three points.

Speaker 2 Everyone gets five, though, so it's a nice happy end to that.

Speaker 4 A long time ago, in a taskmaster house a really long way away, a leather-jacketed lady was held under the tyrannous rule of a prick with a clipboard who lived in fear of his master.

Speaker 4 One day, enough was enough, and she locked the prick in the caravan where he spontaneously combusted. The master moved to Spain.

Speaker 2 The end.

Speaker 2 I mean, I was never been so disappointed so far. I just think they're all good.
Studio task. Become the person the taskmaster shouts.

Speaker 2 You will have one minute to draw yourself a new bottom of your face and your body. Also, you must bob up and down throughout your attempts.
Worst new person each round is eliminated.

Speaker 2 How's your art, Paul? My art's pretty good. When I was a kid, I used to draw a lot, and then I stopped when I stopped getting better at it.
Yes.

Speaker 2 There's a point where you get so frustrated and you're like, oh, I can't do it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I can't break through.

Speaker 2 I've reached the limit. I've plateaued.

Speaker 2 This is it.

Speaker 2 This is not interesting anymore.

Speaker 2 Now I recognize this looks bad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I think I could have done well for the drawing requirements for this. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, this was very fun.
I thought this

Speaker 2 as a studio task, this was really good fun. The bobbing really helped.
The bobbing, and they talk about Sanjeev's bobbing. It was so hypnotic to watch.

Speaker 2 At one point, Alex says, can you imagine Sanjeev drawing without bobbing? And I'm so, I knew exactly what he meant because it was just so calm. Absolutely.
And it wasn't putting him off his drawing.

Speaker 2 It seems to just be part of the rhythms of it. I did wonder about that.
How much would that hamper me? Yeah. Would it make any difference? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Would I keep forgetting or would it be,

Speaker 2 would I reach the limits of my concentration? Yeah. Of I can't do these two things at the same time.
I think you can have quite a gentle bob, though.

Speaker 2 And I think that might actually be quite calming in a way.

Speaker 2 Yeah. What did you draw there? A snake.
Oh.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 2 Henry VIII on a horse, a supermodel skiing, Elvis on an escalator, a mermaid making a mistake. Just realise it's alliteration.
Honestly, had not realized that until I've seen them written down.

Speaker 2 I didn't realize until you just said that. There you go.
There's always something new to find in this show. Isn't that fun? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Sorry, just have an eye on this. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 paul's got a hard out

Speaker 2 i have a hard out at empty

Speaker 2 love that if you had a pr sat off camera holding it

Speaker 2 tapping it going paul's got a heart out at empty can we

Speaker 2 have an intimidating press junket wouldn't it where they have a they just get an interviewer in and then they just slam that down ask your questions and of course have my pr person wear a long robe yes of course

Speaker 2 and then have an orb in the other hand just yet

Speaker 2 um henry the eighth and a horse i mean all great phil's disqualified because his horse is flat

Speaker 2 it looks like a sort of big brown snake

Speaker 2 that's what he true

Speaker 2 yeah big brown snake there you go big brown snake um

Speaker 2 they were all it was all really fun to watch i mean rhys rhys's art was always going to win i think reese did the the um like the face of the horse right like the horse horse,

Speaker 2 that was the perspective. Yes,

Speaker 2 yeah. Yeah.
Everybody else sort of did him standing on a sideways horse. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Horses are difficult.

Speaker 2 I mean, as you know, as a kid, if you try and draw a horse, you realize you don't actually know what a horse looks like. But the easiest way is to draw the front of the horse's head.
Yes.

Speaker 2 I thought that was, yeah, that was smart. Yep.
Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 Yep, yep. Done.

Speaker 2 Was that your drawing technique when you used to draw? Yeah, yep, yep. Yeah.
Yep. And then then my voice changed.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 The perspective he gets on the supermodel, I thought, was particularly good. Absolutely.
From the side, she's sort of knees bent. She genuinely looks like she's skiing.

Speaker 2 I would say she didn't look like a supermodel necessarily. Well, that's hard.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 In that amount of time

Speaker 2 to draw a supermodel. Well, they all went heavy on the boobs, Paul.
That's the super part.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's what you think super models are.

Speaker 2 What do you think?

Speaker 2 I'd be interested in hearing your definition, Ed.

Speaker 2 A model, a supermodel is a model with super boobs. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Models, boobs. Super model, super boobs.
Super boobs, yeah.

Speaker 2 I would say that is not the modern way of super models. Oh, has it changed again?

Speaker 2 I can't keep track.

Speaker 2 They all went heavy on the boobs.

Speaker 2 Elvis on an escalator.

Speaker 2 Good Elvis from Sanjeev.

Speaker 2 Anya tries to claim she doesn't know what Elvis looks like because she's young.

Speaker 2 This is the Gen Z way, Paul. I don't know if you know this.
Gen Z claim they can't know anything from before they were born. Yeah, it's to shame you.
Yeah. It's to shame you.

Speaker 2 I do love when people say they're like, how am I supposed to know what that is?

Speaker 2 I wasn't there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What? You don't know anything that you weren't there for. Yeah, World War II.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Bet you know who Santa Claus is.

Speaker 2 But he's current, right? He's forever. He's forever.
Isn't that wonderful? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And a mermaid making a mistake.

Speaker 2 What mistake would you have the mermaid making, Paul?

Speaker 2 Probably pushing on a doormark pole.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And what mermaid hasn't done that before? Well, they don't know about doors. That's true.
Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 My favorite bit of this was Sanjeev's explanation of, to me, it was clearly a mermaid who'd missed a bus. And Alex even says that to him.
Oh, Greg says that to him.

Speaker 2 She's missed a bus. And he's like, no.

Speaker 2 It's like, just say yes.

Speaker 2 Because that's perfect. And that's what it looks like.

Speaker 2 No, she's trying to catch a bus. That's not a mistake.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Also, that means she missed the bus. Yeah.

Speaker 2 She's trying to catch a bus. But the mistake is, why is she on land trying to catch a bus? Because she's a mermaid.

Speaker 2 The way this man's brain works. Also, how is that a mistake?

Speaker 2 How did she lead to being on land? What was the mistake she made to getting on land and needing to get the bus? She intended

Speaker 2 to go onto the land in order to get the bus. Yeah.
Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I guess it is broadly a mistake because she shouldn't be there in the first place.

Speaker 2 But that's not her mistake. That's the mistake of the world.
Yeah. Right? Of the universe.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Of God. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Land mermaids are God's mistake. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Land Land mermaids.

Speaker 2 Hate it. You hate to see it, don't you? You hate to see it.
Because you can't help them. No.
When you see it. And they refuse help.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 They won't even help themselves. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Phil gets one point. Maisie gets two points.
Anya gets three points. Sanjeev gets four points somehow.

Speaker 2 And Rhys gets five points. Very easy on Sanjeev.
Yeah, very easy.

Speaker 2 Meaning Phil wins the episode with 21 points, Rhys in second place with 17. Maisie with 16.
Anya also with 16. And Sanjeev with 15 points.

Speaker 2 Meaning, as we head into the final episode, Paul, Anya and Phil are joint top with 140 points. Maisie on 132.
Reese also on 132. And Sanjeev on 127.

Speaker 2 It's got to be the closest series we've ever had today. It's been a while.

Speaker 2 It's very exciting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's really exciting for, you know, for those of us who care about the points and who wins. Yes.
Which I think everyone should, because it's very important who wins.

Speaker 2 And also it's exciting because usually it's much clearer at this point in the series who is it's normally clearer after like five episodes yeah yeah so this is astonishing that it's this close do you think it's they're all good or do you think they're all good sometimes and bad sometimes i think they're all good sometimes and bad sometimes yeah yeah i think that uh i i was surprised by phil because phil seems like he doesn't really

Speaker 2 He's just interested in doing something that pleases him

Speaker 2 as opposed to trying to win the task. Yeah, yeah.
You know, and he wants to do the task in an interesting way,

Speaker 2 which which usually does not lead to actually winning but it's happening and it's it's very i mean i you know you see the choices that some of them make and you think oh well he's he's out of it yeah you know and then seeing those scores like wow i guess i guess not yeah yeah yeah so

Speaker 2 the fact that sanjeev he's bottom but he's still pretty close he should he should not be as close no from episode one i was like well he's he doesn't care he doesn't care like he's he does not care which must make maisie crazy because she,

Speaker 2 she, as has been stated, she's competitive and you can see her, in her reactions to every, to like the tiniest thing.

Speaker 2 There was some, maybe it was in the prize task or something that somebody got one more point than she did. And she, like, folds her arms.
I was like, come on.

Speaker 2 She screams, fuck off at the audience the whole time.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I mean, this final episode, I think, is going to be very tense.
I can't can't wait. Yeah.
I can't wait. Regardless of what happens, I think there's going to be a fight.

Speaker 2 Paul, thank you very much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast. We still have time.
Oh, yeah, of course. We've got about, what's that? Half an hour?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it looks like.

Speaker 2 I had a wonderful time. Thank you for having me.
It was so wonderful to do this in person. Well, look, come back anytime.
Just pop into the carriage. I'll do the next episode.
Yeah. All right.
Cool.

Speaker 2 See you then. We always ask our guests to rate their experience on the Taskmaster podcast between one and five points.

Speaker 2 Do you feel like I would be a good Taskmaster?

Speaker 2 Yes. Five.
Thank you. That felt like you were waiting for the sound to run out before you gave the answer there.

Speaker 2 I wish I'd done that now. That's a huge moment if you did that.
Would you have allowed that? Would everybody have allowed that if I just sat there and watched it?

Speaker 2 I think we would have done, you know, because I would have cottoned onto what you were doing quite quickly.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, I'm glad we're filming this. We've just got to let this happen and then we're putting it all out as a clip

Speaker 2 it's all going on the episode i wish we'd mic'd the sand yeah

Speaker 2 that's my one regret

Speaker 2 thank you very much paul thank you lad

Speaker 2 Well, there we are. Thank you so much to Paul for making the trip.
Not saying he's necessarily made the trip to the UK specifically for the Taskmaster podcast. He was doing his own shows.

Speaker 2 I think he did Richard Herring's podcast. He was doing a load of stuff, but I think the main reason was to visit the Taskmaster house and hang out with his old pal, Ed Gamble.

Speaker 2 Look, next week we'll be back, of course, for Taskmaster Series 20, episode 10, the grand finale with a very special guest, the champion. The champion will be our guest on next week's episode.

Speaker 2 Who will it be? It's genuinely tense. We don't know.
This has got to be the closest series on record. So it's going to be genuinely exciting to see who wins.

Speaker 2 It's not just someone bringing it home who was winning from episode three,

Speaker 2 which has happened as well.

Speaker 2 Look, I mean, it's difficult to end podcasts, isn't it? I'm just going to go. Bye.

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