Taskmaster

On the British television comedy program Taskmaster, instructions are delivered in a sealed envelope. Here’s a taste of what might be inside:

• Paint a picture of a horse while riding a horse.
• Order a vegetarian pizza with bacon and pepperoni, but no tomato or cheese. Do not utter the word pizza or any of the aforementioned ingredients.
• Write and perform the most suspenseful soap opera cliff-hanger.
• Make the best snowman (at a snowless time of the year).
• Make a coconut look like a businessperson.

Every season (“Series, Jason.”), a set of five contestants, comprising celebrities from the comedy world and other public spheres, perform these tasks to the best—or worst—of their abilities. Whimsy is encouraged: The ambiguity and subjectivity baked into the tasks offer contestants room to find outrageous solutions, bend the rules creatively, or simply cause mischief. For these efforts, they are awarded points according to the whims and fancies of actor and comedian Greg Davies in his role as “the Taskmaster.”

Created by comedian Alex Horne, who acts as the Taskmaster’s assistant, the show mixes elements of a game show and a panel show. The latter is a staple format of British television in which a rotating cast of celebrities trade quips and crack jokes as they engage in low-stakes competitions, such as games and quizzes, or discuss the news; points are often an afterthought. Taskmaster first aired in 2015 and has since gained devoted fans across its many seasons, winning various British television comedy awards along the way, including two BAFTAs.

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The show’s popularity has led to a spin-off for children, Junior Taskmaster, with Rose Matafeo as the Taskmaster and Mike Wozniak as her assistant. Its format has also been adapted internationally, including in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Canada, and the United States.

Format

Five contestants are put through the paces across the length of a season. Each episode has the competitors appear together onstage at Pinewood Studios (since season four), alongside the Taskmaster and his assistant, to watch footage of the tasks that they had performed months prior. Much banter and wisecracking ensue as the Taskmaster reviews their performances and awards them points from one to five—sometimes supplemented with bonus points—as he sees fit. Points are also given for other, shorter segments that bookend an episode. The person who has accumulated the most points over a season wins the Taskmaster trophy, which is usually a golden bust of Davies’s head, though the physical form of the trophy varies across formats. Only on rare occasions do contestants return to the show, such as in the periodic Champion of Champions specials, which pit winners of past seasons against each other.

Every episode of Taskmaster follows a consistent format, comprising three distinct segments:

• At the start of the show, contestants are asked to bring an item that fits a predetermined theme for the prize task. These themes range from the very direct to the extremely subjective. The items then form a prize pool that the winner of that episode gets to take home. Although these items are often meant to be personal, comically unexpected, and inexpensive, some contestants go to great lengths just for a laugh.

  Britannica’s picks:

  • When contestants were asked to bring “the most cash,” Hugh Dennis brought 2 million Vietnamese dong (about £72), Joe Lycett handed in £250 in pennies, Mel Giedroyc unpacked £987,000 of Monopoly money and £240 in real cash, and Noel Fielding brought in his painting of a note with Davies and Horne’s faces on it. But Lolly Adefope won the task with a blank check, with the intention of beating the highest amount by 1 pence. (She also had an envelope with £2,000 in cash as a contingency.)
  • Mark Watson interpreted the prize task of bringing “the most high-octane item” as the thing he was most scared of doing. What he found most terrifying was stealing something from the Taskmaster. He then revealed that he had brought in a pair of Davies’s trousers, which he had asked another comedian to steal weeks earlier. Watson received just one point, placing last in the prize task.
• Three or four prerecorded tasks take up the bulk of each episode. These tasks are performed in advance at the Taskmaster House—a renovated former groundskeeper’s cottage in Chiswick, London—or other locations. Their recordings are played during each episode in front of the Taskmaster and a studio audience. A task always begins with a sealed envelope that contains rules and instructions for what the contestants are expected to do. There is no end to variation in the types of tasks, which are always at least a little ridiculous. These instructions may be straightforward and measurable or subjective and open to interpretation. Some start out simple, but a second set of instructions may then be appended to the first, complicating matters. Still others may be deliberately misleading, often hiding useful information or involving cheeky wordplay. Contestants are also unevenly split into teams for specific “team tasks,” which take place throughout a season. Very rarely, a single contestant is given a task that is completely different from, and far more tedious than, everyone else’s—usually for little to no points. Though outright cheating does not go unpunished, contestants are often rewarded for finding loopholes in the rules and exploiting them.

  Britannica’s picks:

  • In a task that directed contestants to identify the fillings in six separate pies without breaching the pastry, most struggled, trying to guess from smell and feel. Tim Key, on the other hand, simply asked Horne to open the pies for him—a strategy deemed well within the rules—winning five points.
  • One task required contestants to tie themselves up with rope and to make it as difficult as possible for Horne to free them. The person it took longest to untie would win. While other contestants achieved varying results by playing it straight, Rhod Gilbert tied up Horne instead, leaving Horne unable to untie the flimsy rope that Gilbert fastened around his own wrists. Gilbert won the task.
  • The final task of season five split contestants into two teams and asked them to write a song for a stranger named Rosalind after getting to know her briefly. The team of Bob Mortimer, Aisling Bea, and Sally Phillips sang a song that playfully mocked Rosalind, but the team of Nish Kumar and Mark Watson—whose performances had been hilariously scattershot that season—delivered a sweet, self-effacing, and humorous song that took everyone by surprise.
• The final task of the show invites all the participants to compete in a party game in front of the live studio audience.

  Britannica’s picks:

  • The task was for each contestant to stack buckets until the tower was taller than they were and then place at least one small beanbag on top, but it soon devolved into chaos when contestants began flinging beanbags—and even buckets—to topple each other’s stacks. Only Sarah Kendall completed the task.
  • Contestants were divided into two teams and asked to queue up. The teammate at the back of each line was shown a picture and tasked with drawing it on the back of the teammate in front of them with their finger. This continued down the line, with each contestant passing on what they felt, until the person at the front tried to recreate the image on a piece of paper. The team that most accurately recreated the image would win. Ed Gamble groaned about being paired with David Baddiel, whose track record at tasks that season was poor, to say the least. Suffice to say, they never got on the same page.

Development

Horne came up with an idea to set tasks for his comedian colleagues in May 2009, when he had to miss the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a major performing arts festival, because he was taking care of his newborn son. He wrote an email to 20 comedians, inviting them to participate in 12 oddball tasks over the next year. In 2010 Horne hosted a live show at the Edinburgh festival in which the comedians could display evidence confirming that they had completed the tasks and pick apart each other’s methods or results. The show was a success, and Horne organized a second show in 2011—though with fewer contestants—after which his agency suggested he turn the show into a TV series. However, most TV channels balked at the idea. Channel 4 funded a pilot episode but did not commission a full season, concerned about the show’s unscripted nature. It was ultimately Dave, a UKTV-owned free-to-air channel, that picked up the series.

For the TV series Davies signed on as the Taskmaster—a character that had not existed in the original show. Explaining his choice to play a butlerlike assistant on the show he created, the mild-mannered Horne has often said that his personality was not suited for the figure of authority and that he felt more like a “natural sidekick.” The show’s first nine seasons aired on Dave, receiving BAFTA and Emmy nominations. The show then moved to Channel 4, where it has aired since 2020. It won the BAFTA that year for best comedy entertainment program. It was awarded a second BAFTA in 2025 for entertainment craft team.