Starts 10pm Tuesday 21st June, 5 x 60 minute episodes
Taskmaster GREG DAVIES and his loyal assistant ALEX HORNE return to UKTV’s Dave on Tuesday 21st June with a multitude of tricksy tests and some woeful decision making as five new hyper-competitive comedians fight it out to be crowned Taskmaster Champion. JON RICHARDSON (8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Channel 4), RICHARD OSMAN (Pointless, BBC One), JOE WILKINSON (Rovers, Sky One), KATHERINE RYAN (Hair, BBC Two) and DOC BROWN (Law and Order: UK, ITV) will compete across five weeks to win each other’s actual belongings before one of them topples JOSH WIDDICOMBE, the inaugural victor who had GREG’s name tattooed on his foot in his bid for success. Expect more cheating, blazing arguments and one of the most heart-breaking moments in television history.
The Taskmaster cottage remains the base as the feckless five attempt to conceal pineapples, rescue cats and hurl potatoes, but this time they’re also taken to the peaks of massive man-made mounds, forced to wade through rivers and made to perform before civic royalty in Chesham’s Town Hall. For twenty weeks they strived alone to accomplish these very silly assignments, before finally being united for GREG’s rulings in front of a baying and occasionally sympathetic audience.
An Avalon Television production, series 2 of Taskmaster was commissioned by HILARY ROSEN, Deputy Director of Commissioning at UKTV and ordered by RICHARD WATSHAM, Director of Commissioning and Dave General Manager, STEVE NORTH. Executive Producers for the series are ALEX HORNE, RICHARD ALLEN-TURNER, ROB ASLETT, JAMES TAYLOR, JON THODAY, and ANDY DEVONSHIRE (The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off), who also acts as series director, and HILARY ROSEN for UKTV. ANDY CARTWRIGHT is series producer. In 2015 it was announced that UKTV had commissioned a second and third series of Taskmaster, which was nominated for Best Entertainment Programme at the 2016 Broadcast Awards and was 2015’s most watched commission on UKTV’s VOD service, UKTV Play.
Taskmaster started out as a critically acclaimed live show, devised by 2014 Foster’s Comedy Award nominee ALEX HORNE, which ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010 and 2011.
Preview episodes are available to view at: http://pressoffice.uktv.co.uk
For more information please contact:
Lottie Robertshaw at Avalon: 020 7598 7222 or email: Lottier@avalonuk.com
Gemma Pinkney at UKTV: 0203 752 7669 or email: Gemma.Pinkney@UKTV.co.uk
Notes to editors
ALEX HORNE
The creator of Taskmaster, ALEX HORNE was nominated for the 2014 Foster’s Comedy Award with his Edinburgh Festival Fringe show Monsieur Butterfly. Alongside his band The Horne Section, ALEX has hosted Nevermind the Buzzcocks (BBC Two) and three series of the acclaimed Alex Horne Presents: The Horne Section (BBC Radio 4). The band performed on John Bishop’s Christmas Show (BBC One) and regularly appear dictionary corner on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Channel 4). ALEX’s other television credits include: Dave’s One Night Stand (Dave), Celebrity Mastermind (BBC1) Drunk History (Comedy Central) and The Games That Time Forgot, a documentary ALEX wrote and presented for BBC Four. ALEX has hosted three series of the iTunes chart-topping, Chortle Award nominated podcast ALEX HORNE BREAKS THE NEWS.
GREG DAVIES
GREG DAVIES is an acclaimed stand-up comedian, actor and the writer and star of the hit Channel 4 sitcom Man Down: “scales new heights of brilliance” (The Times), which returns for a third series in July. After playing infamously psychotic Head of Sixth Form ‘Mr Gilbert’ in The Inbetweeners (Channel 4) and its two spin-off feature films, Greg starred in three series of BBC Three’s Cuckoo alongside Andy Samberg and Taylor Lautner, which earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme.
Greg’s debut solo stand up show Firing Cheeseballs At A Dog was nominated for the prestigious Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2010, and went on to have a three-time extended sell-out national tour. In 2013 Greg returned with another sell-out tour with The Back of My Mum’s Head. The DVDs for both shows became Top 10 bestsellers.
WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT TASKMASTER, SERIES 1
“Caitlin Moran once wrote that the comedy panel game is one of the glories of British TV. A new one shone bright last night” ***** The Times
Wildly stupid fun…a winner The Guardian
A bountiful source of laughs Radio Times
Hilarious viewing Daily Mirror
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen some of the nation’s finest comedians trying to cram as much watermelon in their mouths as possible ***** Mail on Sunday
