“The funniest show on television”
Luke Holland, The Guardian
“it’s still the same delightful, daft show”
★★★★★ Steven Perkins, TV Times Magazine
“impressive”
★★★★ Boyd Hilton, Heat
Ahead of the BAFTA winning tv show making it’s Channel 4 debut on Thursday 15th October at 9pm, it was announced today that the brand-new official Taskmaster Podcast has reached number two in the iTunes charts only two days following the trailer release and before any episodes have aired.
Hosted by Ed Gamble and produced by the creators of the hit comedy show, Avalon, each instalment of the podcast will be available to download immediately after each episode of the new series has aired.
Following the journeys of the latest batch of brave contestants; Daisy May Cooper, Johnny Vegas, Katherine Parkinson, Mawaan Rizwan and Richard Herring as they battle it out in the 10th series of quintessentially perplexing challenges set by the all-powerful Taskmaster. Each week Gamble will be joined by special guests to dissect, discuss and disagree with all of the Taskmaster’s questionable decisions. Past contestants, little Alex Horne, and even the Taskmaster himself will feature in this brand-new podcast.
The Taskmaster Podcast is available to download from 15th October 10pm on iTunes
CRITICAL PRAISE FOR SERIES 10 SO FAR
“The funniest double act on television… Taskmaster is one of TV’s most refreshing comedies. It’s nonsensical, silly and different from anything else on TV”
Frances Taylor, Radio Times
“it’s still just as ridiculous and entertaining as ever”
★★★★★ Lauren Morris, Radio Times Online
“The hilarity still comes in waves”
Lynn Gibson, Inside Soap
“hilarious as usual”
Emily Baker, The I
PREVIOUS CRITICAL PRAISE
Cleverly constructed series… Horne and Davies tormenting five different comics a season is a proven formula
★★★★ Jack Seale, Guardian
Taskmaster is one of the most consistently funny comedy game shows on television
★★★★ Sarah Hughes, The I
I adore Taskmaster — essentially Gladiators, but for nerds
★★★★ Evening Standard, Samuel Fishwick
This glorious little show can be relied on to provide laughs week in and week out, and this ninth series has been another belter
Anne Richardson, The Daily Mirror
This is now a cult hit with a seemingly never-ending run of imaginative tasks for endlessly unprepared contestants
Sara Wallis, The Daily Mirror
It’s glorious mayhem and stupidly funny
David Butcher, Radio Times
No other TV show makes the jeopardy of losing self-respect quite so funny… brilliantly entertaining
Frances Taylor, Radio Times
This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. It remains the strangest – and greatest
Jack Thorne, Radio Times
Funny, revealing, and glorious…Caitlin Moran once wrote that the comedy panel game is one of the glories of British TV. A new one shone bright last night
★★★★★ Andrew Billen, The Times
It’s such a cracking format… possibly the best yet
Chris Bennion, The Times
The kind of Dave thing that shouldn’t quite work but is actually wildly stupid fun. Mainly thanks to Alex Horne, late of so much splendid radio, and Greg Davies…a winner
Euan Ferguson, The Observer
Never less than brilliant
Mike Ward, Daily Star
Winning as ever
Sharon Lougher, Metro
Ludicrously funny
★★★★★ Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
One of the funniest game shows on TV
★★★★ Natasha Holt, TV Times Magazine
The keynote themes are ludicrous absurdity and moderately cruel sadism. Somehow, however, it all works brilliantly, with the presence of Horne adding the barest modicum of civility to proceedings…prepare for tears of laughter
Mark Wareham, Mail on Sunday, Event Magazine
Taskmaster is an unashamed celebration of the bizarre and the mediocre
Sam Wollaston, G2 Guardian
Never before has anything so absurd, so stupid, so utterly pointless, made such good television
Sara Wallis, Daily Mirror
Inventive
Mike Ward, Saturday Magazine, Daily Express
Taskmaster just keeps on giving when it comes to laughs and originality
The Sun, TV Magazine
Creative Chaos
Emma Messenger, TV Choice
This seems to be a series that really brings families together
Bruce Dessau, Beyond the Joke
Splendidly silly
Sunday Times, Culture
Clever
David Stephenson, Sunday Express, S Magazine
The show routinely delivers the funniest, most unexpected comedy of the TV week…The cleverest spin on the panel show format in years, it’s must-watch TV
Wesley Mead, Den of Geek
I made my own family watch
Margaret Lyons, The New York Times
The ingeniously goofy challenges are what make “Taskmaster” so appealing
Marc Silver, The Washington Post
A heaping dose of creativity, ingenuity, and lots of fun
Lea Palmieri, The Decider
Taskmaster is unlike anything American audiences have seen in recent memory
Andrew Husband, Uproxx
a very silly show
Megh Wright, Vulture
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Florrie Sheehan at Avalon: fsheehan@avalonuk.com
Notes to Editors:
About Taskmaster
- Taskmaster is a BAFTA winning and International Emmy nominated comedy game show originally created by Alex Horne. Greg Davies stars as the all-powerful “Taskmaster” who, with the help of his loyal assistant Horne, sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five comedians through a series of strange and surreal challenges in what is the most hard-fought and ridiculous comedy entertainment format on TV.
- 74 episodes have been produced in the UK so far, with a further 60 ordered by Channel 4 as part of a landmark six season deal in 2020. Series 10 – 15 will be aired on Channel 4 from Autumn 2020, following nine record-breaking series on UKTV’s Dave.
- Since the programme’s launch in 2015 on UKTV’s Dave, Taskmaster’s audience has grown by 80% from series one to series nine, averaging an audience of 1.8 million viewers at its peak.
- Taskmaster was crowned Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs 2020 and won Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards 2018, having previously received two more nominations for both awards. It has also been nominated for Best Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards, Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Broadcast Digital Awards, and the TV Choice Awards.
- The original Taskmaster programme and format combined has been sold into 106 countries, with 140 episodes of the format being made outside the UK including local versions of the show produced for VTM in Belgium, TVE in Spain, and TVNZ in New Zealand. While the original will air on The CW in the U.S. this August.
- The format has seen huge success in Europe, with the Swedish version winning Programme of the Year at the Kristallen 2019 (Sweden’s TV Academy Awards) and its fourth series for SVT reaching ratings of over a 50% market share in a primetime weekend slot. Two new series have been ordered for MTV in Finland after its first episode ranked in the top ten most watched shows in the country, and there are returning series for Discovery in Norway and TV2 in Denmark.
- The Taskmaster YouTube channel has received over 66 million views and has 351,000 subscribers.
- #HomeTasking had over 76 million impressions across all content on YouTube. Viewing grew by 42%, while subscribers grew by 85% since it launched on the Taskmaster YouTube channel. It was watched in 125 countries with viewers ranging from the US to the UK and from Moldova to Mongolia.
- The Taskmaster Book 200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People has sold nearly 100,000 copies.
- A Taskmaster boardgame was released in Autumn 2019 and entirely sold out a week after it went on sale. It has sold 33,000 copies to date. An expansion pack was released this year along with the launch of the official Taskmaster shop.
