“Taskmaster” has long been one of my favorite shows… In addition to being silly and enchanting, “Taskmaster” is breathtakingly novel: I’m amazed by its capacity to remain unpredictable to both its viewers and its participants… [its] among the best of the best”
Margaret Lyons, The New York Times
The global juggernaut Taskmaster is set to bring its International Emmy nominated and BAFTA Award winning chaos to both sides of the pond with two performances of the smash-hit live show Taskmaster Live On Stage. Taking over the iconic Hollywood Bowl in the U.S.A, and one of the UK’s largest arenas at Manchester’s AO Arena with their first ever UK performance, the almighty Taskmaster Greg Davies and his doting sidekick Alex Horne, are set to perform in Manchester on 26th May, and Los Angeles on 22nd June 2027 with two unruly evenings of Taskmaster Live On Stage. They will be joined by some very special guests as live contestants at each show who will be revealed in due course.
Tickets will be released for pre-sale exclusively to the Taskmaster mailing list on 14th October, with general sale tickets available on Friday 16th October. Sign up to the mailing list for pre-sale access HERE.
Taskmaster Live On Stage became an instant sensation when it debuted on the East Coast of America earlier this year. Tickets entirely sold out in 13 minutes, and saw the likes of John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Lisa Gilroy and Jason Manztoukas featuring as special guest contestants. Touring to theatres in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York, the first ever live reimagining of the award-winning show was described as a “a sensation in the US… unpredictable, and always funny” (Lisa Weidenfeld, Boston Globe), “tremendous. The energy in the room is amazing” (Grace Leeder, Parade), and “the sold-out live shows confirm just how popular “Taskmaster” has become in the United States. Plus, they’ve been absolutely hilarious.” (Kelly Lawler, USA Today).
Alongside the special celebrity guests as contestants at each show, the remaining contestant places are up for grabs for the audience, who will have a chance to compete for eternal glory and bragging rights. Featuring brand-new special stage tasks for the entire audience, carefully devised by the meticulous Little Alex Horne, the Taskmaster will judge the efforts of these brave souls with merciless precision to ultimately determine one as either a Los Angeles or Mancunian Taskmaster Live On Stage Champion.
Alex Horne, the show’s creator and Taskmaster’s Assistant said: “This is one of the maddest moments of my life. For me the Hollywood Bowl means Monty Python and the Manchester Arena means Oasis. Now it’s our turn?! Luckily I’m with my biggest friend Greg so I’m going to be so brave.”
Greg Davies, The Taskmaster said: “I am thrilled that my tiny assistant and I are to bring Taskmaster to such illustrious venues. Whilst on one hand it feels daunting, on the other it feels like destiny. Rest assured my judgements will remain even handed and every effort will be made for everyone to have a good time, except Alex”.
Taskmaster is fast becoming a hit around the world and has been particularly embraced by U.S. audiences. The popularity and success of the show on YouTube has seen it generate a loyal audience with the U.S. public and significant U.S. TV critics, including seeing the show’s stars Alex Horne and Greg Davies be invited to appear multiple times on late night chat shows, even though they had never been on American television before. Their first appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers became their second most streamed interview online (second only to his interview with Barack Obama), while the previous season contestant, Jason Mantzoukas, was also invited to appear on Late Night with Seth Meyers to talk about Taskmaster. The growing audience in North America has meant that Alex & Greg hosted in person screenings of the show across two live appearances in New York which completely sold out within minutes of going on sale.
Taskmaster is now watched by its biggest audience yet with The Taskmaster YouTube channel seeing huge success internationally, particularly in North America, reaching over 15.5 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just over 1.7 billion views and over 2.3 million subscribers. The show has grown significantly in popularity with American audiences, with an 85% increase in North American viewership year on year, and over 215 million views from North America so far this year, while season 21 of the hit show saw an increase in viewership internationally, with 7 million hours watched so far on the official YouTube channel, contributing to the 323 million hours viewed and 2.3 million subscribers and counting on the channel. The channel to date has passed 1.7 billion views. More North American fans than ever can watch Taskmaster as the show has also been made available to stream on Hulu in the U.S. as of September 2026.
WHAT THE PRESS HAVE SAID ABOUT TASKMASTER
“The hottest comedy television show on the planet”
Julia Llewellyn Smith, The Sunday Times
“one of the planet’s most consistently funny TV shows”
William Hughes, AV Club
“The world’s hottest comedy show”
Liam Kelly, The Daily Telegraph
“The king of celebrity reality TV…. No one does that task better than Taskmaster.”
Killian Faith-Kelly, GQ
“Taskmaster has seen its popularity surge in recent years, going from a cult hit in the UK to a genuine global sensation… What began as a niche British panel show, Taskmaster has evolved into one of the most consistently inventive comedy formats in television”
Grace Leeder, Parade
“One of British TV’s biggest success stories… Taskmaster conquered the world”
Rachael Healy, The Observer
THE 10 SHOWS YOU NEED TO SEE 2025 “If you’ve never heard of this outrageously hilarious British comedy panel show, you likely will soon”
Kelly Lawler, USA Today
THE 19 BEST TV SHOWS OF 2025 “Find out why this is the show all the most discerning comedy fans in your life are obsessed with: You’ve never seen so many smart performers acting so silly”
Tara Araino, Vanity Fair
“the most imaginative thing on TV”
Isobel Lewis, The i
“Every episode of the British game show Taskmaster is a new experiment in reading comprehension, creative thinking, and wondering… Its great Television… Over ten years, Taskmaster has gathered a rabidly adoring fan base in the U.K., where it’s a cornerstone of the comedy-panel-show circuit and spawned a cottage industry of podcasts and international versions. Its joys are many: the discovery of new comedians, the chemistry among the cast members, the outlandishness of the tasks themselves, and the lovingly prickly dom-sub dynamic between Davies and Horne in studio. Each season feels like a highly choreographed descent into comedic madness, especially this year’s two offerings”.
Rozana Hadidi, Vulture
“It’s official, Taskmaster has gone global and deservedly so. Ever since this silly show’s incarnation in a hidden corner of British telly, it has been a consistent hour of pure, bonkers joy”
Sara Wallis, Daily Mirror
“a word of mouth hit… The Taskmaster setup, I discovered, is special… With reinvention baked right into the concept—new participants each season, new tasks each episode—it stays fresh and compelling far longer than the average British comedy game show.”
David Sims, The Atlantic
“Few shows on TV are such a source of guaranteed delight as Taskmaster”
Steven Perkins, TV Times Magazine
“Taskmaster has risen from a strange little British comedy show to becoming a global cult phenomenon”
Jeremy Fuster, The Wrap
“One of the most consistently entertaining comedy game shows on air these days”
Clare Martin, Paste Magazine
“Since its premiere in 2025, Taskmaster has succeeded through its delightfully silly premise that makes for the perfect comfort watch for anyone in need of a hearty laugh”
Ryan O’Rourke, Collider
“What do you call a panel show, that’s not really a panel show? One where the contestants are called “the cast”, who have narrative arcs over the 10 episodes but it’s not a sitcom? Where it’s comedians but they don’t perform their comedy? It’s absurd but mundane? It’s a mainstream, primetime, multi-award winning programme and the format has been exported to 12 countries, yet it still feels like a secret cult underground show? You call it Taskmaster… To say it’s a TV juggernaut is actually an understatement”.
Josh Jones, Ralph Magazine
“[The show’s] simple premise has achieved immense popularity… This, in all of its weirdness, is the magic of Taskmaster”
Chris Karnadi, The Atlantic
“It’s fair to say that Taskmaster has become a pop-culture phenomenon”
Boyd Hilton, Heat Magazine
“Effortlessly charming… The show exists in its own kind of universe… Taskmaster has become beloved the world over”
Maggie Boccella, Collider
“There’s an infantile joy in comedy game show Taskmaster… it’s becoming more popular than ever, and comedians are falling over themselves to take part”
Tom Spilsbury, TV Choice
“Taskmaster [is] the hit British series that gained an audience of comedy-loving Americans during the pandemic thanks to its availability on YouTube… expect the unexpected”
Kevin Slane, The Boston Globe
ENDS
For more information contact:
Avalon: Florrie Sheehan, fsheehan@avalonuk.com
US Publicity Team: Rick Miramontez / Marie Bshara / Evie Freeman
rick@omdkc.com / marie@omdkc.com / evie@omdkc.com
Hollywood Bowl: Leah Price, leah.price@laphil.org
Manchester AO Arena: Ellice Eadie, ellice.eadie@ao-arena.com
Notes to Editors:
About the Hollywood Bowl:
One of the largest outdoor amphitheaters in the world, the Hollywood Bowl seats nearly 18,000 and has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since its official opening in 1922. As a public park owned by the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation and operated in partnership with the LA Phil , the Hollywood Bowl welcomes visitors from around the world and hosts the finest artists across all genres of music. For over a century, the Hollywood Bowl has offered some of the best entertainment value in Los Angeles—with many classical and jazz performances still offering $1 seats at the top of the venue. In April 2026, it was named Outdoor Concert Venue of the Year at the 37th Annual Pollstar Awards, marking the 18th time it has received this honor. For millions of Southern California music lovers, the Hollywood Bowl remains synonymous with summer. hollywoodbowl.com
About Taskmaster:
- Taskmaster is a BAFTA and Rose d’Or winning and International Emmy nominated comedy entertainment 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.
- 224 episodes have been produced in the UK so far, as part of a landmark six season deal with Channel 4 in 2020, which was renewed for a further six series by the broadcaster along with a brand-new spin off series Junior Taskmaster, following nine record-breaking series on UKTV’s Dave.
- Taskmaster has triumphed as one of Channel 4’s most popular programmes in recent years, Taskmaster is already watched by a broad multi-generational audience and is in Channel 4’s top three series of audience share of young viewers (16-34) in the coveted 9pm slot, with Gogglebox and Derry Girls. Taskmaster is also hugely popular on Channel 4’s streaming service, with the average views per episode [0-7Days, O&O] growing since 2021. Taskmaster is also hugely popular on Channel 4 streaming, where it is available for free and, since 2021, the average views per episode [0-7Days, O+O] have grown for the title with each series. Taskmaster is one of the youngest skewing shows on Channel 4, with nearly a quarter of its audience last year aged 16-34, across both linear and streaming. Across 2024 Taskmaster was in the top 5 most streamed shows on Channel 4, for all individuals.
- Taskmaster has recently received its second nomination for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards 2026, following a fifth BAFTA nomination for the 2025 awards and was crowned Best Entertainment Craft at the 2025 BAFTAs, and Best Comedy Entertainment at the Rose D’Or Awards 2024. Previously it has won Best Comedy Entertainment Show at the National Comedy Awards 2022 and 2023, Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs 2020 and Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards 2018, having previously received two more nominations for the Broadcast Awards. It has also been nominated for the Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award at the NTA’s 2021 and 2022, Best Comedy Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2023, Studio Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2021, Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Broadcast Digital Awards, Edinburgh TV Award, the TV Choice Awards, Best Returning Format in the International Format Awards 2020, and received two BAFTA Craft nominations in 2023 and 2025. While it’s spin of series Junior Taskmaster took home the prize for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the Royal Television Society Awards 2025.
- The original Taskmaster programme can now be seen in 120 countries
- Over 93 seasons and 921 episodes have been commissioned outside the UK with local versions now in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Poland and Portugal where it ranked first for most watched entertainment programs on its channel RTP 1. Taskmaster Australia launched on Network Ten where it became the channel’s top new show of the year and received a nomination for Most Outstanding Comedy at the Logies, produced by Avalon Television with Kevin&Co and featuring Tom Gleeson as the Taskmaster with Tom Cashman as the Taskmaster’s Assistant, and Taskmaster New Zealand series six launched on TVNZ in 2025, while it previously won Best Entertainment Show at the NZ TV Awards. The first season of Le Maitre du Jeu for Bell Media, which aired in Canada in September 2022, increased Noovo’s performance in the Thursday time slot by 50%, while it is now in production for series four. The UK original won Canada’s film and TV Rockie Awards 2023 for Best Comedy and Variety show.
- The format has seen huge success in Europe, with the Swedish version reaching ratings of over a 65% market share in a primetime weekend slot with series 14 and 15 in production for TV4, produced by Avalon Television with Fremantle. Norway’s local version of Taskmaster, Kongen Befaler, won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Comedy Show in 2024, where a twelfth season is in production for Warner Bros Discovery. Finland’s version of Taskmaster, Suurmestari, won Game Show of the Year at the Venla Gala awards, with five series aired and six more ordered by MTV3, with the channel also launching the first international version of Junior Taskmaster later this year. Stormester, Denmark’s Taskmaster, which is now in its tenth series, won Best Game Show at the 2022 Vindere Awards making it their most successful comedy entertainment series ever with a 50% share of all viewers, with TV2 launching successful Taskmaster spin off series, ‘Champion of Champions’ in 2023 and ‘One More Chance’ 2024, which achieved an incredible 82% share in the 15-34 demo.
- The Taskmaster YouTube channel has seen huge success internationally, particularly in North America, reaching over 15.5 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just over 1.7 billion views and over 2.3 million subscribers. The channel has had over 323 million hours’ worth of content viewed with 47% of those hours from North America (190 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with American audiences throughout 2025. There has been an 85% increase in North American viewership year on year, with over 215 million views from North America so far this year, while there were 270k new subscribers from North America in 2025 alone, which is three times more than it received for its previous series, while series 21 of the hit show saw an increase in viewership internationally and saw a 41% increase in impressions from North America compared to the previous series, with 7 million hours watched so far on the official YouTube channel, contributing to the 323 million hours viewed and 2.3 million subscribers and counting on the channel. The channel to date has passed 1.7 billion views.
- The Taskmaster book ‘200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People’ was published in 2018, while a second book ‘Bring Me The Head of the Taskmaster’ was published in September 2021. Both books featured as Sunday Times Bestsellers at launch and were followed by the launch of a brand-new book celebrating the ten year anniversary of Taskmaster; ‘An Absolute Casserole: The Taskmaster Compendium’ which launched in November 2024. Combined they have collectively sold over one million units globally. The Swedish version of the book has sold 108,000 copies to date.
- For the first time, Taskmaster entered the world of virtual reality with a brand-new virtual reality game, Taskmaster VR. Published by Scallywag Arcade, a Draw & Code studio, Taskmaster VR launched in 2024 for Meta Quest 2 and 3.
- The festive season saw the launch of brand-new Taskmaster Crackers which entirely sold out before they hit the shelves at pre-sale. Having currently sold over a quarter of a million crackers to fans across the world, production went into overdrive to meet phenomenal demand in time for Christmas. They became an official No.1 best-seller on Amazon and have been ordered by fans across 58 countries around the globe including in North America, Australia, Thailand, South Korea and Iceland among other countries.
- 2025 saw the creation and release of a brand-new Taskmaster Advent Calendar, which was the latest festive product for Christmas 2025. Over 15,000 calendars were sold on the first day of pre-orders in July, making it the fastest selling merchandise item in Taskmaster history. It then went on to entirely sell out and was purchased by fans across the globe from the U.S.A., to Italy, Brazil and beyond.
- Taskmaster: The Board Game was released in Autumn 2019 and entirely sold out a week after it went on sale. A second game, Taskmaster: The Secret Series Game was released in 2022. Taskmaster: The Card Game was released also released in 2022. Across the range, over 400,000 games have been sold to date. All the games are available to buy from the official Taskmaster shop, www.TaskmasterStore.com.
- Taskmaster Education takes elements of the show and uses them to inspire, engage and teach children and young people. Tasks can be adapted to meet a near infinite range of teacher objectives, whether curriculum-based or more focused on social and emotional development. Taskmaster Club launched in September 2023, offering schools across the country the opportunity to host after school clubs that bring Little Alex Horne and the silly joy of Taskmaster into their classrooms. Over 800 schools in the UK have registered to date on taskmastereducation.com.
- Taskmaster recently collaborated with Great Ormand Street Hospital with the first ever Taskmaster livestream event which invited content creators and influencers with a combined social following of over 117million to be the contestants. The event raised over £277,000 (and counting) for the new cancer centre at the hospital. Taskmaster also works with Homeless Link; the national membership charity for frontline homelessness services, creating a virtual Taskmaster at Home event with all the money raised going to homeless charities across the UK. Having raised over £125,000, more information on the virtual event can be found here.
- For the first time ever, fans could step into the shoes of their favourite comedians and complete tasks themselves with Taskmaster: The Live Experience. The launch of the brand-new interactive adventure saw it receive rave reviews, selected as one of Time Out’s ‘Top London Comedy Shows to See’, and Metro’s ‘best adventures to be had in London’. The most ludicrous experience in London extended its run well into 2025 to keep up with demand for tickets.
- In a bid to make studio tickets fairer to get for fans, Taskmaster now sell guaranteed entry tickets to see the show being recorded. All proceeds (excluding ticketing partner’s fees and VAT) will be donated to three charities handpicked by Alex and Greg: Slough Homeless Our Concern, Thames Valley Adventure Playground, and LOROS Hospice. You can sign up to the mailing list to be the first to hear about upcoming ticket releases.
Taskmaster can be watched on:
TaskmasterSuperMax+
Taskmaster YouTube Channel
Channel 4 / All 4
iTunes
Google
Amazon
Microsoft
