0:00

Oh, there it is. Yeah,

0:05

the theme tune. We've got, well, some

0:07

of our listeners probably got a double dose

0:09

of us last week, did they not?

0:12

Well, they were there with two weeks

0:14

ago, in fact. Yeah. The two weeks

0:16

ago. I don't keep track very well.

0:18

But go on, tell me what happened,

0:20

Jack. Timers and Mirage, we were on

0:22

the main podcast. What are we doing

0:24

there? It's great stuff. Who wouldn't call

0:26

it the main podcast? I'd call it

0:28

Ed's Podcast.

0:33

It's a struggle daily. We

0:36

are. We're the alt crew though, you

0:38

know? He's mainstream, that's fine. We're the

0:41

alt crew. We're cool, aren't we? Yeah, we

0:43

are cool. We're very cool,

0:45

Jenny. In my day, it

0:47

was like university versus polytechnic.

0:50

And I thought polytechnic was more

0:52

cool. I was wrong. I

0:55

think polytechnic was cool. No,

0:57

they weren't. They were shit. They were just badly run,

1:00

absolutely appalling places. I tell you. Anyway,

1:02

we're not here to talk about my,

1:05

I didn't even go to, well, I went to a

1:07

drama school. So, you know, anyone.

1:09

Well, I'm going to have to update my stats. Hang on. Oh

1:12

man. How

1:14

many contestants went to drama school? I think

1:16

you've done this one. I'm sure you've done this. I

1:18

have actually. And I think I had you down

1:21

in polytechnic. So I think I'll have to update

1:23

my stats so that you are drama school, not

1:25

polytechnic. Okay, well, let

1:28

me just, I don't like to

1:30

sort of put the two in the

1:32

same breath, but it was Manchester Polytechnic School

1:34

of Theatre. But at the time it was

1:37

one of the affiliated drama schools on

1:40

the same par as

1:42

the Rada, Lambda, et cetera. None

1:45

of which I got into. The

1:48

name, I will say you're right in the sense

1:50

that polytechnic does make you go like, well, it's

1:53

not, you know, it's not a Rada, which is ridiculous.

1:56

We've got to unlearn. I've got to unlearn

1:58

my class biases. Yeah,

2:00

you have. Yeah, especially when it comes

2:02

to me and my drama school. No,

2:04

I can't just tell you something now.

2:07

I went to drama school in

2:09

1978 to Manchester Polytechnic School of

2:11

Theatre and it was,

2:14

if I paid for it, I

2:16

would want my money back. It

2:18

was sloppy. It was slovenly and

2:20

sloppily run and tutors

2:22

slept with some of the

2:25

students and all that

2:27

kind of stuff. That's like sloppily run is

2:29

like, oh dear. Tutors

2:32

sleep with students. That's a different, we got,

2:34

we got to categorize that in a different

2:37

area. I'd say. In my

2:39

day we didn't, we just saw us a bit sloppy.

2:41

That kind of page is a bit sloppy. Anyway,

2:44

there we go. We are here, Jack,

2:46

mainly to talk about what? Taskmaster.

2:49

We always have to remind ourselves.

2:51

We're talking about Taskmaster and specifically

2:53

we're talking this week about an

2:56

episode that we decided to rewatch.

2:58

We are rewatching all episodes in

3:00

between the series because Jenny,

3:02

we have to educate you about the, about all the gaps in the

3:05

launch. I've got to get up to speed. Yeah, absolutely. Got to get

3:07

up to speed. And we're tracking. You chose, well, series 10, episode seven.

3:09

You chose it. I chose it. Well, I didn't really choose it. Really

3:12

Jimmy chose it because Jimmy sent us

3:20

in an email a couple of weeks ago saying,

3:23

in fact, I'll read out the email again, because

3:25

it's important for this, for what we'll talk about

3:27

here. He said, I may have found a goof

3:29

rewatching series 10 episode seven, the task where they

3:31

had to scoot around on the chair and swap

3:33

chickens. The task said they had to get the

3:35

chicken one across the opposite lines.

3:37

Daisy and Catherine swapped the chickens before starting the

3:40

course, meaning the chickens had effectively crossed the loans

3:42

before they went across the track, went

3:44

around the track and touched the robots. I thought

3:46

of rewatching it properly and then decided to

3:48

get us to do it instead. And so we did. And

3:51

so we did. Yeah. But

3:53

Jimmy, can I just say something now?

3:56

I think that you

3:59

might've been better better off

4:01

re-watching this yourself. I got

4:03

quite confused, A, by

4:05

the task and what they were tasked

4:08

to do, and B, by

4:10

Jimmy's email. I

4:13

got confused between the chickens and what

4:15

you were meant to do with them

4:17

and which direction you were allowed to

4:19

go. This I think

4:21

is the key. I will also

4:24

say that I've watched Series 10 a few times.

4:26

I haven't watched that many times. I think it's

4:28

because it was a lockdown series and for some

4:30

reason it gives me lockdown vibes. Sometimes I'm like,

4:32

I don't want to go back to lockdown. But

4:36

I watched it during the time at lockdown and

4:38

I remember them reading out the

4:40

official what

4:43

the task is and in my head just going like, I

4:45

can't take that in. I don't know what's going on. I'm

4:47

going to have to trust that. And that's you, Jack. I

4:49

know. If you don't understand

4:51

what's going on, God have mercy on

4:53

the rest of us. Well, so

4:56

it's slightly interesting what Jimmy's talking about. I

4:58

say slightly. It's very interesting, Jimmy. I'm so

5:00

sorry. It's extremely interesting what you're saying, Jimmy.

5:03

Because the

5:05

exact wording of the task was,

5:07

get to that finish line, clutching

5:09

chicken number 2. Get

5:11

chicken number 1 across the start line

5:14

aboard a radio controlled contestant's name. So

5:16

aboard the little car that had Richard

5:19

Herring or Mawaan Rizwan or Catherine Parkinson or Johnny

5:21

Vegas or Daisy May Cooper's face on it. You

5:23

must sit on the office chair at all times.

5:25

If anything touches the little robot, your attempt is

5:27

over. What Catherine and

5:32

Daisy did was to swap chickens beforehand.

5:35

Now, in Jimmy's email,

5:37

he was like, well, they, you know, swap

5:39

chickens and then they crossed the line. So

5:42

task complete. That isn't what happened because the

5:44

official wording was get to that finish line,

5:46

clutching chicken number 2 and get chicken number

5:48

1 across the start line aboard radio controlled

5:51

contestant's name. So basically, what

5:54

Daisy and Catherine did was to swap

5:56

the chickens and then do the course.

5:59

If Daisy and Catherine had done the

6:01

following, which is to swap the chickens

6:04

and then go across the

6:06

start line and then go across the

6:08

finish line and move the radio-controlled chickens

6:11

the other way. I think they would

6:14

have done the course. I think they would have done

6:16

it. It would

6:18

have been slightly dubious because the task

6:20

says, get out. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!

6:22

Stop! Okay. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. You

6:24

said, you said, dubious then. Oh no.

6:27

So you just have to go

6:29

back and say, and

6:31

say dubious properly. Dubious.

6:35

Thank you. It would have been slightly

6:37

dubious. Oh my God. Look,

6:39

I'm getting a headache even saying these

6:41

words. I can't be expected to say

6:43

words correctly as well. It's

6:47

really, really tricky. This task

6:50

was a bit of a mindfuck

6:52

actually, but we'll just, shall

6:55

we start with discussing this task and

6:58

whether people should have been disqualified or

7:00

not? Or should we go through the

7:03

episode chronologically, but concentrate

7:05

mostly on Jimmy's

7:07

email? I would say

7:10

let's talk about this task specifically and then

7:12

do the other stuff. We'll go backwards. We'll

7:14

be confusing and go backwards as well and

7:16

talk about the prize task because this is

7:18

the first film task of the episode. So

7:20

I think it would make sense to talk

7:22

a little bit about it. I mean, from

7:24

what I understand, so

7:27

first off, it's not a goof in

7:29

my eyes because I think neither Catherine

7:31

nor Daisy did what the task said

7:35

before they touched the robots. They then touched,

7:38

they did the course, they did what the

7:40

task said, but they touched the robots beforehand.

7:43

The only point of contention I can

7:45

think of is if someone had decided

7:47

to instead of go round the track,

7:49

had decided to just go into the

7:51

track and then reverse backwards because there's

7:53

nothing actually in the task that says

7:55

you must complete this course. The

7:58

only thing that you could say... is

8:00

slightly dubious. Again,

8:03

on top of that, it

8:05

says, get to that finish line, clutching

8:07

chicken number two, and get chicken number

8:09

one across the start line. That implies

8:12

you would

8:14

go around the course, but

8:16

it doesn't explicitly say it. Get

8:18

to that finish line could just be as simple

8:20

as arrive at that finish line,

8:22

which you could do not going around

8:24

the course, I would argue. You'd have

8:26

to get Susie Kent. I'm

8:29

now going to pretend I

8:32

kept up with every single

8:34

second of that explanation. What

8:36

I'm doing is I'm looking at my notebook and

8:38

what I've got is Daisy was disqualified, and I

8:40

think Catherine was too, but there's quite a

8:43

lot of scribbling going on in this notebook.

8:45

Yes, they were both disqualified and they

8:47

were rightly disqualified. It was

8:50

quite sad because they both, well, Daisy in

8:52

particular is particularly sad because Alex

8:55

said at the end, did you

8:57

touch any? Did anything touch the robots? She

8:59

goes, no. Then immediately goes, oh, I

9:03

did. It's sort of a cliffhanger, which

9:05

is heartbreaking. It's such a sad thing.

9:07

Also, I think a rare example of

9:09

Alex telling a contestant or

9:12

effectively telling a contestant they've been disqualified at

9:15

the end of a task instead of waiting to the

9:17

studio. You definitely could have waited

9:19

to the studio to say, oh,

9:22

you've been disqualified. That usually what they

9:24

do is they

9:27

don't tell anyone they've made a mistake and then wait until

9:29

they get to the studio to say, haha, look what you've

9:31

done. Whereas here, it feels like Alex

9:33

couldn't bear, or maybe he

9:35

was thinking that Daisy would say, nope,

9:37

didn't touch anything. Bye. In a

9:40

classic Manya

9:44

Chihuahua style or

9:47

Dave Gorman style, aware

9:49

that they cheated. One of the cheaters. She's not one of

9:51

the cheaters. She's not one of the

9:53

cheaters. She looks so sad. She

9:56

looks so sad when she was disqualified. I can't. year

10:00

old. Maybe he knew at the time of the

10:02

filming that she was pregnant and didn't want to

10:04

give her nasty shock in the studio that

10:06

maybe could report on the birth of

10:08

the child. Didn't he? ALICE That's

10:11

very forward thinking from Alex, as I did, he's

10:13

like, oh god, if she would get such a

10:15

shock from being disqualified, we can't have

10:18

a baby in the taskmaster. We can't have

10:20

a taskmaster birth. Ridiculous! JANET I think it

10:22

would be rather good fun. Now listen,

10:24

it wouldn't get any points though, because

10:26

I know this, it would probably get two

10:28

points. She says

10:31

rather bitterly. Anyway,

10:33

listen, why did the

10:35

women find this so much

10:37

harder than the men? Statistically. ALICE

10:40

Oh, I have no idea why statistically. I'm

10:42

not even going to jump into that minefield.

10:45

I would say, I do sort of wonder

10:48

about the age thing. The age thing that

10:51

they mention in the show, where they're like,

10:53

oh, Ma'an's really young, therefore

10:55

he would do this task really

10:57

well. It doesn't quite make sense.

10:59

I suppose it sort of does. Okay,

11:01

I will say a little bit. Remote control

11:04

cars... JANET

11:06

I was waiting for you to... ALICE

11:08

You do give to boys. JANET I

11:10

think boys have got more experience with

11:12

the remote controls, because, okay, this sounds...

11:14

and we'll get lots of emails saying,

11:17

I'm a girl and I loved my

11:19

remote control car. Great. They hadn't been

11:21

invented in my day. But

11:24

I cannot think actually

11:27

in my life, whether I've had very

11:29

much experience with remote control. I know

11:31

that it would have been probably

11:35

playing with some of my nephew's

11:37

toys. Phoebe never asked, I don't

11:39

know whether she had anything remote controlled.

11:41

ALICE I feel like, well, I

11:43

think my sister definitely played remote

11:46

control. Maybe not cars, but

11:48

definitely like, I think there was a dog. Again,

11:50

this is very much like, gender toys. JANET

11:55

It's terrible. And they're

11:57

still terribly bad. They're still awful.

12:00

Well, I tell you, I'm trying my best, Jack.

12:02

I'll know my grandson turns to next

12:05

month. So far, I bought him a

12:09

baby dolly, a baby

12:11

buggy, you know, a very good dollies.

12:14

Yeah. And also found on the

12:16

internet for under 15 quid, um,

12:19

an anatomically correct baby boy

12:21

doll. Oh, that's really

12:24

cool. It's get this. It still

12:26

comes in a little blue outfit.

12:28

Yeah. Oh, wait. I mean, I was going

12:30

to say the blue, the blue pink thing,

12:32

obviously the blue pink thing is insane. It's

12:34

insane. But yeah, that was such

12:36

an obvious thing. The girls flapped over

12:39

the remote control. They just did.

12:41

I hope I would, I'm just trying to think

12:43

of young female contestants being on the show. I

12:46

mean, maybe we'll get it in series 18. I

12:48

don't know. I mean, both Catherine and Daisy, uh,

12:51

I mean, I don't know. I don't know what they

12:53

are. I will. I do know what the answer is. The

12:56

boys were a theme almost in

12:58

this, in this episode, because later

13:00

on we had the marble challenge

13:03

and one said that he'd

13:05

never played marbles. I

13:09

mean, I can sort of believe it. I suppose

13:12

there were two tasks. One really benefits of more

13:14

on one didn't benefit more on. I think that

13:16

I hope the difference is age, but I guess,

13:18

because I mean, if you're going to be like,

13:21

are marbles a traditional boys toy? I

13:24

don't know. I know girls as well.

13:26

Girls did marbles. Yeah. Girls did marbles

13:29

because insultingly I remember you could get

13:31

like very pretty pink marbles that were

13:33

like, these are the girls marbles. Oh

13:36

God. And marbles. And

13:38

marbles. There was glitter in them. Yes, I know.

13:40

Which, which, you know, you still meant you could

13:42

play marble around. But when the one

13:44

was challenged about whether

13:46

he'd not ever played marbles and

13:48

he's very fondly responded with no,

13:50

because I had a PS one.

13:54

I don't know what a PS one

13:56

is, but I presume it's

13:59

something like. So that's

14:01

like remote control, isn't it? Pretty much. I think that

14:03

that's the, I mean, this again is the big, this

14:06

would be the big gap. I suppose from

14:08

Alex's perspective, well, I was going to say,

14:10

I wonder if the one may not have

14:12

played with remote control cars, but he would

14:15

have played with consoles that would mean that

14:17

there are remote control, you know, like playing

14:19

Mario Kart, or I know that's not a

14:21

PS1 game before anyone calls

14:24

them. But, but I'm

14:26

really sorry. I'm chugging my shoulders.

14:30

How dare you? It's a Nintendo game. But,

14:34

but I suppose that that would be the

14:36

thing. I mean, but again, there are many

14:38

female gamers and that is a

14:41

God, I acknowledge that we acknowledge that,

14:43

but we're just, we are talking generally

14:45

here. I suppose the hope is that

14:47

if they did this task in 10

14:49

years time, when on task

14:51

master series, 20, 30,

14:54

whatever it is. And there were female

14:56

contestants who grew up in the noughties, they

14:59

would be like, Oh, sure. I played

15:01

this all the time because I play video

15:03

games all the time. And this is basically like a

15:05

real life version of a video game. How

15:08

can say, Well, can you explain to

15:10

me then why was it age

15:13

then that meant that Mawaan

15:15

was the only person again,

15:17

the only person under 30

15:20

who went backwards on

15:22

his chair, which was so much more

15:24

efficient. Why was he the only one to

15:26

think like that? I think that is possibly

15:28

an age thing, but it's also probably a

15:31

fear thing from Richard

15:33

and Johnny of not wanting to fall. Like,

15:35

I think they, if they could have gone

15:37

backwards or if they trust themselves to go

15:39

backwards, like maybe if this were 10 years

15:41

previously, I don't think this is like, Oh,

15:44

he's learned that technique in, in school. I

15:46

think it's definitely a, a

15:48

Richard not wanting to fall over

15:50

thing potentially. I would, I would

15:53

argue. Interesting. I don't know.

15:55

I would, I think what was

15:57

interesting was the way that Mawaan

16:00

approached it was very much like, I need to be

16:02

able to see it very quickly. Whereas Richard was like,

16:04

get through the course and then do it that way,

16:06

because that's going to be easier. Whereas

16:08

Moam was like, do both at once, because I

16:11

can do that. And again, I think that may be

16:13

a video game thing, where it's like, you have two

16:15

things to do at once and you're sort of like,

16:18

that feels like you're controlling two things

16:20

at once, which again, that

16:22

to me feels more like a young person's

16:24

game. I don't know what I'm talking about

16:26

here, Jenny. I'm so sorry. Okay. Well, let's

16:29

just recap quickly the top of the show. And

16:32

this episode is of course called

16:34

Legit Glass. Yes. And the

16:36

first cast at the beginning was

16:39

the best thing that is bigger at the top than

16:41

the bottom. I don't

16:43

think any of these were bad. I really

16:45

don't. I don't, which is interesting because this

16:48

series is often like the go-to series for

16:50

people to say, oh, no one tried hard

16:52

in the prize task, or no one did

16:54

a good job in the prize task. This

16:56

is kind of like the series. Well, actually,

16:58

apart from Moam, Moam does very well. Moam

17:00

is actually the highest scoring prize

17:02

task along with Desiree

17:05

Birch and now

17:07

Steve Pemberton. So Moam does

17:09

very well. He does very well here as well. But

17:13

usually with this series, people point

17:15

to Daisy Mae Cooper and Catherine

17:17

Parkinson, and a little bit Richard

17:20

at times, of making

17:22

very little effort for their prize task.

17:24

Well, can I just say that I

17:26

have it watching this with fresh eyes.

17:29

Series 10, episode seven, the first

17:31

prize task, I was quite in

17:34

awe of everybody's imagination

17:36

and what they decided to bring to the

17:38

table. From the start, when Richard

17:40

Herring brought in the Cornetto, I chuckled to

17:42

myself. I thought, that's not bad. That's not

17:44

bad. And here, Greg, I like that because

17:46

he looks like a man that likes an

17:48

ice cream. But it's

17:51

like a fat fire. If

17:53

you lean into that, this is a little bit

17:55

like him with chips. If you bring in chips on

17:57

a prize task, Greg immediately will be like, Oh, you

18:00

think I like chips, do you? You think I

18:02

like chips, and then he'll mark you down. Whereas

18:04

if you can kind of find it, I think

18:06

if it had been a doubler, I think

18:09

maybe Richard could have done quite well. If it

18:11

had been like something that looks incredible and then

18:13

you open it up and it's a Cornetto, I

18:15

think maybe Greg could have been like, yep, fair

18:17

play. I like Cornetto. I'll tell you what is

18:20

even better than a doubler in this prize task,

18:23

was the description of a fourth

18:25

flush. That's quadruple.

18:27

A fourth flush. Johnnie Vegas

18:29

said that he was a

18:31

fourth flush man and Greg

18:33

was going, yep, I'm a

18:35

fourth flush, a fourth flush.

18:40

I really, really love. What was

18:43

it Greg that said that his nanohad,

18:46

a lavatory, that when you flush, you

18:48

could flush a fox down it. A

18:50

fox down it. Good Lord Greg, good

18:52

Lord. I love that. That's

18:55

actually really interesting because I think,

18:58

well, so one thing that came up

19:00

when I saw ages ago

19:02

interviewed Alex about a series

19:04

and sort of said like, which contestants were you like,

19:07

like most excited about having on. He mentioned Johnnie

19:10

Vegas, but he said that he was afraid

19:12

that being in front of a live audience,

19:14

it would be quite, it

19:16

would change how Johnnie performs and he could

19:19

be quite like loud and uncontrollable.

19:21

This is obviously during the pandemic

19:24

and just that description you were

19:26

giving there about the fourth flush. Do

19:28

you think the fourth flush would

19:31

have come up with a live studio audience or do you

19:33

think Johnnie would have been playing to the studio audience a

19:35

bit more? No, he would have been playing to the live

19:38

audience very much. So that

19:41

would have taken off. That would have been

19:43

a big riff. Well,

19:47

I mean, it was a nice riff, but it was almost like

19:49

a podcast riff. It felt like a sort of

19:53

two people chatting in kind of like, oh yeah,

19:56

a four flush man. Okay, I see that rather

19:58

than being like a big standup cast. comedy riff,

20:00

if that makes sense. Yeah, but in some respects,

20:02

because as a performer,

20:04

sometimes you worry about being on stage

20:06

with other people who can outperform you

20:08

in front of an audience, and it

20:11

makes you feel a bit tense, particularly

20:13

if you're a woman of a certain

20:15

generation, because you know, you're paranoid and

20:17

mad. So in some respects,

20:20

I would have enjoyed working with

20:22

Johnny Moore in COVID

20:26

circumstances, in some respects,

20:28

because he would have had to

20:30

turn himself down a few notches

20:32

onto everybody else's level. Does that make any

20:35

sense? That entirely makes sense. And I think

20:37

that's what Alex was saying when he was

20:39

like, oh, I was

20:41

afraid he'd be quite big

20:43

and would dominate everyone. But

20:46

actually, during COVID, he kind of mellowed out.

20:49

I do sort of, I mean, it's a

20:51

little bit like I was afraid that Frankie

20:53

would be like that in your series. Oh,

20:55

absolutely. And then

20:57

actually, I think the show kind of, I think

20:59

also had the way Frankie treated the show. It

21:01

was like, oh, this is a, you know, I

21:03

can be myself here, not the sort of the

21:07

exaggerated persona of the stand-up.

21:10

Absolutely. Anyway, let's start with the

21:12

other things that were bigger at the top

21:14

than at the bottom. I

21:16

mean, I genuinely think that

21:18

the top marks should have been switched around.

21:20

I thought Mawaan, who is terribly clever

21:23

and very, very funny, he brought in a microphone

21:26

stand, but it was actually him as the

21:28

microphone stand. And yes, it

21:30

was very, very good. But

21:32

Catherine Parkinson's, an acorn that

21:35

will actually eventually grow into

21:37

an oak tree. How

21:39

magical is that? It's

21:42

beautiful. And I think it's

21:44

weird because I think it's one of those ones

21:46

where if someone who was doing very well in

21:48

the show had brought it in, I

21:51

don't think it would have got very many marks

21:53

because I think, I think, and it's not, it's

21:55

not petty. I think it is a very clever

21:57

thing, but I can see Greg being like, nah.

22:00

if it was brought in by someone

22:03

else. But Catherine sold it very beautifully. It

22:06

is a really gorgeous idea. It's a

22:08

really gorgeous idea. I think it was

22:10

a good contrast to... I mean, Johnny

22:12

brought in a toilet, which did lead

22:15

to a brilliant exchange. Daisy

22:17

May Clifton brought in a toilet bud, wearing the

22:19

pirate's hat made out of a face wipe, which

22:22

she very cleverly called Captain

22:24

Budwash, which I love

22:27

out loud. I love this. Yeah. It

22:29

deserved way more points. And I think it

22:31

deserved way more points. Again,

22:33

interestingly, because Daisy had been doing very

22:35

poorly in the prize task, because it

22:37

was like things to put in your

22:40

mouth, a bottle of wine, and they

22:42

were like, fine. That's the most basic,

22:44

given a prompt, do it immediately. Whereas

22:46

this one required work, had a really

22:49

lovely idea, and it only got two

22:51

points. So unfair, so unfair. But equally,

22:53

I agree. Everyone did pretty well on this one. Yeah, it was

22:56

good. It was interesting. And it was, for me, it was

22:58

a really good insight into who everybody

23:01

was and what they were all bringing to the

23:03

game. And

23:05

then of course, we had the much discussed task

23:07

that we started this show with. I

23:10

can't even say it out loud. Get to

23:12

the finish line. Touching chicken number two, get

23:14

chicken number one across the start line, aboard

23:16

the radio control robot. Oh, I can. We've

23:18

been through that one. It's

23:21

too much. Yeah, it's too much. I

23:23

mean, suffice to say, Daisy and Catherine,

23:25

despite their efforts, it was fair. They

23:28

were disqualified. Jimmy, if you're listening,

23:30

Jimmy, they should have been disqualified. Yes. More

23:34

was extraordinary than that. Let's just go through

23:36

the points in case anybody's sort of chomping

23:38

in the bits. No, Mawaan got five, Johnny

23:40

got four, and Richard got three. And

23:54

Richard, at this point, and it's episode

23:57

seven, he's not doing that brilliantly. How

23:59

on earth? did he hold

24:01

himself to the top? Mason-

24:04

So this actually is the... I would

24:06

say this is the

24:09

biggest lead that someone has overturned after

24:12

seven episodes. Daisy Mokupa was

24:14

seven points clear

24:16

of Johnny and ten points clear

24:19

of Richard at the end of

24:21

episode seven. Richard has an unbelievable

24:23

episode eight, which actually means he

24:25

overtakes Daisy in one episode, which

24:27

is pretty incredible because Daisy also

24:29

has a nightmare episode eight scoring

24:33

just seven points, whereas

24:36

Richard scored 18 points. So actually,

24:38

I mean, not actually that good

24:40

an episode, but still. This series

24:42

is quite weird because there are

24:44

lots of disqualifications. There

24:47

are lots

24:49

of strange moments of scoring, you could say, a

24:51

couple of times where it feels like Richard...

24:54

Actually, to be honest, Richard gets marked down quite a

24:56

lot. Daisy gets marked down a few times as well.

25:00

It's odd and it ends in the final

25:02

episode of the series, is a cliffhanger, basically.

25:04

The final task of the series is

25:07

incredibly tense. It's a COVID

25:09

situation. I think there's

25:11

only one point between

25:14

the two capacitors in the final task.

25:17

Going into the final task, Daisy Mokupa was

25:19

one point ahead of Richard. The

25:23

final task, the very final

25:25

studio task. The very

25:27

final studio task, Daisy was one point

25:29

ahead of Richard and Richard overturns it.

25:33

Well, it's more like Richard overturns it, but

25:35

it's all it's tense. I might have to

25:37

watch that. That sounds... It

25:41

is gripping. It is both gripping and terrific. I

25:43

mean, Will, it won't be your homework for this

25:45

week, but I do think that final episode is

25:47

one of the best. It's

25:50

an amazing, competitive episode, but also has

25:52

one of the strangest moments in Taskmaster

25:54

history that I'm sure people who remember

25:56

it. It is the spider welly

25:58

task, if anyone listening home is remembering.

26:00

Will you put that on our to-do list?

26:03

I don't think we should do it this

26:05

week. That will definitely be it. Okay, thank

26:07

you very much indeed. We'll take a break

26:09

from series 10, but oh, it's great. So

26:11

it is interesting that Richard is highly competitive,

26:13

Daisy is highly competitive, they're on the same

26:16

team together, so it is

26:18

very exciting. He's

26:22

a long way back, but because this series has a

26:24

lot of disqualifications and a lot of bad, low

26:26

scoring tasks, it means he's actually

26:28

able to overtake Daisy pretty easily

26:31

in the next session. Because that really did sort of stop me

26:33

in my tracks a bit. But

26:35

we're over the halfway mark and he's languishing

26:37

in the middle. It's the latest. Yeah,

26:40

it's the latest someone has been that far behind, I

26:42

would say. It's quite remarkable.

26:44

Right. At the same time,

26:46

it was COVID, so we were all like, oh, everything's

26:49

crazy now. So yeah, maybe people, we just thought that's

26:51

what Taskmaster will be like from now on. So

26:53

because it was COVID, is that

26:56

why the team tasks, they were

26:58

sort of not huddled

27:00

together? So yes,

27:03

the team tasks are very interesting in

27:05

this series in particular. It's the only

27:08

this series where this happens. You

27:10

can track exactly when lockdown

27:12

happened, because it's

27:15

clear that Richard and, well, it's

27:18

not clear on this task, but it's clear in

27:20

other team tasks. Richard and

27:22

Daisy aren't socially distanced. And

27:25

clearly, they did their tasks. And then

27:28

it was March, whenever it was March 16th,

27:31

March 20th, the world

27:33

locked down. And then Daisy, so

27:35

then Catherine, Mawaan and Rich,

27:38

Catherine Mawaan and Johnny did their task,

27:40

their team tasks like six months later,

27:43

which is, it means it has a very

27:45

weird vibe. And there's one task in particular,

27:47

where they have to, the castes have to

27:49

feed each other watermelon. And Catherine

27:53

Mawaan and Johnny's version, that

27:55

is done with like socially

27:58

distanced with litterpits. stickers

28:00

to pick up watermelon. So it's quite

28:02

carefully controlled. And then you see what

28:07

Daisy and Richard had to do. And it is just a

28:10

cavalcade of just like watermelon being

28:12

shoved into other's faces, like stuff

28:14

that while watching during lockdown, you're

28:16

just like, how is this ever

28:18

made? This is ridiculous. It's just

28:20

like spit and everything going in

28:22

each other's faces. Mad. Pre 2020.

28:25

Mad world. So that's

28:27

quite interesting as well. Grouping

28:29

this team setup is

28:31

quite odd. Johnny, Catherine, Mawaan, Daisy

28:34

and Richard. I don't know why, but I

28:36

just thought, oh, no, I didn't think that would be the

28:38

teams. I don't know whether to me,

28:40

it struck me as quite odd. I

28:44

know what you mean that usually, I say usually,

28:46

there is some kind of like, oh, we'll put

28:48

the the oldest and the youngest together or put

28:50

the two old people together or

28:52

we'll put like, I say old people, the two,

28:54

the two, you know, the sort of the the

28:56

experienced pros or we'll put as

28:58

in your series, you know, you put like, Kyle

29:01

and May together and then put you together and

29:03

like that, that or put Frankie and Ivo together,

29:06

which sort of like, you know, father and son,

29:08

that's used to be the vibe. It hard here.

29:10

It's kind of, I suppose maybe they were going

29:12

for like, they sort of recall Richard

29:15

and Daisy, the old married couple, quite

29:17

a lot during this series, which sort

29:19

of is the vibe. I mean, there's there is

29:21

an episode, in fact, we watched it, the hippopotamus,

29:23

where they get absolutely furious with

29:26

each other. And obviously, this is another good

29:28

example where like, oh, my

29:30

God, I mean, communication between the

29:32

two then just doesn't come off. What

29:35

is it then is how fast

29:38

Richard and Moana are getting the

29:41

combination into the safe? I

29:44

thought that as well. I mean, I suppose it's

29:46

slightly, you know, not

29:48

to do them down, but like, I suppose if you

29:50

know, you've got two numbers, maybe you'd be like, well,

29:52

that is the closest thing that sounds like a number.

29:55

But I was listening and being like, there's no way

29:57

that sounds like a seven or a four. It's mad.

29:59

It's just, I I couldn't get it at all.

30:01

I couldn't translate any of it at all. None

30:03

of it. Richard let

30:05

Dozy down a little bit as well,

30:07

because I don't know

30:09

why he described a cushion as a pillow. Yeah,

30:14

yeah. There were

30:16

many things going against Richard in this task, and

30:18

I think that that was one where I was

30:20

like, just yeah. And also, just like, think about

30:22

how you say pillow, you wouldn't say it that

30:25

way. Like, if you... I think... I

30:27

wonder. And I can't remember if they did

30:29

this. Did they have a chance to hear

30:31

what they did before they sent it off,

30:35

if that makes sense? Oh, I don't. I

30:37

doubt it. I doubt that if Richard had heard what

30:40

he'd done back, I think he'd have begged for another.

30:42

He'd be like, absolutely not. Hang on, I know what

30:44

to do here. I'll say it a different way. Just

30:46

because I was sort of listening to it being like,

30:49

just even if you can't... He was doing it

30:51

by letter, and it is basically, you have to

30:53

do it by phonetic, really, haven't

30:56

you? And he kind of just seemed to

30:58

not get that concept at

31:00

all. I didn't actually understand

31:03

what he was trying to do. The

31:06

combination of my deafness, and

31:08

sometimes just not being able to grasp

31:10

the situation, kind of really interfered

31:13

with this task for me. And I'd

31:16

have been disqualified, definitely. I wouldn't have got anything.

31:19

Well, is that you as the talker

31:21

or you as the listener? Because

31:24

I think I would have been... I don't know what they'd

31:26

have done. What they'd probably have

31:28

done is let May do the

31:30

combination lock, let May do the

31:32

talking, and then Cael between us

31:34

would have guessed a load of

31:37

stuff and maybe got it. And

31:40

May would have been furious. May would

31:42

have done it perfectly. Yeah. And you

31:44

guys would have been like, oh, what?

31:47

Or the only other option would

31:49

have been for Cael to have

31:51

done the safe breaking and the talking.

31:54

And then May just... getting

32:00

it right. Because they'd have just

32:02

done it right. It's

32:05

interesting because the only time they separated, because

32:07

they separated the teams obviously in your series,

32:09

a bit like this one, where they put

32:11

Kyle had to be the spoon gatherer and

32:14

you guys had to work together.

32:17

And talk Mickey Mouse voices. Yeah,

32:20

which was so funny. So funny. God,

32:22

I think about that sometimes. Every so

32:24

often May's voice just comes through her where they go,

32:26

Kyle, Kyle, and it really makes me laugh. But

32:30

I suppose that does give you an indication of how

32:32

they would have split it if they think isolate Kyle,

32:35

put you and May together. I suppose that

32:38

makes sense. Yeah. Rather than

32:41

give May the job. Anyway,

32:43

Team of Three had

32:46

the advantage this time. And I think Team

32:48

of Three usually does, but we've discussed this

32:50

before and they actually don't. Yeah.

32:53

On this occasion. This one in particular,

32:56

because Daisy and Richard are much better

32:58

at Taskmaster than Johnny, Catherine and Moan.

33:00

So it is interesting that whenever Johnny, Catherine

33:03

and Moan do win, and it does happen

33:05

sometimes because basically what happened here, Daisy gets

33:07

very angry at Richard and Richard gets confused

33:09

and scared. And that seems to be that

33:12

the team of three don't seem to have that problem because

33:14

they don't really care. So it's fine. When

33:16

you say Moan's not very good at Taskmaster,

33:19

I've only watched a couple of these. From

33:21

what I've seen, so is 10. I

33:23

think Moan is brilliant. I think you're

33:25

underestimating his abilities. Moan is brilliant. I

33:28

will say that I think Moan,

33:30

well actually, hang on. What I was

33:32

going to say was that Moan

33:34

is going to struggle constantly because he is

33:37

the youngest contestant. And

33:39

that means that Greg has an inbuilt dislike of

33:41

him because he's 28, which is... And

33:44

he's one of the most beautiful men on the planet. But

33:48

having just said that, he also does do

33:50

very well in the prize task. So he

33:52

is able to win Greg's approval over quite

33:54

a lot. So actually, you're right. I think

33:57

Moan struggled at the start of quite a bit of a challenge.

34:00

a lot of these... He doesn't

34:02

have the best time in the studio tasks, as far as

34:04

I remember. There's

34:06

a lot of disqualifications. When Mawaan

34:09

is good, he is unbelievably good.

34:12

Obviously, he doesn't do very well in

34:15

the Marvel run that we're about to talk about, but

34:18

there's a task that he does where he has

34:20

to build a tower, and he does a hack

34:22

that is just genius. Again, if we will

34:25

at some point watch that as well. But

34:27

I think that Mawaan

34:30

has a lot of good things happen to Mawaan,

34:32

and he does very, very well. But they're probably

34:34

overshadowed by the fact that... Well,

34:37

by the fact that Daisy and Richard

34:39

are so competitive and doing really, really well

34:41

together. And also, does he come in third

34:43

place in the end? I

34:46

think, well, it's weird because Johnny is also

34:48

doing very well. He actually... Yes, he does

34:50

come in third place. He does come in

34:53

third place. What's amazing, actually? What's weirder than

34:55

the whole Richard being behind and going on

34:57

to win thing, is that Johnny is in

34:59

second place going into episode seven. And then

35:01

he is a very distant fourth place by

35:04

the end of the series. So he has a

35:06

terrible last three episodes. He scores... In

35:10

fact, in the last three episodes, he scores 12,

35:12

9, and 9 again. Jeepers!

35:15

That is appalling. That's an appalling

35:17

end to series. It's quite easily

35:19

done because I think you'll find that

35:21

I was leading the board for a

35:24

little while. And

35:26

then, you know... Well, yeah,

35:28

but you were still leading the board quite like

35:30

you were... It was

35:33

still like episode five or six, where you fell.

35:35

Here, it's more like Johnny's on course to be

35:37

the main challenger to Daisy. And then just goes,

35:39

nah, I'm done. No more

35:41

of this, please. Amazing. Let

35:51

us go to test three.

35:53

Best marble run. How would you have

35:55

done this? I

35:58

think I would have struggled. I would have tried. tried to

36:00

find the hack that Mawaan did, and

36:02

I probably would have done

36:05

something like it and then been disqualified. This

36:07

is typical of what happens to Mawaan quite

36:09

a lot, where he'll come up with a

36:11

really genius idea, and then someone, usually Richard,

36:13

will say, hang on a second, and

36:17

undo what he just did. It's a shame

36:19

what happened to him, because I thought it

36:22

was a very clever idea. I mean,

36:25

this has happened before, where people

36:27

have used the washing machine. Russell

36:30

Howard used the washing machine to make it

36:32

spin, and he fell down because it stopped

36:34

spinning, because all washing machines do. They start

36:36

spinning, and then they go, bam, I'm done

36:38

now for a bit. They only get to

36:40

the real spinny bit later on. You

36:43

have to make sure you're doing the right

36:45

setting. Exactly.

36:48

Whereas here, he was obviously let down by the fact that

36:50

he did have to accidentally – I'm

36:52

sure he didn't realise he was doing it

36:55

– he would have to manipulate the marble

36:58

by pressing another button. Which does seem

37:00

unfair. It does seem unfair. It's

37:03

a shame, really.

37:06

I think I would have tried to – there

37:08

was a similar task in Series 3 where they

37:10

had to do a domino run, and that seemed

37:12

like what would happen to me as well, where

37:14

I would try

37:17

and do it. I would create an amazingly elaborate

37:19

thing, and then it would fall down at

37:21

the very start. Then I would be like,

37:23

can I make it go up so that

37:25

it doesn't run? And Alex would say

37:27

no, and I would be sad. He would let you do it,

37:29

and then they would film

37:31

that, and you'd see that in the studio.

37:34

This is what happened to Kyle, and

37:36

then they say, but unfortunately, that wasn't

37:38

your first attempt. So it doesn't count.

37:40

This is what happened to you. Because

37:42

that happened to Kyle in the

37:45

one-man-bands thing. He thought he'd

37:47

got away with it, and he hadn't. So

37:53

Moann put the marble, which was a

37:56

large marble. It was a weighty. It looked

37:58

like a and

38:00

a legit glass. He

38:04

put it in the dishwasher and he was disqualified.

38:06

I'd have given him the one point, I'd have

38:08

given him the bonus point, to be quite honest.

38:10

Mason- Yeah, and also I think you could claim

38:13

that the run was him putting it into the

38:15

dishwasher. So even then, that is going to be

38:17

like one second. That should

38:19

count. JF- Absolutely. Mason- Because he put

38:21

it in. Yeah, zero seemed unfair. But

38:23

you know, that's Richard for you. That's

38:26

what he does. JF- But there was a lot

38:29

of pipe work going on. But I tell you

38:31

what, the one that I thought was a shame

38:33

that didn't do any better than it did

38:35

was Johnny's because I liked his marble

38:39

run. I liked the design of it.

38:41

I mean, it wasn't the best design

38:43

because we know who did the beautiful

38:45

marble run that looked like something out

38:47

of a Victorian country

38:49

home, like a proper game. Mason- It was

38:51

a proper game. I mean, okay. I suppose

38:54

the phrase is the marble that runs for

38:56

the longest time wins. And you

38:58

could argue, well, Johnny's didn't run for

39:00

the longest time, but it was very long. And

39:02

it was very, you know, the manipulation he did

39:05

was quite well put together. JF-

39:07

Oh, I think that it was

39:09

really well. The strings on either

39:12

side. So the run was quite wide,

39:14

because he knew that if he made a

39:16

run too narrow, there's always a danger

39:18

of it falling off. So he

39:21

allowed a wide run. That was

39:23

quite risky. It was risky and

39:25

it was innovative. Mason-

39:27

It was risky and innovative. I suppose it

39:29

didn't have the thing that Catherine's had,

39:32

almost by accident Catherine's had it.

39:34

JF- Absolutely not. Mason- A Newton's

39:36

cradle. JF- Newton's cradle. She

39:40

did a Newton's cradle and

39:42

it was marvellous. It was

39:44

absolutely. I couldn't

39:46

take my eyes off it. And I thought

39:48

it was quite relaxing as well. It was

39:51

an alternative. Mason- It was quite relaxing. JF-

39:53

Newton's cradle. Mason- So Catherine

39:55

is famous, I would say, for never leaving

39:57

the room in a task. She never realised-

40:00

you can leave the room, which is so

40:03

funny. Again, in that episode,

40:05

we were talking about Series 10, Episode 10,

40:07

something amazing happens where she doesn't realise you

40:09

can leave the room. But

40:12

here it came to

40:14

her advantage because she basically had to create it

40:16

all in a study, which meant that it was

40:18

quite contained, which meant that she accidentally stumbled upon

40:20

a sort of a swaying

40:23

motion that allowed it to not

40:25

become a perpetual motion machine, but very

40:27

merely go on forever. And a

40:30

lot more relaxing than Newton's Cradle because

40:32

the Newton's Cradle has that really annoying

40:34

clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

40:36

And you think, I can't, what am

40:38

I meant to do? Fuck's sake. Anyway,

40:41

well done, Catherine. And it was really

40:43

charming to see how delighted she was

40:45

in the studio with her success. I

40:49

think that is her high point

40:51

in the series. I think it's definitely the best thing

40:53

that she did on the show. Well, she did amazing

40:55

things on the show. None of them scored very well.

40:58

But this is definitely her peak

41:00

moment, I would say. It's

41:03

a great bit. And she's

41:05

got a wonderful career. She really didn't

41:07

need to do particularly well in Taskmaster.

41:10

I have to say, I respect the people who

41:12

have no reason for doing the show and doing

41:14

it anyway. I really respect those people because Catherine,

41:17

obviously she didn't have to do the

41:19

show. She's a legitimate actor. She doesn't have

41:21

to do the show. And she was so

41:23

good. So yeah, I love Catherine. Love Catherine

41:26

to pieces. She's amazing. Right.

41:40

We are into the last...

41:43

Oh God, this was hard.

41:45

They made this hard. This

41:47

last studio task because it could have

41:49

been... I think they could have started

41:51

a little bit easier because it was

41:53

communicated to the Taskmaster, the item on

41:55

your card. They started to... And you

41:57

can only make noises. So they started

41:59

with... animals. Now that sounds easy.

42:02

If it had been farmyard animals, I'd

42:04

have been very happy. ALICE Yeah.

42:07

I think it should have been that,

42:09

really. It was sort of, I mean, it's difficult.

42:11

And also, I mean, Greg has sort of talked

42:14

about this before. I think he was on, um,

42:16

there's a series that he, I think it's series

42:18

11, actually, where he actually has to apologise to

42:20

the contestants, because he's like, I'm sorry, I can't

42:22

get it. I can't get what you're saying, I'm

42:24

so sorry. And Lee Mack gets legitimately quite angry

42:27

with it. Because he's like, he's

42:29

like, come on, I'm doing this for you and Greg's

42:31

like, I'm so sorry, I have no idea. And I

42:34

think it is often difficult when you're relying on Greg.

42:36

ALICE Yeah, and really put him under a lot of

42:38

pressure. I mean, you know, he's a man of a

42:40

certain age, I don't know how keen his hearing is,

42:42

but I'd have really struggled with those. Some of those

42:44

I'd have struggled with. ALICE I agree.

42:47

ALICE And once they were revealed, you thought,

42:49

yes, I get it now. And some of

42:51

them were actually really good. But

42:53

it was hard to think of the animal in

42:55

the moment, like, um, cricket, even though Greg did

42:58

guess that, and the dolphin. I think it was

43:00

hard. It was hard. ALICE It was hard. It

43:02

was very hard. I mean, him saying it was

43:04

like the, um, was that the one where he

43:07

said it's like the Camelot, uh,

43:09

lottery machine? That really made me...

43:12

ALICE No, that was in the next round

43:14

of the machines. I mean, I'm quite good

43:17

at, I don't know how you are on

43:19

your farmyard noises, but I do pride myself.

43:21

I've got a little repertoire that, uh, I

43:23

will be weaving into the act

43:25

next year when I'm on tour. ALICE

43:28

Is that, and that's all because of Arlo?

43:30

ALICE It's part of the nanomaterial, yeah. It's,

43:32

uh, it's really aimed at, uh, the under

43:34

twos. Well, the threes numbers, I think, will

43:37

forgive. But I'm quite good at goats. Goats

43:39

are really, uh, goats and the pec and rye duck.

43:41

The pec and rye mallard. ALICE Oh, the pec and

43:44

rye duck. ALICE Yeah. ALICE Okay. Give me the pec

43:46

and rye mallard. ALICE Hold on. I can't look at

43:48

anybody when they do it, so I have to turn

43:50

back. ALICE Okay. ALICE

43:57

Now, I do quite good goat as well.

44:00

I think

44:03

the Peckham Rye Mallard gains

44:06

something for being specific to Peckham Rye because

44:08

I for some reason can really imagine it

44:10

in Peckham Rye and only in Peckham Rye.

44:12

It's there? I can't do it. No, no,

44:14

no, that was really ugly. That

44:18

was really horrible. Okay,

44:20

so this was everybody doing their

44:22

best animal noises,

44:24

their best machine noises, and

44:27

then it was food. They had to do impressions

44:29

of food. Very tricky. I

44:31

don't, I think it's,

44:33

yeah, I'm not 100% sure this was

44:36

a successful one, to be honest. And

44:38

I think that it is funny because

44:40

I do like seeing Greg under pressure,

44:42

but I do also feel bad for

44:44

Greg. And I mean, yeah,

44:48

it's just, yeah, the, I

44:50

mean, Johnny got spaghetti, which is pretty. Yeah,

44:52

that was quite, popcorn would have been good.

44:54

If you beat box, you could do popcorn.

44:56

Yeah. Yeah,

44:58

please don't. You're not a beatboxer. I'm going

45:00

to try again. No, no. I

45:03

look at some people and I think, beatboxer,

45:05

not beatboxer. I look at you and I think

45:07

not beatboxer. I don't want to be rude.

45:09

Not beatboxer. But you haven't got beatboxer all over

45:11

you. And I know some people. I can

45:13

do spaghetti. Yeah, you can do spaghetti. You're a

45:15

middle class white boy. You can do spaghetti.

45:19

Of course I can do spaghetti. That

45:24

was excellent. Excellent, Jack. Thank you.

45:26

So this became a

45:28

battle between two people

45:31

and it was, was it

45:33

between Richard and Daisy at the

45:35

end? No, it was, sorry. It

45:37

was between Daisy and Johnny. In fact,

45:39

Daisy, Daisy won out with the harp.

45:41

Yeah, I think that was a lucky

45:44

guess from Greg, to be quite honest.

45:46

Possibly. Yeah. I mean, again,

45:48

it's hard. These things are all hard. And I

45:50

think that, yeah, I don't know. I feel, I

45:52

feel for Greg and I'm just glad he got

45:54

through it. Yeah. I think

45:56

that this, I think this

45:58

is an instant. He was

46:00

sweating. ALICE So this

46:02

is the episode after the hippo

46:05

task, the hippo episode

46:07

rather, where Daisy

46:11

gets absolutely furious at Richard for not

46:13

being able to get a hippo in

46:16

a live task. So I think Greg had every reason

46:18

to be like, oh god. JANET

46:21

Encuring the role of a heavily pregnant woman.

46:23

You don't want to do that. ALICE You

46:25

don't want to do it! JANET No, she's

46:27

got hormones on her side. ALICE I loved

46:30

Daisy saying the baby was going absolutely mad

46:32

during that. Very sweet. JANET The baby's going

46:34

to come out expecting a complete variety show

46:37

of all the noises, you

46:39

know, sort of on land, under the

46:41

water, all sorts of things. Brilliant. ALICE

46:43

There's beatboxing, spaghetti, everything. JANET

46:52

Now we were left then with a

46:55

tiebreak situation because Johnny and Mawaan were

46:57

neck and neck at this point. ALICE

47:00

Yes. I don't think

47:02

there were many tiebreaks in this series. In

47:04

fact, I say that and I'm now going

47:06

to just double check. I

47:09

think this may have been the...

47:11

was this the

47:13

only tiebreak? No, there was a tiebreak with

47:16

a dinosaur, with a wind-up dinosaur in

47:18

episode two, had a wind-up dinosaur.

47:22

Otherwise, oh, in the final episode as well. So

47:24

actually there were three tiebreaks. So shut me up.

47:26

There were lots. But this felt like a we've

47:28

run out of tiebreaks, tiebreak, if that makes sense.

47:30

JANET Oh, I don't know. They all feel quite

47:32

random and mad. I'm not sure how many there

47:35

were in my series. I don't remember them being...

47:38

You know statistically which

47:40

series had the most tiebreaks in, Jack. Or if you

47:43

don't know, I'd like you to tell me next week,

47:45

please. ALICE I will.

47:47

I can't tell you off the top of my head.

47:49

I can't remember which one. JANET I caught you out

47:51

there, Jack. ALICE I can't remember which one. I'm so

47:53

sorry. You know, and actually, to be honest, there were

47:55

three in this series and that is quite a lot,

47:57

having just said, I don't know, many tiebreaks. was

48:00

actually, you know what? You're absolutely right.

48:02

I've let myself down. I've let you

48:04

down. Yeah, yeah, we're just

48:06

slightly disappointed. I'll get over it then. Now,

48:09

the tiebreak in this situation was how many

48:11

sheets there are in the loo roll? Close

48:14

to the correct answer wins. Well, I

48:16

was shocked by this. Shocked. I

48:20

was shocked as well. And it sort of reminded me

48:22

a bit of your series when

48:24

Ivo tried to say it was the most

48:27

reliable thing that is under, there

48:29

was a weight under a kilogram or

48:32

is about a kilogram. And

48:34

he brought in like

48:36

10 loo roll. And

48:39

he got his weights all on. Yeah, he got his

48:41

weights all on. I think I was in the same

48:44

boat here where I was like, oh yeah, it'll

48:47

be comfortably 400, 500. Nothing. Absolutely wrong.

48:52

I know this is why I've started stealing them from

48:54

pubs again, like in the old days. I'm

48:56

telling you, but now I go again,

48:58

a girl's got to do what a

49:00

girl's got to do. It's the price

49:02

of lavatory roll these days. The actual

49:04

correct answer is 220 sheets. Well,

49:07

you know. And you have to remember,

49:09

that was 2020. They probably, you know,

49:11

were shortquations. Absolutely. And you've got men

49:14

in the house, you know, four flushes.

49:17

You're going through it. So

49:21

if you work in an office or a

49:23

pub, who can blame you for bringing them

49:26

home from your place of work? Absolutely. Anyway,

49:28

go home and count your loo roll sheets

49:30

when you get home tonight, because I'm sure

49:33

that's gone down that figure. It's

49:35

really, really upsetting. Stat

49:51

time. This stat

49:53

section needs a little bit of, well,

49:56

first of all, it's a copy stat section, which

49:58

is to say. I didn't

50:01

do it. Someone else did it. Because back in

50:03

April, before the madness of series 17 started, or

50:06

around the time that the madness of series 17 started, we

50:09

received an email from Kerry

50:11

regarding title sequences. It is

50:14

unbelievable the amount of research she did. She's

50:17

done a huge amount of analysis on them. I

50:19

just want to shout out what a great job

50:21

she's done. She

50:23

said she doesn't work to answer a question that she

50:26

had. The intros, or title

50:28

sequences, as one might say, tend

50:30

to show the contestants in distress

50:32

a lot, or are otherwise loud

50:34

and visually spectacular. Do the attempts

50:36

shown in the intro, on average,

50:38

get more or fewer points than

50:41

the average task attempt? Basically, it's

50:43

saying when they show in the

50:45

intros, are the contestants doing well,

50:47

or are they doing badly? Oh

50:49

yeah. It's either or. I

50:51

would say it's either or, surely. I mean, I haven't done

50:53

the research this week. It's all Kerry, and she's done an

50:56

amazing job. I would

50:58

say, if I had to guess, it's going

51:00

to be your fives and your ones. Your

51:02

people doing amazing stuff, your people doing very,

51:04

very bad stuff. Although, having said that, I

51:06

would say predominantly, thinking about

51:08

it, I would say mostly ones would be

51:10

my thinking. As in, you're mostly going to

51:13

see people going, like, oh no, it's gone

51:15

wrong! Because that's the fun of Taskmaster. Bit

51:17

of people shouting, oh no, it's gone wrong.

51:19

That's what we all love about the show.

51:21

What did Kerry find out? Well, Kerry found

51:24

out that she said she's made a spreadsheet.

51:26

She cataloged every clip in every main series

51:28

intro from 1 to 16. Actually,

51:31

she updated it recently to include series 17.

51:35

Hats off to her. Unbelievable stuff. She

51:39

found a couple of interesting things. First

51:41

of all, the most important thing is

51:43

that the average score for the attempts

51:45

shown in the intro is 3.09, which

51:49

is actually slightly above the expected average score

51:51

of 3. She

51:53

goes on to say, I don't have a good way

51:56

to calculate what the average score for pre-film tasks is.

51:58

Actually, I can help out. here a little bit, Kerry.

52:00

It is also 3. I checked.

52:03

The pre-filmed score is 3. 3.09 means that

52:07

actually, they're predominantly showing very successful

52:09

tasks. They're not showing the not

52:12

doing very well tasks, which I'm

52:14

surprised by. She also went

52:18

through, she assigned each clip

52:21

an emotional value, positive, negative, or

52:23

neutral. There's a caveat within that that

52:26

is, it's

52:29

determined by the actual motion of the

52:31

contestant and whether the thing

52:33

that's going on is negative. For instance,

52:35

when a balloon pops, what it's supposed

52:37

to, that's negative even if the contestant

52:40

is laughing. Does that make sense? Okay.

52:43

Is it emotionally negative though? She's

52:48

classified as negative. Okay.

52:50

I'm going to go along with whatever Kerry thinks

52:52

on this. She's the boss

52:54

here. I have no idea. She did say

52:56

that general surprise is considered

52:58

neutral, which I think is interesting because I

53:00

think you could do a dig down into

53:02

whether surprise is neutral or positive or negative.

53:04

Who can say? What she

53:06

found was that positive and negative clips are generally

53:09

scored higher and lower respectively. There

53:11

could be some unintentional bias here as

53:13

I do generally know how contestants, as

53:15

she knows how contestants did in the

53:17

task. The highest scoring series in this

53:19

is three. Series three, which is Rob

53:21

Beckett, Sarah Pascoe, Al

53:24

Murray, Dave

53:27

Gorman, and Paul Chaldry. She

53:29

thinks that's because Rob's most

53:31

visually interesting moments, so the

53:33

bits that we used in the intro, so there's a

53:36

bit where Rob is a big King

53:38

Kong that's used in the

53:40

intro, as I remember, that

53:42

tends to be winning attempts. Rob both

53:45

did extremely exciting visually attempts that

53:47

were also very high scoring as

53:49

opposed to people who do visually

53:51

exciting things and struggle.

53:53

An example would be Sue Perkins

53:56

does a lot of very exciting,

53:58

very clippable things. but doesn't score

54:00

very well, and that's okay.

54:03

She also says that Series 14 was the

54:05

most emotional, as in like positive

54:08

and negative emotions, whilst Series 16 was

54:10

the least emotional, although

54:12

that only really counts easy

54:14

to sort emotions. So I'm surprised by that. I

54:17

think she could dig even deeper in this. I do

54:19

like the idea of emotion

54:22

being scored. I like that. Yes,

54:25

I think what it

54:27

is probably is that Series 16

54:30

probably had more surprise than

54:33

emotion in... Such

54:36

a strange sentence. Had more surprise than

54:38

emotion in the intro. So

54:40

like things going like popping or things going,

54:42

ah! And then like there's a bit where Sue

54:45

goes, what have I created? And I don't know

54:47

whether that's a positive or negative thing that

54:49

you would say. Well

54:52

I would say positive, wasn't it

54:54

when she was farting on a

54:56

machine? No,

54:58

that was

55:01

when she had tried, she'd done a science experiment

55:03

basically, but had done it

55:05

by accident and was kind of like, what have

55:08

I created? And again, one of those

55:10

lines that gets stuck in my head quite a lot, because

55:12

I've watched that series a fair few times and also

55:15

I love Sue Perkins, she's great. I

55:17

mean, it's a very interesting thing. It's a

55:19

huge amount of work. And

55:22

I suppose one thing that will be interesting is

55:24

whether, and we'll have to, I will ask Carrie

55:26

to do this, I think now, I'm going to

55:28

do it on the podcast right now. When Series

55:30

18... No, look, look, that's what

55:32

happens. If you say that's that, occasionally I

55:34

will send you homework. If

55:36

Series 18 comes out, can

55:39

she, with the intro, if

55:41

the intro alone, can she work out

55:43

who is going to win based on

55:46

the intro? Because logically, from

55:48

what she's doing here, she possibly can.

55:52

Oh, that would be interesting. Well, Carrie, anyway,

55:54

and if Jack is ill one day and

55:56

can't do the podcast, I'd

55:58

like you to do it with me. Would you mind? Would

56:00

you mind doing that? You don't need to leave

56:02

your house. It's dead easy. Okay. Now

56:12

we are on to emails, Jack. We

56:16

have had some emails and we

56:18

recently discussed which Taskmaster contestant was

56:20

most competitive. We've

56:23

had someone to email

56:25

something about that. Would you like to

56:27

say the email? Yes, this is from

56:29

Lisa Martin and she said, hello, I'll

56:31

throw in Sally Phillips for the five

56:34

topmost competitive. She threw the bleeping jelly.

56:37

She did throw the jelly. Now, have

56:40

you seen her throwing the jelly? No,

56:42

but I know that Sally is

56:44

competitive and I have seen

56:47

at least one of her series. She's

56:51

funny, she's clever, she's competitive. I'm surprised

56:53

she didn't win. I

56:55

love Sally Phillips so much. Well, she's up against

56:57

Bob Mortimer and Bob Mortimer was on

57:00

the stopper machine. And then you've also got Mark Watson

57:03

who tries a lot as well. Yeah,

57:06

it's one of those blokes that

57:09

could almost set himself on fire

57:11

out of competitiveness. That was the

57:13

vibe there. Speaking of competitive, here's

57:15

a question for Jenny. Hi all.

57:18

If Taskmaster would suddenly end tomorrow,

57:20

which comedian would be

57:23

absolutely furious that they were never

57:25

on the show. Obviously

57:27

no one wants this to happen, but I'd

57:29

be curious as to what you'd say. Thank

57:31

you both. It's

57:35

such a shame I don't know the younger

57:38

generation as well as I would

57:40

like to, because I'm

57:42

not sure who would be burning

57:44

up from this. It's

57:47

really interesting because we

57:50

should throw this open to our

57:53

listeners please. If anyone can answer

57:55

this. This is from Greg.

57:57

It's a great question Greg. people

58:01

who know the comedy scene better than I

58:03

do these days. And

58:05

I would very

58:07

much like some responses to this because

58:09

I've got a bit blank on this.

58:11

I don't know who. Mason- Well, that

58:14

may be your extra homework to think of some people.

58:16

Dr- Extra homework to think about, but it's a great

58:18

question, Greg. Thank you very much indeed. It says Greg,

58:21

not that Greg. We got it. Mason-

58:23

Fair enough. I mean, otherwise we're in trouble. I

58:25

mean, what I will say is I never find

58:27

out who are the most competitive because they do

58:29

very, or who are the most furious about not

58:31

being asked because they do quite a good job

58:33

of hiding it. Mason- One, so we're

58:35

going to be quite like silent about it. Dr- Yeah.

58:38

And then, you know, the relief when they

58:40

get asked is palpable. I think me and

58:43

John Robbins belong to that gang and I'm

58:45

sure there are quite a few more. Mason-

58:47

Chris Ramsey was also, Chris Ramsey was a

58:49

huge one because he was also Avalon. So

58:52

he said it on Ed's podcast. So he

58:54

spent the whole time like going in, doing

58:56

his show and then watching them do Taskmaster

58:58

and being like, Oh, what are they doing?

59:01

Dr- I should just go through the Avalon

59:03

clients and see who hasn't yet been asked.

59:05

But I think I was the last one

59:07

on their list to be quite honest. Mason-

59:11

No, I'm sure there are a few more

59:13

burning with jealousy and fury. Dr- Absolutely. I'll

59:15

give this one a good thing. Thank you,

59:18

Greg. Email three, the last

59:20

final email today has to do with the

59:22

bleeping socktires from series 17. And

59:25

this is from Connor in Plymouth. I

59:27

love the podcast. I have a question

59:29

for Jenny regarding the bleeping socktires from

59:31

series 17, episode nine, which she was

59:33

quite baffled by. And I continue to

59:35

be baffled, Connor. However,

59:38

the only other podcast, I like that. It's

59:40

just the other podcast. No, he's just calling

59:42

me the other podcast, not the main podcast,

59:44

just the other one. However,

59:47

the other podcast with that had Kyle

59:49

on his guest discuss the same episode

59:51

and Kyle claimed he did a

59:54

version of the bleeping socktires for series 15, Jenny's

59:57

series. He said that instead of guarding the

59:59

washing line, was in the Thunderdome

1:00:01

and the bin was outside the dome that

1:00:03

could be accessed by a gap

1:00:05

in the dome. So did Jenny attempt this

1:00:07

version of the bleeping sock

1:00:09

tusk or was it something they scrapped after

1:00:11

Kyle attempted it? I am

1:00:14

so glad to say, yeah it's

1:00:16

great, well done, well, well watched,

1:00:18

well listened, they scrapped

1:00:20

it after Kyle, they might have had

1:00:23

some of the other contestants doing it

1:00:25

but I certainly did not do the

1:00:27

bleeping sock tusk. Oh, that's really interesting

1:00:29

because I always got the impression that

1:00:32

everyone did every task, unless

1:00:35

it was an individual task, and then

1:00:37

would be like, that one didn't really

1:00:40

work, let's ditch it. But a mid-series

1:00:42

ditch, I suppose also maybe if they're

1:00:44

aware that there's something

1:00:46

in this idea but we haven't quite got it

1:00:48

right here, let's ditch it as quick as possible

1:00:51

so that we can, to minimise the amount

1:00:53

of people who do it and then reuse

1:00:55

it in series 17. It

1:00:59

sounds like Kyle made a hash of it,

1:01:01

so well done Kyle, because I don't fancy

1:01:03

that one, thank you very much indeed. So

1:01:09

we have many people to thank. Before, well we

1:01:11

will thank them and we should thank them and

1:01:14

I respect and love them, we've got to give

1:01:16

you your homework. Oh my God,

1:01:18

yes of course. Your homework, got

1:01:20

to give you your homework. In fact, thank

1:01:22

you so much to Lisa for

1:01:24

giving you your

1:01:26

homework really, because I think she's

1:01:28

absolutely right, you've got to watch Sammy Phillips throw

1:01:30

the jelly. You've got to watch Sammy Phillips throw

1:01:33

the jelly. I think we have watched the series

1:01:35

five before, I mean it's such a good series,

1:01:37

they're all great series but this is like a,

1:01:39

this is high level I would say. Okay,

1:01:42

one of the classics, right, I'm

1:01:44

happy to accept that challenge, series

1:01:47

five episode three, happy to do that.

1:01:50

Yes, and so we should carry on thanking,

1:01:52

yes, Lisa, Greg and Connor, but also, oh

1:01:55

my goodness, thank you so much Carrie for

1:01:57

the unbelievable intro stats, such, such

1:01:59

great. a huge amount of

1:02:01

work that you've done, and I've set you even more

1:02:03

work for when Series 18 comes out. And

1:02:06

we won't forget, Kerry, okay? We

1:02:08

won't, we absolutely won't. And

1:02:11

obviously, guys, if you like emailing us, why don't

1:02:13

you email us? Well, I'd

1:02:15

catch that better, Jack. I'd say if

1:02:17

you like emailing people, why

1:02:19

don't you email us? Well, you can

1:02:22

get us on fans at

1:02:24

taskmaster.tv. Thank

1:02:26

you for saving that. I suddenly forgot how

1:02:28

words work. I was like, wouldn't it be

1:02:30

good if people, if emails happen now, please?

1:02:32

Yeah, it would be nice. Thank you very

1:02:34

much in advance. And what else you mustn't

1:02:36

forget is you mustn't forget to rate and

1:02:38

subscribe. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank

1:02:41

you. Yes.