0:00

Taskmaster, the live experience is coming soon

0:02

to London's Doc X. It's opening on

0:05

the 18th of September. You can compete

0:07

against your friends and family in a

0:09

bid for a Taskmaster Champion crown of

0:11

your own. This is your chance to

0:14

step inside the iconic Taskmaster House and

0:16

take part in brand new tasks led

0:18

by videos of little Alex Horn himself.

0:20

Visit taskmasterliveexperience.com to enter the ticket ballot.

0:23

And don't forget you can also buy

0:25

the Taskmaster VR experience as of the

0:27

13th of June. That's via Steam or

0:30

Matter platforms. I got a

0:32

chance to play it and it's genuinely so,

0:34

so good. Definitely give it a

0:36

go. Your time starts now. There

0:40

we go. Jack, are

0:43

you with me? I am with you. Hello, Jenny. Oh,

0:46

such relief. It's a relief that

0:49

you're here to guide me

0:51

through another episode of Taskmaster,

0:53

the People's Podcast for the

0:55

people. For the people.

0:57

And it's after the end. It's after

0:59

the end now. We're bereft. We're

1:01

just mopping the bits up. We're just mopping

1:04

the bits up. But we have

1:06

a treat, do we not, Jack? We have a big treat.

1:08

We do. Huge treat.

1:10

We are joined today by,

1:12

I mean, I guess

1:15

he's now, he's instantly become Taskmaster

1:17

Royalty. We are joined by the

1:19

highest points tally scorer ever in

1:21

Taskmaster history. It's John Robbins.

1:23

John Robbins will be here later on.

1:26

John Robbins will be with us. I will be,

1:28

I think I might, I've

1:31

got a lot to ask John. I've got

1:33

lots of questions. Many

1:35

questions. I think mostly they'll be, I'm going

1:37

to say jacket related. There's a bit of

1:39

jacket related stuff. There's stuff about his

1:41

competitiveness. Does it eke into other bits

1:43

of his life? All sorts of things.

1:46

Yeah, there's lots. I mean, there's lots, I have

1:49

lots going on to ask about spreadsheets because he

1:51

does a spreadsheet and I like

1:53

spreadsheets as well. You know, Jenny, it's one

1:55

of my personality traits. One day I

1:57

will learn how to do a spreadsheet.

2:00

spreadsheet. Oh, you gotta learn how to do

2:02

a spreadsheet. I'm just not sure whether I

2:04

will. There are certain things that I know

2:06

I will go to my grave not being

2:09

able to do. One is drive on a

2:11

motorway and the other is do a

2:14

spreadsheet. I

2:16

think we can get you doing both, but maybe not

2:18

at the same time. That's what I'm going to say

2:20

right now. Don't make me do it. Oh God. Oh,

2:23

there lies carnage. Okay, let's do

2:26

one, two, three and introduce John. John.

2:42

We are thrilled, Jack and I are thrilled.

2:44

This is like the highlight of this tranche

2:46

of the podcast because we have the winner

2:49

of series 17 with us and we

2:51

are genuinely thrilled and delighted John

2:53

Robbins. John Robbins, we knew it was

2:55

going to be you. I mean, I

2:58

didn't think it was going to be you from the start. I did

3:00

not pick you. Do you want to know who I thought it was

3:02

going to be? Yes,

3:04

please. I thought it was going to be

3:06

Steve Pemberton, but Jack, who did you guess,

3:08

Jack? I guessed you

3:10

because you looked under the table in the

3:12

first task and I was like, that's it.

3:15

That's the guy. That's the guy right there.

3:18

Well, I think we all two episodes

3:20

in thought it was going to be

3:22

Steve because his sort

3:24

of first few prize tasks were

3:27

so far and above

3:30

and beyond what any of

3:32

the rest of us have done. I mean,

3:34

on the whole scale of planning

3:36

a peg, Mavis

3:39

and sending it around and getting

3:41

photographs and autographs to Sophie grabbing

3:43

what was ever in, whatever was

3:45

in her dressing room. That

3:48

was the full spectrum of prize tasks. I like

3:50

that kind of spectrum. I like it. Now, I

3:52

think that you landed somewhere in the middle, some

3:54

weeks you were right at the top and some

3:56

weeks they were. I mean, you got punished a

3:59

couple of times. We'll talk about it. that later.

4:01

I think sometimes Greg thought you were doing too

4:03

well and just decided to take some points

4:05

off you at the prize task at

4:08

Stata. Yeah, I was

4:10

aware at points that breaks

4:12

were being applied to what I'd

4:14

hoped would be an unstoppable train. Can

4:20

I just ask you something before we

4:22

go? Yeah. Did you actually

4:25

mentally and physically want to win

4:27

more points than you actually did

4:29

win in the end? I wish

4:32

I had spotted the last bit

4:35

of Lou Roll

4:42

on the Lou Roll holder in that

4:45

studio task where we all got disqualified

4:47

apart from Joanne. And

4:49

I wish I

4:53

had not tried to put a chopping

4:55

board, I glue

4:57

it to a white board using honey

4:59

and flour and blue tack. But

5:02

apart from that, what

5:04

I'm most proud of

5:06

is like, well,

5:09

you know, I mean, hey guys, this isn't

5:11

the Taskmaster podcast. We don't have to just

5:13

sort of lie about how much we loved

5:15

everyone. We can talk about stats here, right

5:17

guys? Jack

5:20

can fill your green

5:22

screen stats. Yeah. Let's

5:25

not waste everyone's time saying how well we all

5:27

got on. Let's not waste our time saying how

5:29

nice everyone on the production crew is. Let's

5:31

talk stats. We all know that. We know that.

5:34

We know that. That's a given. Of course.

5:37

But I think the secret to

5:40

scoring highly in Taskmaster is not

5:42

coming last. Because

5:45

quite often in the studio

5:47

tasks, you can come sort

5:49

of second last and end up with

5:52

four points somehow, because people are like

5:54

drawing. So avoiding

5:57

last place is... is

6:00

the secret. It's something

6:02

that Sophie and Nick weren't able to do.

6:06

It's something on a couple of times I

6:09

came last, but I think, Jack,

6:12

you'll be able to tell me this, but I

6:14

think I got three points or above in

6:16

all the studio tasks. I

6:19

think, well, apart from the disqualification... Apart

6:21

from the disqualification, yeah. Oh no, let's

6:23

count the disqualifications. We're not just going

6:25

to let you off the hook, John.

6:28

I feel like John Thurken obviously will make you think about it

6:30

for a while because it clearly annoyed you that you couldn't get

6:32

the tiniest bit of loo roll off. I'd be more annoyed

6:36

if I was Steve because he spent a

6:38

long time doing a Mona Lisa when he

6:40

could have just taken a bit more of

6:42

the loo roll off and you're fine. Very

6:44

frustrating. But also, I mean, not just that.

6:46

If you take out the disqualification that you

6:48

talked about with

6:53

the board coming down, in every

6:56

single task, every single filmed task

6:58

on the show, you scored three and

7:00

above apart from that one disqualification. In

7:04

terms of stats, that's ridiculous. That

7:07

feels significant. No one's ever done before. That feels

7:09

significant. It is extremely significant. Jack

7:16

and I have discussed this throughout the

7:18

last number of weeks and I

7:21

forget everything. As soon as Jack tells me,

7:23

it's in one letter out the other. You'll

7:26

enjoy these stats, John.

7:28

John won by a lot

7:30

of points, didn't he, Jack? Yes.

7:33

I think the... It's

7:35

a good point in terms of winning

7:37

the lead. I think you did have

7:39

the most... I think it's the biggest

7:41

score anyone's ever won a series by

7:43

because you were... I'll find out.

7:45

Hang on. I can work out exactly how far

7:47

ahead you were. I'm doing a series at this

7:49

point. You were 21 points ahead of Joanne, which

7:51

is the highest margin of victory

7:53

there's ever been. Hang on,

7:56

Jack. I need to actually write this down for when I

7:58

next see Richard Herring. I

8:00

can't believe it! I've seen with

8:03

my own eyes, because we're all on video

8:05

doing this, and I've seen with my own

8:07

eyes, John Robbins grabbing a pen. ALICE

8:09

Yes. I mean, like

8:11

I say also, these will all be

8:13

on Twitter. You can definitely link these

8:16

two to Richard Herring

8:18

as well. Don't worry about that. I

8:21

mean, obviously, by points per task, you're the best

8:23

player to ever play the game. 3.84 points

8:27

per task is ridiculous. That's 0.2%

8:29

more. ALICE John, what's

8:32

smirking? He's smirking now, camera.

8:34

I'm not sure whether I'm

8:36

enjoying this, but I've seen

8:38

a grown man smirk over

8:40

taskmaster points. ALICE It

8:42

must be incredibly valid, because you clearly put

8:45

in a lot of work to get to this

8:47

point, therefore it must be great. ALICE

8:49

Well, I've been doing self-made tasks

8:52

every day for the last 10 years. I

8:55

live quite near Alex, so he will often

8:57

pop round and just deliver a task at

8:59

the door, like this sort of veg

9:02

box. There's a knock at the door

9:04

and I hear a scurry of feet. But

9:06

I think, like, I like

9:09

stats. I am competitive,

9:11

but it was really important,

9:13

I think, to sort of

9:15

reign that in a bit during the

9:18

show, and I was always, like, really

9:20

pleased for other people, especially when, like,

9:22

those moments when Sophie and Nick won

9:24

were just glorious. And

9:27

the fact that everyone won an

9:29

episode, didn't they? ALICE Yes. ALICE

9:32

Which, I think, is really important. And

9:35

Sophie won the final episode, which was just such

9:37

a great way of, like, tying a bow in

9:40

the series, because Greg was quite harsh on her.

9:42

NICK She also did the... Well, I don't know.

9:44

I think that she

9:46

didn't need points, she had other

9:48

skills. And I think just finishing

9:51

that last episode off with the,

9:54

you know, when she flashed her pants. ALICE

9:56

Yeah, the slut drop. NICK The slut drop

9:58

with the pant flash. was

10:00

just such a glorious... I mean, she didn't...

10:02

She'd won that episode just for doing that

10:04

in my mind. But I did think it

10:06

was a nice final end that everybody had

10:08

won an episode and they could

10:10

all enjoy it. So

10:13

more stats then from Jack.

10:15

How many did he beat Dara by?

10:17

How many points did John... Eight.

10:21

Eight points to beat Dara by, which is

10:23

again, I mean, when Dara scored that it

10:25

was... I thought no

10:27

one's going to beat that. And so the fact that you're near

10:29

200. I mean, that's

10:32

one area where maybe you could be like, could I have got to

10:34

200? But like, 200 is ridiculous.

10:38

I was just one ply of loo

10:41

roll and a stickier

10:43

chopping board away from that. But I was

10:45

chatting to Ed Gamble. Just chop it down.

10:49

Oh no, you lot shouldn't be allowed to

10:51

talk to each other. You, Richard

10:53

Haring and Edward Gamble.

10:57

We were speculating on when the first 200

11:01

plus Taskmaster score will be. But it's

11:04

tricky because it would... I think it

11:07

would need like a big bonus points

11:09

in a certain game. But

11:12

it's difficult to add in too many bonus

11:14

because it can really skew the sort

11:17

of scoring. Like you wouldn't want to

11:19

give someone a bonus 10 points or

11:21

anything. I think it would have to

11:23

be written in and it would have to be because there

11:25

has been a... there was a bonus 10 points in fact

11:28

in Jenny's series that you

11:30

benefited from. In fact, the

11:33

team task where May... If it

11:35

was a team task, then I

11:37

would benefit because May was there.

11:40

Yeah. May, I mean, obviously May got a lot

11:42

of benefit from it as well. But yeah,

11:45

they had to guess how many things

11:47

they put into Kyle's suit and they

11:50

got it right, which

11:52

meant that they took

11:54

the other team's points as well, which was,

11:56

I mean, from a points perspective, ridiculous.

11:59

ridiculous and unfair in some ways. I

12:02

think if we're talking about a 200 point, someone to

12:05

score 200 points, I don't

12:08

want to say it because I feel like with Dara,

12:10

I was like, no one's going to beat Dara and

12:12

you have gone on to beat Dara. And actually Dara

12:14

did have the, he

12:17

had a little bit of a weakness in the

12:19

sense that his team was bad, not just in

12:23

terms of like, Fern and

12:26

John weren't scoring many points, but also they just

12:28

made a couple of errors and then lost quite

12:30

a lot of points. So someone like you, you

12:32

were in a team that was, in

12:34

the end, did very well because Nick and Steve

12:36

didn't do so well in a few tasks, which

12:38

meant that you got a couple of extra points.

12:42

But I think the team of three are always

12:44

going to have an advantage. I

12:47

don't think they do. They're quite good

12:49

at balancing. So some of the tasks,

12:51

you know, you've got an extra person.

12:53

So for example, the one where we

12:55

thought we all had to hold hands,

12:58

you know, you've got sort of more logistical

13:00

issues and they

13:03

will often add an extra thing for

13:05

the third person to do. So the

13:07

tossing the bottle with the darts and

13:09

the, there was no advantage,

13:12

there was no advantage to having

13:14

three people on that task. One

13:16

of my favourite moments was one

13:18

of your team tasks. All

13:21

three of you were not listening to

13:23

each other. There was like a

13:25

madness was going on and you

13:27

were all in your own individual

13:30

worlds of insanity. Yeah.

13:32

We were, we were really good

13:34

as a team. We got on well. And I

13:36

think the important thing is we like committed to

13:39

whatever idea we came up with for the sort

13:41

of more creative ones. I was

13:43

going to say, I think that's, that's where team

13:45

of threes go wrong often is that they have,

13:47

if you have a creative one, you need to

13:49

all be able to like have a conversation. Whereas

13:51

if you're a team of three and one person

13:53

has an idea and another person has a different

13:56

idea, then you can waste quite a lot of

13:58

time arguing about it. And yeah, whereas you guys

14:00

seem to be like. Okay, we're a Tudor queen

14:02

and at some

14:04

point we're going to have Sophie jump on

14:06

John's back while John is in

14:08

a morph suit. That'll be fun. And that was great. What

14:10

was the struggle with that one though, is it took me

14:14

so long to get my head around

14:16

how green screen works because I kept

14:18

going, but then doesn't everything that's green

14:21

disappear? I don't know

14:23

what that's what green screen is. But

14:25

it sort of is. Yeah. How does it

14:27

work? Well, the thing is it

14:29

isn't green screen in a sense, because a

14:32

green screen is when you stand in front

14:34

of a, I don't know, maybe I

14:36

still, I can't relive this argument in my head. Oh,

14:39

so when you're in front of a green

14:41

screen, if you're wearing green, it'll go. The

14:43

green disappears. So I kept

14:45

having ideas about, well, like, can't we just sort of pull

14:48

each other's heads off and it looked like we're

14:50

ripping off each other's heads. I remember pursuing this

14:52

and they're like, no, that's not because you would

14:55

have to physically lift the person up. I then

14:57

got confused about, like, the difference between green screen

14:59

and just editing. I'm special

15:01

effects. So

15:04

I definitely dragged, I definitely dragged

15:06

the three down the

15:09

team down during that one. It's

15:12

good back to. Yeah. Sorry, John.

15:14

I just want to I just want to ask, how

15:17

long had you been

15:20

wanting to get on to Taskmaster? How

15:22

infuriated had you become at not

15:24

being asked? Because I was livid. I'd

15:28

really made my peace with it because I

15:30

remember doing Richard

15:33

Herring's podcast and he was sort of teasing me

15:35

about the fact I'd never been on. And, you

15:38

know, me and Alex have a YouTube channel

15:40

together where we play golf. And I've known

15:42

Alex for so

15:44

eight years now really well. We

15:46

go on like holiday golfing holiday

15:48

every year. But I

15:52

think like it's always something I'd wanted to do because it's such

15:54

a great show. But there

15:56

was a point where I think

15:59

I was sort of. getting suggested or lots of

16:01

people were sort of acting Taskmaster on Twitter

16:04

and fans of the show

16:06

I do with Ellis wanted to see me and Ellis on

16:09

the show. And there was a point I was like, I

16:11

can let myself sort of go down this rabbit

16:14

hole of like, why me? And

16:16

the fact is, you know, there's loads of great

16:18

comedians out there. I think Taskmaster do a really

16:21

good job of balancing

16:23

the lineups of sort

16:26

of representing different age groups. You know,

16:28

it's the gender balance

16:30

is really important considering the

16:33

two main presenters are white men. I

16:35

think they do a fantastic job and it's difficult

16:37

to get that balance. So I was never like,

16:40

oh, why not me? Because otherwise you just go

16:42

mad and you end up- I

16:45

was furious. No, I had gone mad.

16:47

I was, I couldn't watch it. I

16:49

mean, I genuinely went into filming Taskmaster

16:51

having watched about 25 minutes

16:53

of the show, which

16:56

meant that I was really unprepared for

16:58

quite a lot of the surprises. But

17:01

you had what you'd been able to watch it.

17:03

You don't have. I have terrible

17:06

sort of cataracts of jealousy that

17:08

come across over my eyes.

17:10

I can't watch things that I feel I

17:12

should have been invited onto and I haven't.

17:15

So fuck them, I don't watch them. Well,

17:18

I have to admit I hadn't watched

17:20

it for quite a

17:22

while until I found out I was doing it.

17:24

And then I had like- There you go. I

17:27

probably had two months before the

17:29

first task, the

17:32

first filming days, maybe three months. And that was when

17:34

I sort of binged all the series I hadn't seen.

17:36

But not like really out of bitterness, but it is

17:39

like, well, do you want to watch footage of this

17:41

wedding you weren't invited to? Do you want to watch

17:43

footage of this great party? But

17:46

then watching them all back, it's like, oh, this is

17:48

so wonderful. This is so joyous and seeing pals of

17:50

mine. So I think

17:52

like what's difficult as

17:54

a comedian is when you imagine

17:56

the conversations that

17:58

like people- high up in the

18:01

in TV and making and you know your name

18:03

is on a list somewhere. So

18:05

it's almost imagining them going, hmm, John

18:08

Robbins, well, is he quite this, that and

18:10

the other. So you can sort of have

18:12

these like fake narratives going in your head

18:14

where everyone hates me. Everyone must look at

18:16

my name on a bit of paper and

18:18

laugh and laugh and laugh. So

18:22

I just sort of avoiding that mindset was

18:24

quite important. But it meant that when I

18:26

started, I was just so excited. Did you

18:28

know deep down right from the word go

18:30

that you would probably win? At

18:32

what point did you did you sort of

18:35

relax into it and think I could take

18:37

this? Well, during the studio, because obviously you

18:39

have no idea what anyone else has done.

18:43

You so even like the say,

18:45

for example, the game show that we did,

18:49

West Steve and Nick had

18:51

done the the

18:54

the feces based show.

18:57

The shit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We were like

18:59

pleased with what we'd done, but you have

19:01

no idea. They could have absolutely bossed it.

19:04

And then it was very entertaining. So

19:08

it's very nerve wracking in the studio because

19:10

you're you're thinking, did I miss a trick?

19:12

Has everyone else done something that I just

19:14

completely failed to see? There

19:17

were a couple of tasks where I got

19:20

the little twist and and still didn't do

19:22

didn't win them because other people had just done

19:24

them quicker. So all of that is

19:27

to play for. And there's stuff like when I

19:29

did the hoop like Gary, when he's

19:31

going down the river, the gorilla. For

19:34

some unknown reason, I decided

19:36

to start with a small hoops because I thought

19:38

I will you'll sort of it'll

19:40

be more impressive if you get it first time

19:42

with a small hoop. It's like, what are you

19:45

doing? You idiot. Just complete the task in

19:48

as quick a time as possible. That's

19:50

kind of auto-competitive, though. At some points,

19:52

you're almost competing against yourself. Do you

19:54

do that in everyday life? Yeah,

19:57

completely like little efficiencies. the

19:59

way I do things

20:01

in the house, like boiling the

20:03

kettle. Can I get the bread

20:06

cut and toasted and the coffee on before

20:08

the kettle boil? I mean, he's like mad.

20:10

That's not particularly healthy. Do

20:12

you now turn to

20:14

where Alex would be standing if you achieve

20:16

something very good, to be like, huh? That's

20:18

pretty good, right? Yeah,

20:21

I stand with a little iPad in

20:23

my kitchen timing how quickly I can

20:25

make toast and coffee and unload the

20:27

dishwasher whilst holding my breath. I

20:30

do understand to some extent because I

20:32

went swimming this morning and unfortunately my

20:34

older much fitter sister was in the

20:36

pool. We

20:38

started competing against each other. These

20:40

are two women in their 60s

20:43

and it was ugly. It was ugly, John.

20:45

It wasn't necessary and it wasn't attractive. She's

20:47

so much faster and fitter than me that

20:50

I beat her in one length because I

20:52

can, because I'm just all bad temper. Then

20:54

she could swim another 25 lengths and

20:57

I had to get out and lie down for a little while.

20:59

But on we go. I want to talk

21:02

about your yellow jacket and where it is now and

21:04

what you're going to do with it. I

21:08

think you'd used it in stand up before, hadn't you?

21:11

Well, I got it years

21:13

ago because, well, I

21:15

got one of them years ago because I was doing

21:18

a karaoke

21:22

night where

21:25

it's like a live band. It's called

21:27

Masioke and I was going to do

21:29

a queen song and I

21:31

thought, you know what? I looked

21:33

at all the Freddie Mercury jackets on

21:35

like Amazon and they're all like tats.

21:37

They just look like bad Hivnes jackets.

21:39

Like you're about to sort of wave

21:41

someone into a car park at a

21:43

fate. So I Googled

21:46

whether there's like any decent ones

21:48

and there's a company that do

21:50

replicas of famous jackets. You

21:52

know, like Elvis ones and Michael Jackson ones.

21:54

And they had a few different Freddie ones,

21:57

but it's quite pricey. So I thought, do one.

22:00

Why do I not? And then I thought, well,

22:02

if I'm using it for the karaoke thing, and

22:04

if I use it on stage, probably be tax

22:06

deductible. Tax deductible. This is how you get it.

22:08

Well, you have to be very careful with clothing.

22:10

You can't just claim for like a nice shirt

22:12

or shoes because you wear them anyway. But I

22:14

think I could probably make the case to HMRC.

22:17

Yes, I do think you could make a

22:19

case for the yellow leather, buckled jacket.

22:22

It's every day off to Tesco

22:24

to pick up your toilet rolls.

22:26

I think you could get away

22:28

with that. So, when

22:31

you do Tasmus, you've got to have a replica. Could

22:33

you just buy another one of those off the peg

22:35

or did you have to have it made? Well,

22:37

this was the tricky thing because they give you

22:39

a little bit of a budget for your clothes

22:42

because most of my clothes aren't really suitable for

22:44

like TV because they've all got like brands on

22:46

or they've got band names on, even though I

22:48

was really lucky to be able

22:50

to sneak in quite a few band t-shirts onto the

22:52

show, which don't usually get allowed to, but I really

22:54

like that. So, I

22:56

got a Freddie one, I got half man, half biscuit

22:58

one, and a Magnolia Electric Company

23:01

one, and a Frank Zappa one. I'm

23:03

a lyric in a half man, half

23:05

biscuit song. Are you? I'm

23:07

just chucking that in. Yeah, I am.

23:10

What's the line? I don't know. I don't

23:12

know. I've just been told on several occasions.

23:14

This is amazing. You'll have to Google that

23:16

yourself. I think it might even

23:18

say something really horrible. I don't know. Well,

23:21

if it doesn't, that's the

23:24

most impressive claim to

23:26

fame I think I've ever heard. Oh, I've

23:31

got some stories I could tell you. Brilliant.

23:34

Lenny Henry, Lenny Henry, you're funny. You're

23:36

funny. Jenny, Claire, Jenny, Claire, you're dead

23:38

funny too. That's nice. That's great. There

23:42

we go. Let's get

23:44

back some stats, Jack.

23:48

I really want to know about the spreadsheets. I

23:50

got to know about the spreadsheets because you talked

23:52

about it on Ed's podcast. You said that you

23:54

made your own spreadsheet and you put it on

23:56

Twitter as well, where you would guess how

23:58

well you did in every task. or not guess, you would

24:00

you would estimate how well you did in every task with

24:03

a best, worst and average. How close

24:05

were you in terms

24:07

of your film tasks? Do you know? Mason

24:10

Yeah, I mean, I will make a spreadsheet

24:12

for anything I do. So I briefly got

24:14

into swimming for about six weeks, 10 years

24:17

ago, and I made a spreadsheet of how

24:19

many lengths I did. And it's

24:22

sort of a way of keeping me engaged,

24:24

as if there's a score and I can

24:26

measure myself, it keeps me interested. So really,

24:28

what is the

24:31

reason it started was because after the first days filming,

24:33

I got home, I don't know if you found this,

24:35

Jenny, but it was like, I can't

24:37

remember what we did today. I've done seven

24:39

tasks. Jenny Well, that's like my daily life

24:41

anyway, I don't you know, by lunchtime, I

24:43

can't remember what I did, you know, at

24:45

11 o'clock in the morning. So you know,

24:47

that's that's just common for me. But so

24:50

you started writing it down what you've done and

24:52

what how you thought you'd done on each task.

24:54

Mason Yeah. So I thought this

24:56

is a way to remember the tasks I've done

24:58

because I want to, you know, I don't want

25:00

to just forget everything. And

25:03

so then I what I did was like, I

25:06

wrote down the best. This

25:08

is in my thinking, like, what's the best possible

25:10

score you've got the worst and then the average.

25:13

And on I'm just looking now,

25:16

the most of them, the

25:18

best was about I

25:21

was around about the best or the average, the

25:24

one obviously the there are

25:26

a few you don't play there. Well, not there

25:28

are a few that don't get shown. Yes, of

25:30

course. And I was quite lucky. And I think

25:32

the ones that didn't get shown work some of

25:34

my weaker tasks. I

25:38

thought the classical music one I put myself down

25:40

as a one, I put best case scenario, you've

25:42

come last on that because it was so bad.

25:44

And I ended up with four points for that.

25:46

So I mean, you I mean, you made you

25:49

made an instrument like I think I think you

25:51

could be if you've seen it in real time,

25:53

I spent so long tuning

25:55

a guitar in order to tune the

25:57

instrument I'd made from the guitar. I

25:59

must have spent 10 minutes tuning a

26:01

guitar for no reason. So

26:04

you feel like when you come away, you think, I

26:06

have what was you doing? You're insane. Why were you

26:08

tuning a guitar? So you

26:10

feel like, oh, I've rushed it, I've bogged it, I've

26:13

sort of messed this up. But

26:15

then it comes out and you've done quite

26:17

well. But there's other ones like with the

26:19

finding the kitten or hoopla and

26:21

Gary, where I thought, I think I've done

26:23

pretty well there. And it turns out that

26:25

just because you discovered the little twist with

26:27

finding the kitten in the glass

26:30

dome doesn't mean you've done it the

26:32

fastest. Where do you

26:34

get your competitiveness from? What's the

26:36

family setup? What's your background? Not

26:38

it's not a particularly competitive

26:41

family, not a particularly sporty

26:43

family. I've always

26:46

loved quizzes. I've always loved facts.

26:48

I think it started from like when I was at

26:50

school. I loved like

26:53

learning all the countries and the capitals and

26:55

the flags. And it probably

26:57

started like there. And then I think like, if

27:00

you're that way minded, school

27:03

becomes like the ultimate competition. It's

27:06

like, can I get the best score? So

27:09

that was kind of my way into I

27:12

did quite well at school. I just wanted to impress

27:14

the teachers. I wanted them to like me. So I

27:16

would be like, I would come in and have

27:19

learned all the longest rivers in the world.

27:21

So you, of course, know, Lou Sanders, former

27:24

former host of the show really, really well.

27:27

Did she give you any advice before coming on

27:29

before you came on the show? Because I think

27:31

she mentioned a few times when we were recording

27:33

and I think it went out as well. She

27:35

was like, Oh, my friends on the next series.

27:37

So maybe I'll give them this piece of advice

27:39

with stats and the rest of it. I think

27:41

Lou's advice was very much

27:44

like just sort of go

27:46

into it with full enthusiasm and really

27:49

enjoy it and just sort of

27:52

be totally yourself and

27:55

other people. I

27:57

think I spoke to gamble about. it.

28:01

And the piece

28:03

of advice I think I can't remember, I think my

28:05

big gamble who gave it to me a

28:08

former contestant was like, which I wish I'd

28:10

borne in mind was like, whatever you do,

28:12

finish the task, whatever you do, complete it.

28:15

Even if you're, even if you think

28:17

you're like, it's absolutely

28:19

rubbish. There will be

28:22

people who fail each task. And,

28:25

and that's really true. So

28:27

just so for example, the,

28:30

the sticking is stuffed to

28:32

a whiteboard. If I'd stuck a

28:34

post-it note to that whiteboard, I think

28:36

I would have come third. Yes, because

28:38

and especially in the studio, just

28:41

make sure you complete the first bit. And

28:43

then you stand a chance of getting three

28:45

or four points. So

28:47

in the studio tasks, I was I think

28:49

it's probably like the most hyper vigilant I've

28:52

ever been. Because we're walking towards

28:54

all the stuff that's on the stage. And it might

28:56

be paints and helmets and a ball. And you're thinking,

28:58

right, okay, what is it going to be? Do I

29:00

have to do I have to cover as much ball

29:02

with paint as I can? And then it's

29:04

like, make a pretty woman's

29:06

face. So I was never able really to guess

29:09

what it was going to be. But

29:11

you're kind of I would see the chalk and the

29:16

blackboard and I think, okay, it might be writing, it might

29:18

be something to do with words. And that was that's like,

29:21

I would say my strong suit is

29:23

wordplay. And even though Steve is the

29:25

cryptic crossword, he was very good as

29:27

well. Yeah, I'm, I'm actually now learning

29:29

how to do them. Because

29:32

I enjoyed that so much. So

29:34

I've done about 150 cryptic crosswords

29:36

to teach myself how to do

29:38

them. Oh, wow. Do you think

29:40

you can teach yourself how to

29:42

do them? Yes, you can, but

29:44

you need reference books. And

29:47

you need to get yourself, as I

29:49

have involved in the world of cryptic

29:51

crossword blogs. That

29:53

sort of took me by surprise.

29:56

There were a couple of things that took me

29:59

by surprise the Freddie Mercury. queen thing shocked

30:01

me. I'm going to be honest there, it

30:03

shocked me. And

30:05

it's the fact that as a

30:08

child you collected coins, John. Yeah,

30:10

I collected, well, I started off

30:12

collecting commemorative coins and

30:14

then I specialised

30:17

in farthings because even

30:19

though, like, you

30:21

know, the sort of technical

30:24

value of a copper coin is

30:26

very little, the farthings were the

30:28

cheapest ones. So

30:30

I could afford them with pocket money, I could

30:32

maybe get a farthing once a month from the

30:34

local antique fair. But I

30:36

collected everything, there wasn't anything that I

30:39

had that I didn't try to turn into a collection,

30:41

whether it was like pogs or

30:44

wrestling cards, or I

30:46

would get all of my pocket money and then I

30:48

would ask my mum, I would say I want it

30:50

in 20 p's this week. So I'd have five 20

30:52

p's. And then I'd go, no, I'm

30:54

not into 20 p's anymore, I'm sort of into the

30:56

10 p's scene. So then I

30:58

have my 10 pence coins. So

31:01

that I guess it's a certain

31:04

way of thinking about the world

31:07

in terms of like ordering and

31:09

collecting and comparing. How

31:12

gusset were you when Greg just didn't

31:14

understand the farthing collection? He just didn't

31:16

get it? Well, I,

31:20

I interpreted that as like,

31:22

what do you what would Greg like to hold, as

31:25

in like own? So what

31:27

would he squeeze in his mighty arms? Whereas I

31:29

think most people went for what feels nice to

31:31

squeeze. So I didn't really do very well in

31:33

that one. I was

31:35

sort of wondering if you were like, Oh, Greg might

31:38

like to destroy it, which I thought was quite sad.

31:40

No, but I but then I will do what you're

31:42

saying makes a lot more sense. Yeah, because I think

31:44

it'd be nice to I'd be nice to hold some

31:46

coins. No, no, no, it's not big. Julia,

31:49

it's horrible. I do like a farthing.

31:51

They're very sweet, very sweet coin. They

31:53

have a little Ren

31:55

on them, don't they? The

31:57

farthing? Yeah, the very late ones. ones

32:00

from the 1940s and 30s

32:02

have a run on. I mean,

32:05

my collection I really focused in

32:07

on, it was 1672 to

32:10

the end of Victoria, but

32:12

my, I mean, the golden

32:14

age of the milled copper farthing is

32:16

1672 to, I would say 1799. But Greg did ask, this didn't

32:19

make it into the show, he asked how much

32:25

they were worth. And I thought that might push me over

32:27

the edge because they have actually gone up in value quite

32:29

a lot since I was a kid. Good

32:31

investment coins. Right. Okay. That's

32:35

300 years old, then you were getting coins that

32:37

were 300. I would thought these were just like,

32:40

not, you know, coins that you find, but

32:42

that's incredible. Yeah, some of them are quite

32:44

rare. I've got like Charles II pattern farthings,

32:46

which is sort of silver. I mean, I

32:49

could talk about this for probably longer than

32:51

you would like to hear. Okay,

32:54

we've got the farthings. We've got the cryptic

32:56

crossword. We've had the swimming. Give

32:58

me another couple of things that you've had sort

33:00

of, I'm not saying I'm going to use the

33:03

word obsessive, but that's what I mean, that you've

33:05

had these complete obsessive

33:08

phases over. Oh,

33:11

well, golf would be a good example. There

33:13

was about when I first properly got into

33:15

golf, I had about a year and a

33:17

half where I played two or three times

33:19

a week, I was obsessed with my handicap,

33:21

I would just watch loads of golf stuff

33:23

on YouTube. I've chilled out a bit now.

33:26

And I play like once

33:28

a month or so it's more difficult

33:30

to fit in. What else have I

33:32

got? I'm just looking around me at

33:34

things that did you did you play

33:36

in the golf course next to next

33:38

to the taskmaster? No, I didn't. When

33:40

you were there? No, I wish there'd

33:42

been a golf based task,

33:44

but there was a darts based task. So

33:46

I can't really complain too much because I

33:49

played a lot of darts when I was

33:51

a teenager. So I enjoyed that task a

33:53

lot. Yeah, that's not that was another of

33:55

your things, wasn't it? Isn't it? Listen, we've

33:58

just had the announcement of the new

34:00

cast. And we do like to make

34:02

ridiculous predictions about who is going to

34:04

win. I feel things in my

34:07

waters and Jack does things on spreadsheets.

34:10

But do you know who the new people

34:12

are? Have you have you been told who

34:14

the cast is? Yeah, I think it's a

34:16

fantastic lineup. It's a great lineup. And

34:19

just going through those names, who have you

34:21

worked with? Whose work have you seen? Who

34:23

have you met? We've

34:26

got Jack Dee, Emma

34:28

Ciddie, Babatunde, Alashay, Andy

34:30

Zaltzman and

34:33

Rosie Jones. So I've done

34:35

live gigs with Babatunde and

34:38

Rosie and Zaltzman from like

34:40

way back in, I

34:43

was about to say way back in the day,

34:45

but I mean, from the mid 2000s, I did

34:47

gigs with Andy. I'm

34:49

a huge fan of Andy's work on Test

34:52

Match Special, Cricket being another obsession of mine.

34:55

He's another stats guy. So yeah, big

34:57

brains. He's got a big brain,

34:59

Andy. Yes.

35:02

Rosie, I gigged with a lot. I

35:04

absolutely adore Rosie. I reckon,

35:07

what do you want me to predict,

35:09

last and first? Well, we haven't done

35:11

that. We've only done first. I just

35:13

said Emma Ciddie, because I don't know

35:15

why. That's what came to me. I

35:17

do it in a witch-like way. I've

35:20

not been right so far with any of the

35:22

series, by the way. I haven't

35:24

done my stats, and my stats

35:27

may be different, but I also

35:29

said Emma on just a whim.

35:31

But yeah, don't let that change

35:33

you. I reckon

35:36

Jack might struggle, because Taskmaster

35:39

has a history of sort of

35:41

like dad energy not playing

35:43

into your hands. Would you say

35:45

that? I would agree. We

35:50

all were convinced Steve was going to walk

35:52

it on our series, because his prize

35:55

test was so good. But then in some of the

35:57

film tests, there is a little bit of dad energy

35:59

comes in. and like where the the

36:02

one with the pegs pegging the socks, pegbin

36:05

Don, he started doing like

36:07

a little puppet routine with the socks. And I'm watching

36:10

him thinking, Steve, you're mad. There's

36:12

about to be another belief. Steve, what are

36:14

you doing? And it's like he's sort of

36:16

embarrassing his kids with a little sort of

36:18

exquisite puppet show. I

36:21

think Rosie is a wild card. I'm actually

36:23

going to say I reckon Rosie might win

36:26

it. Right. We're going to put that. We're

36:28

going to write that and put it in

36:30

an envelope and we will. Well, actually, people

36:32

know because they'll listen to this podcast. But

36:34

that's a very interesting tip.

36:48

You will be in the next

36:50

episode of Champion of Champions whenever that

36:52

is. I mean, there's a few series

36:55

to knock out first. How

36:57

do you fancy your chances against? Well, the only one

36:59

you're up against so far is Sam Campbell. What do

37:01

you reckon? I

37:03

don't think I can match Sam's

37:05

outside of the box thinking I

37:07

just can't. He's so like

37:10

off the wall, creative and funny.

37:13

So I think I'll lose out in

37:15

the meme competition. I

37:18

think there's going to be more gifts of Sam, but

37:21

I think I again, I have spoken

37:24

to a few former champion of champions

37:27

contestants and they're like. If

37:29

you have a bad day, it will

37:31

be catastrophic. So just try not to

37:34

add basically to add about this. I

37:39

think that it's just going to be so

37:41

fun to be back in the house, back

37:44

walking into rooms and seeing Alex. I'm just

37:46

going to I think for that

37:48

one, I'm going to relax. I'm

37:50

going to enjoy my experience because it is

37:52

over very quickly. It is like, right, we'll

37:54

see you back in 20 minutes for the

37:56

next task. Going to have some lunch

37:58

and then we'll see you back. for three more tasks. We've

38:01

got one left today and then you're home and you're like,

38:03

oh my God, it's all gone.

38:05

What happened? Yeah. Yeah. A

38:07

few other questions that we really,

38:09

really need to know the answers

38:11

to. Your giant chocolate honeycomb prize

38:14

task. Did you make

38:16

that, John? In

38:18

the sense of, did Isambard

38:20

Kingdom Brunel build the Clifton

38:22

Suspension Bridge? No, he didn't.

38:25

Okay, it was his idea. It was your idea. It

38:29

was, yeah, I mean, did

38:33

Basil Jet build the embankment

38:35

in London? No,

38:37

not by hand. Okay.

38:40

But what is building? What is making?

38:42

Is it not vision? The answer is

38:44

no, somebody did it for you. Do

38:46

you remember that? Because I was really

38:48

taken aback when Steve talking about dad

38:51

energy, did a big papier mache.

38:53

I can't even remember what it was for now

38:55

on his patio. It was the same task. It

38:57

was the same task. It

39:00

was for the most amazing spherical thing, I

39:02

think, which is the same thing that John

39:04

did it for. And it was a big,

39:06

it was a big arse moon. Yes, it

39:08

was the arse moon. It was a blue

39:10

moon. It was a blue moon. The

39:14

other one that I

39:16

was very, very impressed by. And I don't know

39:18

how you did it. I need

39:21

to know how you did the Freddie Mercury back of

39:23

the head painting. I don't know how, how did you

39:25

get your hair down? How did you get it flesh

39:28

coloured? Well, that

39:30

I was a little bit like, I wish

39:32

they'd shown more of the painting, as opposed

39:34

to performing, because that was probably my proudest

39:37

moment, because I am not in any way

39:39

artistic, when it comes to like, using my

39:41

hands painting or drawing or anything like that.

39:44

But I just did it. You did a

39:46

very good snail, John, you did a very

39:48

good snail. I did do

39:50

a big snail. No,

39:54

I just painted it. I managed to get the pink

39:57

right. That looked flesh coloured. And

39:59

I thought, that's not bad. I guessed that it would

40:01

have yellow in, so it was yellow and

40:03

red and white. But what sort of

40:05

paint was it? I'm a painter, John. I need

40:07

to know what sort of paint. Are we talking

40:09

gouache? Are we talking, it's not watercolor. It

40:12

was just those squeezy, like, squeezy,

40:14

like a poster paint. Yeah. That is

40:17

like a gouache. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

40:20

A Sophie Willen poster. Yes. It will cover it with

40:22

a wash. Yes. And, and

40:24

did later that night and the next morning

40:26

and the night after that. But

40:28

on the way through, I'm going, you're going to

40:31

mess this up because you're terrible at this, and

40:33

you're doing it backwards in a mirror. But I

40:35

think I just kept it quite simple. And

40:38

didn't try to, because what I always do is

40:40

try and be too fancy with things and end

40:42

up messing it up. So I just thought, right,

40:44

get everything pink, then

40:47

get the top black, and then we'll,

40:49

we'll just leave the eyes and the mustache up

40:51

to fate. It looks a bit like the Frank

40:53

side bottom. Yes. Yeah.

40:55

It did look a bit Frank's eye bottom. I

40:58

suppose, I mean, I can understand why they didn't

41:00

show any of the doing of it because it

41:02

was just such an impressive moment to be like,

41:04

and here's John's and then just out

41:06

of nowhere, this unbelievable, the reveal was so good.

41:08

Whereas I suppose if you'd been, if we'd had,

41:10

if we had seen you do it, they'd have

41:12

been a level of like, yeah, that's good. And

41:15

then when it came to it, yeah, but it's,

41:17

it's so, it was proudest moment.

41:19

Unbelievable. Here's a fun fact. So once that

41:21

when I turned around and they're videoing it,

41:24

I was like, right, I'll sing something. And

41:27

they went, please don't sing any queen songs, please don't

41:29

sing any queen songs. Because

41:31

obviously they can't clear them. So

41:35

they would, I think they were quite terrified

41:37

that I would ruin the moment by singing

41:39

a song they then couldn't show. So I

41:41

was like, well, there's a solution to that

41:43

because I can just do this sort of

41:45

vocal warm up. He does it Wembley, which

41:48

I did a very bad impersonation of. But

41:50

yes, which I guess isn't, I don't, I

41:52

very much doubt it, even though it is

41:54

technically a track on live at Wembley in

41:56

86. someone

42:00

go, Hey, you can't. It's a massive if

42:02

anyone can, Queen can. Unknown Speaker I hope

42:04

you didn't see it. Then listen, what are

42:06

you up to now? And do you think

42:08

it will change the course of your career

42:11

in any direction whatsoever, apart from the cryptic

42:13

crosswords? Unknown Speaker I mean, I think I

42:15

came into because it took quite a while

42:17

to get on a lot

42:19

of the stuff I do is kind

42:21

of is already sort of rolling. So

42:24

the radio show with Ellis, other

42:26

podcasts, I'm writing a book, I just finished

42:28

a tour. In fact, we filmed the studio

42:30

dates. Unknown Speaker I just want to you

42:33

just said, I'm writing a book now. I

42:35

need a little bit more information on this.

42:37

Unknown Speaker I'm writing a book about alcohol.

42:39

Unknown Speaker Right. Unknown Speaker Because I stopped

42:41

drinking about 18 months

42:43

ago. So I'm

42:45

writing a book, sort of like a

42:47

memoir told through the lens

42:50

of or maybe I should say the

42:53

bottom of the glass. Of alcohol. And

42:57

so that's the why in the task

42:59

with the shaking hands. I

43:02

drink that drink. And I'm like, that's

43:04

prune juice that tastes like prunes. And

43:06

it did taste just like prune juice.

43:08

So I wrote that down. And

43:11

it turned out it was non alcoholic rum. Well,

43:13

I, I defy anyone

43:15

to recognize the taste of non I'd never

43:17

even heard of non alcoholic rum. But it

43:19

tastes like prune juice if you're interested. But

43:22

I was so like, I was like, Alex, please tell

43:24

me there was no alcohol in that please. And he

43:26

was like, No, no, no, of course there was. But

43:28

you never quite know. Unknown Speaker They have to take

43:30

that really seriously, haven't they? It's a mere analogy. They

43:33

can't muck about with stuff like that. So how long

43:35

is it since you've drunk? Unknown Speaker 568 days, not

43:37

all there. Unknown

43:40

Speaker Well done. Well done. This is, this

43:43

is a good thing to be really competitive

43:45

about john, this is a good thing

43:47

to sort of be, you know, having your

43:49

tally and trying to beat everybody else and

43:51

be the most personal wide world. I mean,

43:54

that's something to chase. Well done. No, that's

43:56

that that sounds really, really good. I mean,

43:58

it's Hopefully, well,

44:01

I will look forward to reading that because I

44:03

have my own memoir coming out as well, John.

44:05

Do you coming out in October? No,

44:08

it's going to be quite a while away for me. I'm

44:10

afraid we've only just sort of got around to sorting that

44:12

out because I OK, we

44:14

we filmed the studio tasks while I was

44:17

on tour. So I had to cancel a

44:19

few tour dates to make it or rearrange

44:21

a couple. And so

44:24

I kind of don't have a, you know, a

44:26

great deal to point people towards. And I think

44:28

the people who do who sort of, you know,

44:30

it makes their career are the ones who are

44:32

able to go, hey, you've not heard of me

44:35

before. Here's my thing. You

44:37

if you like me, come and see me here and

44:39

buy this thing. Whereas I think I've you know, me

44:41

and Ellis have got quite committed fan

44:44

base who are just so

44:46

delighted to see me on, which is

44:48

so nice. But, you

44:50

know, who knows? You never know, do

44:52

you? Tomorrow I might get a call.

44:54

No, it's for something exciting to happen.

44:56

Yeah, yeah. Freddie Mercury impersonator. Do you

44:58

have any more stati stuff you want

45:01

to discuss with John? Well, so I

45:03

do have to say we we received

45:05

an email before you were on the

45:07

show. In fact, we received an email

45:10

on the I think it was. Yeah, it was it

45:12

was February earlier this year where someone said

45:14

they listened to the John Robbins podcast with

45:16

Alice James religiously.

45:19

And they said that we won't be interested

45:21

in something interesting that happened in an episode

45:23

in late November. They said during

45:25

a live link, you were clearly distracted and

45:28

you mentioned that you were looking at a

45:30

spreadsheet online. And when you are when you

45:32

were asked what that was, you said you couldn't say but you say

45:34

off air. Now, I want

45:36

to know, was that your own spreadsheet you

45:38

were looking at? Taskmaster wise, or was

45:41

it another spreadsheet? What's going on there? I'm

45:46

pretty sure if that was

45:48

November. Yeah, that would have

45:50

been the taskmaster. That

45:53

would have been the taskmaster contestants wiki

45:56

fandom page. Ah,

45:58

OK. Farron. That's look that

46:01

that is that is okay. So that but

46:03

is that you do you do that? So

46:05

I I don't do that one it was

46:07

basically because someone had this person emailed in

46:09

saying that because I usually do I do

46:11

a big thread of Of

46:13

taskmaster stats and facts on usually

46:15

Friday afternoon Around the

46:17

time of the episode going out as the

46:20

day after the episode goes out and also

46:22

linked to my own Incredibly long very pointlessly

46:24

detailed spreadsheet and that was the theory of

46:27

this person had emailed in saying Jack's

46:31

weekly but February was before it went out

46:33

wasn't it? So this this was we received

46:35

the email in February the the moment he's

46:37

were talking about is November So it was

46:39

around the time of series 16 before you

46:41

had been announced on taskmaster. Oh No,

46:44

it It

46:46

I don't think it would have been the I would

46:49

have been looking at the scores from

46:52

series 16, I think In

46:56

order to make sure that you

46:58

were in fact the the highest

47:00

scoring contestant all time No in

47:03

order just to increase my understanding

47:05

of the taskmaster world Jack Support

47:09

other exciting new comedic talent

47:11

of Course

47:13

of course not there like tallying it down

47:15

making sure that no one no one's getting

47:18

close to 192 Before

47:22

you before you did the series did you

47:24

know everybody that you were up against I

47:28

The only person I'd not met What

47:31

no, I in fact, I think I have had met

47:33

them all I'd not worked with

47:36

Sophie or Joanne

47:39

before and I'd sort of

47:41

seen Nick around in Edinburgh and Steve

47:44

the only time I'd met him before

47:46

he he presented me with the Edinburgh

47:49

Comedy Award when the year I won 2017 it was The

47:54

League of Gentlemen handed out the

47:56

award which so that was a really special moment.

47:58

It's always really memorable I

48:00

got Lee Evans. Lee Evans gave

48:02

me mine. There's a moment, I

48:04

think I did. Did I

48:07

give the mighty bush theirs? I can't remember. I

48:09

don't know. But you're part of a chain, aren't

48:11

you? Once you've done that, your job next year

48:13

is to give it away to the next person.

48:16

It's been an absolute joy talking to you, John. Good luck

48:18

with the book. Is

48:21

this your first book? Ellis and

48:23

I did a book of our radio

48:25

show about five years ago. But it's

48:28

my first solo book project.

48:31

So quite daunting, but I'm looking forward to

48:33

it. Very grateful that you joined us to

48:35

chat about your experiences on Taskmaster. It was

48:37

a triumph, John, and all the best for

48:40

Champion of Champions. It's going to be

48:42

really exciting to see who you're up

48:45

against. Yeah, and

48:47

also, I know so many

48:49

Taskmaster geeks listen to this. I

48:51

just want to say thank you for all of the kind

48:53

messages people sent throughout the

48:55

series, not just to me, but to

48:57

everyone involved. It's such a wonderful fan

49:00

base. And it's such a sort of pleasure to now

49:02

be a little bit little part of that world. I

49:05

totally agree. Yeah, it is. It just

49:07

really is. I can always

49:09

spot people on public transport

49:12

who are giving me a second look.

49:14

And I always know if they're under

49:16

50, it's because it's Taskmaster. If they're

49:18

over 60, it's usually because of my

49:20

stand up or whatever. But there is

49:22

a real clique of

49:24

Taskmaster fans. And

49:27

it's an absolute pleasure to be part of that

49:29

world. It really is. Well

49:32

done, everybody. Thank you very much, John.

49:34

Take care. Thanks

49:36

so much, John. Lovely,

49:45

John. John was very generous. He was generous with

49:47

his time. And also humble. I think if

49:49

I had scored 192 points in Taskmaster, I'd be

49:52

like, don't look me in the eye. I

49:54

am a king. I am the king! But he

49:57

wasn't at all. He was such a lovely man. Well,

50:00

so enough, enough fun

50:02

and games with John Robbins. You

50:04

have some homework, Jenny. Oh, you

50:07

have some grindstone already. Stone. Like

50:09

you thought you thought you'd, you know, a

50:13

lot about for a bit, just

50:15

mucking about going down the open

50:17

air pool, you know, the summer

50:19

holidays, etc., playing the arcades. I

50:22

care about your education, Jenny. And that is

50:24

why we have to force you straight back

50:27

into school with another episode. Obviously,

50:30

because it's the summer. It

50:32

is the summer. I suppose that is

50:36

what they call, you know, on television, they

50:39

have something called shoulder peak. Oh,

50:42

I don't know this. All right. Well,

50:44

it's sort of graveyard telly and they

50:46

try and sort of instead of saying,

50:48

this graveyard slot, they say shoulder peak,

50:50

which means it's coming up to peak

50:53

viewing time, but it's not there. It's on the

50:55

shoulder. I see. It's the shoulder

50:57

peak. I remember. Yeah.

51:00

If you're writing for shows that go out in August,

51:02

I was always like, oh, no, this might not be

51:04

this might not be in the primo

51:06

slot for old Jackie B. It's

51:09

not fast. Just not fast. And what are you going

51:11

to give me? What are you going to give me?

51:13

What's my task? Well, during

51:15

the show, during during the series

51:18

that we watched, obviously, we

51:20

saw a very differing approach to

51:23

team tasks during this series from

51:25

the team of three versus the team of two.

51:28

The team of three scored actually scored 18 points

51:30

more than the team of two, which is a

51:32

record equal equal with

51:35

your series, Jenny. Really?

51:37

When you scored a team of three scored

51:39

18 points more than the team of two.

51:42

But I will say you had a little

51:44

bit of help because of a bonus task

51:46

that that allowed you to get whatever, whatever.

51:49

Still won. Still won by 18 points. I

51:52

think you'll find 18 points. OK,

51:54

so what is what? Where are we going

51:56

with this then? With

51:58

that in mind, I thought it might. be

52:01

good to look at another set of

52:03

teams who had a

52:05

similar points differentiation, but

52:07

also where there was a question of sabotage

52:09

that had been thrown in. As a result,

52:12

I thought it

52:14

might be good to explore Series

52:17

14, Episode 3. We haven't

52:19

done anything for Series 14, and I

52:21

think, I'm just trying

52:23

to think, we had an episode from Series 13. This is a

52:25

series that

52:28

I watched live with Lou as well. In a way, I'm going

52:30

back over myself because we watched

52:35

it at the same time as it'll go.

52:37

You know what I mean. I'm just putting

52:39

you to the special Taskmaster notebook, Series 14.

52:42

Series 14, Episode 3. Episode

52:44

3. This isn't a Dara one, is

52:46

it? This is a Dara one. This

52:48

is a Dara one. And it's Sarah

52:50

Millikan. So it's

52:52

Dara, Sarah Millikan, John Kearns, Fern

52:54

Brady and Manja Chihuahua. The title

52:57

of the episode is The Iconic

52:59

Fern Brady Talking About John Kearns,

53:02

Daft in the Middle is the name of the episode. If

53:06

people weren't sure about the episode beforehand, they'll hear

53:08

the words Daft in the Middle and go, ah

53:10

yes, I know what is happening here. I mean,

53:15

it is a highlight beyond

53:17

all highlights. It is a wonderful episode

53:19

that I think you'll enjoy a lot.

53:21

And also, I mean, just for like, if

53:24

you want context, I don't know if we should do

53:26

like context where it is in the series, Dara has

53:28

just won the second

53:31

episode with a record point score. So he's

53:33

going into this episode on a high. If

53:35

you want to know where his brain is

53:37

at that point. So

53:39

he's feeling confident. He's feeling

53:41

confident. Interesting things

53:44

will happen. So I think

53:46

you'll have a really good time watching that one. Okay,

53:48

okay. Well, I've written it down. That means

53:50

that I'm going to do it. That's very

53:52

good. And right now we're

53:54

going to emails. I've got

53:56

here one from a Jimmy. This

53:59

one goes hello. Jenny and Jack, I may

54:01

have found a goof rewatching Series 10, Episode

54:03

7. The task where they

54:05

had to scoot around on the chair and swap

54:07

chickens. The task said they had to get Chicken

54:10

1 across the opposite lines. Now, Daisy

54:13

and Catherine swapped the chickens before

54:15

starting the course, meaning the chickens had effectively

54:17

crossed the lines before they went round the

54:19

track and touched the robots. I

54:22

thought of rewatching it properly to make sure

54:24

I had understood, but then I thought how

54:26

much Jack enjoys doing this. So took Jenny's

54:28

advice and left it to you. Keep up

54:30

the great work. That's Jimmy. Is this another

54:33

bit of homework I should be watching for

54:35

another day? It sounds like

54:37

it's a bit of homework for me to

54:39

do. Yeah, I'll leave that one to you,

54:41

Jack. That's for you to look at and

54:43

decide, and we'll discuss that next week. So,

54:45

Jimmy, you better be listening. And

54:48

we shall also be... Potentially,

54:50

I'll look into it. And then if I'm

54:52

like, you know what, this is a great

54:54

episode that we've forgotten about, and therefore I'll

54:56

make Jenny watch as well. So potentially, Jimmy

54:58

might have given you more homework as well.

55:00

I'll just share that homework. Thank you, Jimmy,

55:02

for writing in. Thank you to anybody and

55:04

everybody who does send us lovely emails. Oh,

55:06

we love the emails. We do. And

55:09

you can send them to fans at

55:11

taskmaster.tv and that will make us very,

55:13

very happy. What else will make us

55:15

happy, Jack? If people

55:18

rate and subscribe, that would be wonderful, please. That

55:20

would make us ecstatic. We love a good rating

55:22

subscription. We love it. We love it. It's our

55:24

bestest, best thing. And

55:27

I will also say, if anyone has any

55:29

thoughts or bloops that I've made

55:32

during series 17, I

55:34

would really like you to get in touch because...

55:36

Who? Who? I'm so Jack. I

55:39

do that. I make mistakes all the time. I

55:41

feel like about the

55:43

last series people made, came in and said,

55:46

oh, you got this thing wrong. And I was

55:48

like, yes, yes, well, fine. And then it sounded

55:51

like I was too grumpy. And I actually mean,

55:53

like, if you do actually find something that is

55:55

bad or a mistake that I've made in the

55:57

show, tell me. I really enjoy getting things wrong.

56:00

Well don't tell me if I've done anything daft

56:03

or stupid because I'm not interested and I don't

56:05

need reminding. So have I ever done

56:07

that to you Jake? No occasionally,

56:09

occasionally I see a slight roll

56:11

of the eyeball, just occasionally. My

56:15

eyes are staying completely dead on you, they'll

56:17

never ever move, no rolling will happen. Hmm,

56:20

well occasionally you've got your head in your

56:22

hands and you're rocking backwards and forwards and

56:24

who can blame you? Listen to

56:26

both of you, you are very very patient with

56:28

me, thank you very much indeed. I

56:30

shall go and take my recently injected

56:33

with Shingle's arm away, it's gone

56:35

dead, it's gone dead, I need to go lie down.

56:37

Oh no, Jeepers! Have a lie down, I'm

56:39

so sorry. Any excuse for a lie

56:41

down Jack, I tell you. I'll have a good

56:43

lie down. Take care everybody and we'll be back

56:46

this time next week. See you later, bye! Bye!