Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 107. *The Final* - S14 Ep.10

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

On the podcast this week Ed is joined by a very special guest. They discuss the final episode of what has been a brilliant series as well and talk through all the highs and lows of TM! Thanks to all the listeners for going on the Series 14 journey with us. Next Thursday the podcast will return to chat to through the finale of Series 8. Ed's guest will be TM super fan and Podcast extraordinaire Paul F. Tompkins. Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com Visit the Taskmaster YouTube Channelyoutube.com/taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble, and today, of course, we are talking about the finale of Series 14. Very exciting. Now, obviously, normally on the Taskmaster podcast, the way things work is we have the winner of Series 14 on this final episode. Have you watched the episode? If you have you watched the episode if you have not watched the episode go away and come back and listen to this because we're keeping on your toes today we don't have the winner of this series of taskmaster on this episode we have the wonderful

sarah millican yeah i've spoiled it for you if you've not seen it but i gave you fair warning we've got the brilliant sarah mill. It is the only opportunity myself and Sarah could both work out to sit down and chat, and we weren't going to have an episode of the podcast without Sarah on it. So very much looking forward to talking to her. Obviously, elephant in the room, didn't have Munya on this series.

He is the most difficult man to pin down in show business, but of course we'd love to speak to him, so we'll have him back another time to talk about another episode and all of his exploits on this series of Taskmaster. But we are here to talk to Sarah Millican about her experience on this series of Taskmaster. She's been absolutely brilliant,

as I'm sure you'll all agree. And she's going back on tour. Of course she is. I think she's probably the hardest working comic in the world. She's got another new show. It's called Late Bloomer, and it will be on general sale at 10am on Friday,

the 2nd of December. So go to her website for more details about that. 10am, Friday, the 2nd of December. But without further ado, let's talk to Sarah Millican about Taskmaster Series 14, Episode 10. Welcome, Sarah Millican, to the Taskmaster podcast. Hello hello it's very exciting to have you on it's so exciting um it's been an absolutely amazing series you've been fantastic on it oh thank you and i

have listened to all the podcasts so i know what you've said about me hey look i think it's i think it's been broadly complimentary which is rare rare for me. It has been broadly complimentary. There's a couple of things that I was like, oh, wait till I get on that podcast. Oh, no. Do you want to run through the list of grievances straight away? Well, I think early on, everybody thought I was a bit boring. I got that impression. And then later on, I liked i was like this this sort of

reliable uh kind of unflappable i've never been described as unflappable before but then later it was like oh she sits on the sofa to burst balloons she can't be bothered to be fair you did sit on the sofa to pop the balloons. I know. But you know what? I respected it. That's why I picked the living room. So I didn't have to stand and bend over. I can't bend over for 99, or as it turns out, 100 balloons. It was your reaction in the last episode to having to sit on the floor cross-legged for Munya's play that made me laugh the most.

Oh, there was so much about that play. Oh, my God. I I mean play in the loosest sense of the word yeah not a play I just I opened it and I just like my heart sank because like I wouldn't want to watch that I wouldn't pay or go for free on a comp um but to have to be in it was so much worse it was like i'd made like i'd started off doing stand-up and i'd made some terrible decisions and now i'm in a play with ping pong balls alex had to copy me but luckily he you can see around ping pong balls so it didn't really have the sensory deprivation thing that he wanted and i just thought i looked at it and i thought it's not a play like a play to me is words yeah something happens yeah yes a plot and it was such but it was the way he was like set the floor cross-legged i was like oh my god it's just assembly isn't it that's the last time i did that was assembly and that is a long time ago your reaction even when

the task came up in the studio when alex was doing the introduction to the task and there's a very quick shot of before they play the video in where everyone's like oh it's the play one now and you are just sat there like just gutted that it's made the edit i know there was always a chance that the one with the golf clubs might have got in and this one didn't there was was always a chance, fingers crossed, if everybody else's had been as bad. But it was so bad. And I spent time on mine. And I don't believe he spent time on his.

I think he was probably playing on his Xbox and then he was like, oh no, I've got two minutes to write a play. I'll just write something about ping pong balls. And it was such, can you imagine paying to see it look at you everybody else has had merit everybody else's performance and writing you would think if i went to a night of new plays and these were all on i'd have a lovely time but i would demand my money back actually i don't even think they showed as much of how furious i was

because as soon as i read it i was like oh you dick which is a shame because you guys got on so well on the team day i think i mean there's there's some fraying around the edges in this episode but that mainly got on quite well it was it was a good one to choose for the last episode yeah because it was just when i was starting to get a bit oh no i'm sick of babysitting can i have an adult partner now with with munya we um we had greg jenner on the podcast last week and he the most accurate description of munya i've ever heard is that munya's personality is like buzz lightyear in the first toy story film before it becomes a bit more realistic and jaded exactly before he realizes that he's not the best at everything i think he

knows he's not the best of everything but he thinks if he tells you yeah he's that young that if he tells you he's the best at something you you'll go, oh, okay, hey, guys, we found the guy who's the best at everything, rather than going, oh, really? Show me then. Yeah. Oh, it's fantastic to watch, though. That play was absolutely incredible.

And your play was, like, proper. It was so well written. It was, like, a beautiful piece. It was longer because I talk really fast. So I read it, like, went through it, and I was talk really fast so i yeah i read it in like went through it and i was like oh that's a minute um and i don't think it was explained what like the ending was you have to my writing when i've written plays in the past you always have to fill in bit yourself and i don't think it was that clear that the cats that were coming to

visit uh were the reincarnation of all the people who died in the home. Right, yeah. I'm not sure I got that from it. But I got plenty of other stuff from it. Oh, good, good. I thought Fern did a great job. She did. I mean, I would never write Howay Man in a play. So just so you know, that was an ad lib. I think she did a great job, apart from, oh, Howay Man.

Geordie people don't really say it that often no especially just as a completely isolated sentence yeah but she was like oh i'll add live a bit how we man but i thought she did a great job she did she was great um so you're you're a fan you're a fan of Taskmaster anyway, right? You watch Taskmaster. Always have been. I'm not to the point where, you know, where some people know, oh, well, the last time we did that was in there.

I'm not, I don't, the thing is I watch things, I don't remember things. Yes. So they could have done all of these tasks in other episodes and I wouldn't have remembered the trick to doing them because I don't have any memory. But I watched it and enjoyed it for years never really like I think I thought if I was asked I might do it but it wasn't something that was on my list it was just

something I really enjoyed watching and I think it's because you get to see comedians out of their comfort zone and doing something that you don't you know when you watch panel shows are great and they absolutely have their place but they are fairly samey where when you watch test master it's you know where else are you going to see all of those comedians doing all of those things no way not even like at home it's always it's always spoken about as quite a sort of an exposing thing for comedians as well because there's sort of less control over how you put yourself across because you're busy doing something else yes but i actually think i actually think with you because your on-stage persona and on-screen persona is you've worked so hard to make it as close to your actual personality as possible that it was actually just

it felt like oh sarah millican's doing taskmaster. It's not like Sarah Millican's secretly angry or anything like that. It just... Well, but you don't know if that's going to come out. Yeah. Like, I do get angry, but, I mean, it's mostly, Alex, because you can't count balloons. That's the main thing I'm angry at.

I texted Joe Lysett the other day and I said, are you, do you still get mad about some aspects of Taskmaster? And he went, yeah went yeah yeah even now like he could bring it to the top again if he needed to right right to the surface things that he's still a bit narced about but with so with someone like Dara who you know I think we all know Dara as you know the host of Mock the Week he loves to play he brings he brings people in he's a good team player and then when it comes to Taskmaster it felt like this was his opportunity to be like no eyes on the prize the most competitive

man I've ever seen on that show and I'm including myself in that it was it's so he's so competitive and it's quite funny because he wears his heart on his sleeve and he's so desperate to win but has the capability he's not like somebody who's like so desperate to win, but has the capability. He's not like somebody who's like, I want to win and has no skills to back it up. He definitely has all of the skills. But he did describe me at one point. He said, I think he said to his wife that Millican's snapping at my fucking heels.

And I was like, yes, she is. She's making you work a little bit harder. You're welcome. And I think he must have found it frustrating as well because you were doing it in such a calm a calm way and I didn't try to my maximum capacity yeah I decided to enjoy myself everything I do in my work and life re-stand up I try for it to be as good as it can possibly be the best I can do everything so actually to do a tv program where I'm like I mean I'll try I'm not not trying but I'm not gonna bust a gut I'm certainly not gonna run anywhere I'm not gonna stand if I can sit you know I'm gonna enjoy myself so I think it's quite in my head I'm thinking if I really applied myself I

probably I probably would have won yeah oh that if he hears this that is gonna send him over the edge I'm banking on him hearing it so that's look that's the elephant in the room you didn't win you came second but I feel like you escaped with a lot more dignity than Dara did but Dara doesn't care about dignity you don't get prizes for dignity but I was gutted and there was a there's a moment when I watched it back there's a moment when I've gone okay it's out of my hands now yeah and I can see it on my face I'm not sure everybody else will see it but obviously I know myself and I could see on my face that I've gone okay we're not winning that's fine because there was I got close to really catching up with them quite a lot of times uh and and then all you need is you're like I kept thinking because

as I did the tasks I made a note of all of them I wrote down what they were what I did because partly because I wanted to come back and tell Gary but also partly because it was nice when we when we were working our way through the records that I could go, oh, they haven't done that one yet. I think I did well in that one. And when we got near the end, I was like, oh, there's only shit ones left for me now. It's gone. The winning is gone. Just have a lovely day.

Oh, that's good. Do you have any particular highlights from the series where you did something and you were like, I'm very proud of that. I nailed that. The hand thing yeah i think and even though it wasn't intentional just they said can we take a photo of your left hand just like randomly and you know because it's taskmaster you go yes you are like it's all come up again later on i don't know what it is but let's just you know i trust them they're good team you know so and i just thought it'd be really funny because i put my hand down and that's the natural instinct and then i went oh no and i just did that because

i thought it'd be funny to look like you're a down and that's the natural instinct and then i went oh no and i just did that because i thought it'd be funny to look like you're a wank and a cock and then and then later on when they were like pick your hand i was like oh hold on i didn't even have to look for lasers one thing i don't think they showed what did they show it i don't think they showed it where you know the hand that was hanging down that had the everything in it it sort of a bit of it fell out and i went oh sorry and i put it back in like i'd broken it and that was like the tricky way of doing it the clever way but just by being able to to look for that hand rather than everybody literally everybody else had that hand well the odd dog hand obviously um but mostly people hands um but it's quite weird as well like

i love how broken Dara was by it because it seems like such a simple thing. And he'd completely forgotten that he had his ring on and all of these things. And then, oh, I mean, I love the whole thing because I loved how different everybody's approaches were. Like Munya was just, of course it was lasers. He's got them in his bedroom a bit,

at home with his mum and dad. He's got lasers. Of course he has. He's a lasers. Of course he has. He's a modern, he's a modern child. But then with John, about the hands on the piano,

oh, and his dad's hat, oh my God. And everybody had such a different approach. And that was when I think Dora was like, oh no, like what's, like something he thought,

then I was like evil. Because I'd predicted that that would be helpful even though I was just like ah working hard that'll be funny I think fucking idiot I do think I would have done something similar like you're just always looking for the stupid joke so I would have it would have been middle finger for me so I would have spotted mine straight away punchline in yeah they're joking by being stupid then I'm gonna that. And it worked to your advantage. Yeah. We've got some stats here for you. Some Sarah stats, actually. Yes, please.

Have these have the lovely bloke off Twitter? No, this is our producer Daisy um but Jack Jack Bernhardt um is I mean he's the he's the stat man though that spreadsheet is an absolute monster now it really is and I like that I feel like I get a compliment every week because he'll go like and Sarah's doing quite well and I'm like thanks very much but then because pretty much every week somebody on social media will say, are you surprised by how well you're doing? No, I've known you a long time. I know that I'm quite smart, but you know,

bless you for saying that you're surprised. Well, every week, whenever you get a compliment, Sarah, I get an insult because I slide further and further down that spreadsheet. Every week this series has been out. I'm so sorry. And Jack always tags me in. Thanks for that, Jack. You won three episodes, which

is the same as Dara. I won three out of the first six, which is crazy. Yeah. Dara won three, you won three, you know. I feel like you're the people's champion, Sarah. But I think with Dara, if he didn't win he was getting four if I didn't win I could have got three two you know so I think he was

consistently at the top two three so even when he did badly it was not he still had so many points in the bank from the previous weeks that it didn't really matter if you dropped a bit you know so I think he was more consistent than I was even if um sort of I think because I really I think I've got him on the back foot I'd be interested to see what he thinks but I I feel like he really thought he was just going to win the first one and it was just going to be easy and it was quite satisfying to win the first one and he was like oh no and you're like yeah pull your socks up mate but then he started to run away with it a little bit he had that perfect episode where he got the most amount of points he possibly could have got incredible that isn't it yeah that was amazing but then but then obviously

you sort of as a taskmaster fan you get a bit eggy at that point because the last thing you want is for someone to completely run away with it and be one horse race is no fun to watch yeah yeah but then later on on you caught up by I think you were behind by something like 13 points in episode 2 and then by episode 8 you'd closed it to 1 point. That's pretty good isn't it?

The perfect narrative arc apart from Dara 1. Also this is going to really annoy people because I'm going to really build up to who's going to be on the final episode. And it's going to be a complete fake out that Dara's not on the final episode

and he'll be angry he doesn't get the final episode. So we can absolutely bask in that now. Good. It's always good to have the person who's on second, who came second on the final episode because they can bitch about the person who won. I think this should be the way you do it from now on yeah i think so i think so you won three three prize tasks and came joint first in a prize task, which is very, very impressive. Did you spend a lot of time on those prize tasks trying to get them right?

I did, but then it's not until you're... I mean, it's not even in the studio. It's that day that you're like, oh, mine's terrible. But at the time when you put it in, you were like, this is brilliant. So one thing that knocked me while I could get it off my chest, thanks for the opportunity. The fancy dress one, they changed on the day. They said fancy dress that you have definitely worn.

Right. Okay. And then on the day they were like, we're just going to change it to best fancy dress. And I was like, well, mine's shit then. Because mine was something I had genuinely worn. And I thought it was funny that we'd borrowed my friend's clothes, my's clothes and we were like we look like slags and everybody was like oh you look nice today oh no but it in in terms of what it looked like if against everybody else's of course it was rubbish I could have bought something off Amazon of course I could have done so that was annoying

that they changed it on the day god damn you um but some of them I don't think you know until you see everybody else's and even then because Greg is so fickle yeah you know something like John could either nail it or get one like there was not much in between for John and John mainly one but his weren't all bad it was just it sort of depends on the narrative of the show and how it's progressing, I think. I was pleased with my book to hold down the Magnum wrapper. And that is genuinely, because Gary and I will go out in the garden, we'll take books out with the full intention of reading. And then all they do is hold down Magnum wrappers and we just listen to podcasts or chat and then come back in again. So no reading gets done.

But, you know there's and i thought it would be funnier to make it shakespeare so because you know because i like i wanted to leave it because i know he had a problem with john bringing books in so i thought let's leave it hanging let him criticize me and then we'll come in it was fantastic thanks i was really pleased with that and the a few people have told me that they've bought one of those hammers, the emergency hammers. So they've bought those afterwards just because it's a really good idea. The most morbid price task of all time.

And then, yeah, I think I tried really hard on them. I mean, the trickiest part was working out where the ceramic bangle holder should fit because it would have fit in quite a lot. Would you like on a Sunday morning? It would fit in quite what would you like on a sunday morning it would fit in quite a few what's the best addition to a garden ceramic bangle holder it was tricky initially if if it wasn't that everybody took stuff home you would be like i could put this in every week yeah yeah you what you're very very good at and i think it's really important with the price tasks is the things themselves were good but you always had a really funny anecdote or a joke about them

to follow follow them up because I know I had ones in my series where I was just like I just bring the thing and then hope hope some conversation happens around it and I'll come up with something but you always had a sort of tight bit to do after it. I think you have to be, I felt like I had to because that's my establishing, it's a bit like, you know, when you go on a sort of a chat show or a panel show, anything like that, the first thing you say has to be good because the people at home or the people in the studio are like, oh I'm tuning out if this is rubbish so you have to kind of get in early and I thought it was just a chance, there's chances to be funny throughout of course, but there's not chances to like do i mean it's not a bit like it's a bit on that i've done in a show but chance to get a couple of gags in yeah that's the the first and kind of only

opportunity really to do something that's prepared you know so and i thought it was it was a good way of trying to get a couple of laughs early on. And then obviously Munya would just come in with something ridiculous and talk about it for 10 minutes. Everybody would be like, but that's not, it's not true. It's not true. There's no, it's not, you didn't kill the thing with the, it's not true. And you're like, mine at least are true.

They might be shit shit but they're true let's talk about the prize task on this final episode oh yeah um uh the thing that the task master would most like to own which which feels like the sort of definitive prize task really they're sort of all that you're supposed to really be appealing to greg so this feels like the sort of definitive prize task, really. They're sort of all that. You're supposed to really be appealing to Greg. So this feels like the absolute sort of bottom line, the real essence of the prize tasks. And I'll say before we get stuck in, the back and forth here,

there is a run where everyone does a perfect joke that absolutely sums up their time on Taskmaster, where everyone just stacks it. is it the one that ends with John saying you haven't done mine yet yeah you haven't seen mine yet it was so good let's talk about yours Sarah because I know I know in in Taskmaster that that you don't know what prize task you're doing until you get to the studio so you just pick them all and then they give them to you in whatever order they decide if you could have picked which one went in the last episode when you had a chance of winning would you have picked the one that was an outright insult to the taskmaster yeah because i think i had nothing sorry that's the answer i wanted well i

had nothing to lose i was definitely not gonna win i was definitely probably definitely second yeah because there was a decent gap between me and the next one and it felt a bit it just felt really chopsy and sometimes you're rewarded for chopsiness because i think greg likes you being a bit back chatty but sometimes you're really not and um what they didn't show which they did show when dara went up to collect the prizes at the end was that that book you just opened up and it was just a picture of me doing a double thumbs up that was always in the book oh brilliant but it was the science of likability it's so funny and also i think he really took him on and at the end when he's given the points out he does go i'm perfectly i'm perfectly likable he's really he's really got his goat i love it and i think i just wanted

something that riled him because i there's no i'm not going to win anyway so what difference does it make and also you can't predict what's going to happen you can think you've got one that's going to nail it and it doesn't and vice versa so I think I mean I never would have predicted that my book to go on a Magnum wrapper would win you think somebody's got a thought of something but nope no they haven't so uh and I just I like the choppiness of it and I thought it could go either way it went the wrong way but I still like sort of getting his back up a bit yeah if you can't get the points you may as well get a reaction yeah exactly yeah and I think because I'm because you know you're supposed to be scared of and you know when you've gigged with Greg you're not scared of Greg because Greg is adorable you know so it was quite was quite entertaining just to be really bold and go,

but look how likeable I am and I could teach you that because you don't have it, you know. And when he said, do you think it would be good to have it in the role as the Taskmaster? And I said, no, but in your private life, maybe. So harsh, so harsh. So Dara was another low scoring one, actually. The two top contestants

not scoring great on this last prize task his asteroid 4901 O'Brien and he brought in the cufflinks to represent it I thought he'd nailed that but why would Greg want to own an asteroid named after Dara O'Brien well I think he said he would

try and get the name changed I'm not sure he meant that, Sarah. I mean, it's just a bit of his leg all over again, isn't it? It's just, all right, you bring something in that nobody else could possibly have. I think if I got to do it again, I'd bring a bit of Dara's leg in for every prize task. Poor Dara by the end of the series.

It's got less and less leg as it goes along. But I think because it felt like it was, I mean, it's something that it's really hard to get hold of, you know, like he's brought a bit of the sky in, hasn't he? And as I understand it. Yeah, I think so. I would like to, I wish I'd thought of seeing astrology instead of astronomy,

just to chuck it in, just to see, just get it wrong and see what his face does if it turns itself inside out all guns blazing you in this episode just trying to annoy everyone yeah totally but I think I thought he was I thought oh he's nailed this I really thought he'd nailed it um and yeah not at all and also maybe because it was represented by cufflinks yeah maybe that's less good I don't know you can never tell you can never tell with Greg like you say so yeah he's not in it's clearly not into space he's not a space guy no um let's talk about uh fern fern brought in uh magical tarot cards um but not before telling

greg that she was thinking about bringing in um brown hair dye spray so I mean he took an absolute kicking in this opening and it was sort of one after the other yeah it was so funny and I love Fern is so good at the um I was gonna do this but I'm gonna do that and in kind of getting another joke in yeah and whether she knows she's getting another joke in or whether she's just saying something honestly I don't I can't always tell but she's definitely funny yeah the idea that she was going to bring him some like grecian 2000 would have been amazing just it's it's like an insult on the way to you know rubbish because you know tarot cards are rubbish and the way she was like, oh, no, it's true, it's true. And we were all the people with the sticks on the first one. And then he was the devil at the end. Yeah, a lovely bit and a lovely act out from Greg

as the devil squatting on the chair. Another Munya prize based on something from Zimbabwe. I mean, I think I could speak to another Zimbabwean person and tell them what Munya had said throughout the whole series and they'd go none of that's true he's completely made that up I wish I'd made up stuff and gone be like oh this is what they called South Shields darts doesn't have the same effect when it's just a bit further up north though does it um but the that was it was that the mask that he had to wear around his neck and that that came so late on in the description.

I know. He was like, yeah, you wear that around your neck. He's like, I'm wearing that around my neck, am I? At one point. And it's huge. Massive. Like some kind of terrible facial pendant. Awful.

Awful. Not soothing at all. Didn't he bring in a crocheted head of himself at one point? Crocheted head of himself. I think he likes his own image and when like in in the oh the snort raspberry when he had to turn around in case he got work as a model i love it and i don't think that was a joke either i think he's just very it wouldn't even occur to me like oh what if people won't find me attractive while i'm doing a task oh my god i might as well have just gone home from the beginning

and he wouldn't eat those ice creams because they had sugar in them yeah yeah and i didn't want to eat them because they were vile um let's talk about i mean john is the only one john scores three points uh and everyone else scores uh one point um oh no dara scores two sorry um john gets three points for his um fridge magnet of jet from gladiators i mean if you'd seen those in a list before greg talked about them you'd have gone well that's a one isn't it yeah a fridge magnet as soon as he said have you got a fridge and also how has greg got three i don't know what i understand three feels a bit excessive he's obviously got one of those little pop ones hasn't he for underneath your sofa arm he must have one of those yeah i'm trying to imagine i've been to greg's place of residence many times

he's got the main fridge. I guess he's got like a little extra beer fridge or something and then maybe a wine fridge or something. Yeah. Yeah, but those aren't magnet fridges, are they? No, not really. But he loved it. Yeah, he loved the magnet.

And I did feel like I wonder if Jet's at home, you know, because, you know, she's at home watching. And then imagine if you were at home watching and because you know she's at home watching and then you imagine if you were at home watching and you've been on the telly 20 years ago and you you know you've got a nice life now and you maybe she's retired which got a different job who knows what i was like and then just to see your own image up on a fridge magnet scoring fairly highly on task force how weird that would be for her i mean i think i'm right in saying this i think she's a psychologist now yeah yeah I think she's a psychologist now

yeah I think she was a psychologist and they used her on Big Brother quite a lot when they used to have psychologists on yeah there you go did she still wear the same outfit or she got like it's a less sexy fridge back in it if you're just in like you know a nice

blouse looking sort of judgmental at someone. God, it'd be difficult. You'd turn up for your psychology appointment and there's Jet in a gladiators outfit. Yeah, she'd get cracking straight away on your reaction, wouldn't she? I mean, this sums John's experience on Taskmaster Up, I think. When Greg was running through the points, gave everyone one point and then gave John three. Makes no sense.

And he was clearly waiting for that five. Yeah, makes no sense. I quite like how nonsensical it is. Because then when you feel like you've been badly done too and you're like, I think I should have got five for that. You know, it does mean that later on you're going to get a one for something, you're going to get a five for something you don't really deserve a five for. And it's all rubbish totally all rubbish um so it's one for munya one for fern one for you sarah one for dara and three for john hi fern hello i've brought you magical tarot cards here are the tarot cards so this wasn't even what i was going to bring in

i was going to bring you in this spray that turns your hair brown. Then... I mean, so far it's been a very unsettling ride. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for

details. Now we quickly see the setup for the task in the future. Order three things for your final task. You may spend 50 pounds you have five minutes your time starts now was this really the foot was this the first thing that you did when when you were filming I think so I mean that's what they said and I believe them even though we know that we shouldn't believe them yes they often tell you porkies um I think it was fairly early yeah and I it was clearly I was clearly hungry as was John so it feels like it might have been quite early in the morning yeah before lunch definitely John was like burger and I was like chocolate and uh and I thought because I thought it's going to be something I've like I've got to

get out of I've got to do and I thought scissors is always good yeah and a mirror in case it's something you've got to see behind I don't know what I was thinking. You're trying to predict what it might be, having not really done much already. And then the chocolate was really just for me. I didn't realise they'd have it loose. I thought, of course they wouldn't have it in packaging, but I didn't think it would just be straight on an oil drum. You're like, come on, guys, I'm definitely going to eat some,

if not all of this. At least make it, like, less grubby. It's the dedication as well that you asked for an A4 size slab of chocolate. Yeah, thought it would be funny to just go for the gag, stupid. And one of the runners had clearly had to weld together too. I know.

They're just sold at some chocolate store. I know. I saw it and I was genuinely impressed. I thought they've really worked out what A4 is and they've made an A4 chocolate bar. Because they don't exist because they should do them in stationary sizes because then and they've made an A4 chocolate bar. Because they don't exist because they're not, they should do them in stationary sizes

because then it combines the two things. I love them all. And the mirror and scissors, yeah, pretty smart. I mean, you were very smart the way you approached Taskmaster, like the way you came in and you knew you looked under the table every single time, which meant in the last episode,

they absolutely did you. Hello, Sarah. They just said hello sarah i liked it i like the smarts of it but i just thought it wasn't that i wanted to have a thing i just thought so many things when i've watched it in the past have been under the table and if people don't find it straight away i can delay everything so i thought yeah if i just do that first and i did it on, they didn't show all the time because it's quite boring. I did it every single time and three times it came good. So that was worth it. That's totally worth it, yeah.

So the things you picked made sense, definitely. John picked a double cheeseburger, a magic lamp and a baseball cap. The magic lamp was out of nowhere and also was a real panic. He often left things right to the last second do you remember the thing when he had to put the tarpaulin away and he just held eight balloons for about 30 seconds he does it a bit later on as well we'll talk about it it's just i mean even but even the in the studio i'd imagine they've edited some of it out but he's asked the question and he really will think about what he's going to say for a good few seconds before he says anything. He doesn't have the panel show panic that we have. Nobody's talking, say

something, nobody's talking, say something. He doesn't have that, he just leaves it hanging, which makes when he eventually does say something all the more funny, he's very skilled clearly. Fern asks for potatoes, pens. I don't know why she asked for potatoes pens i get because she thought maybe maybe it's an art task that makes sense and taxidermy and then her eyes go so there's so much darkness in her eyes when she said i don't mean a teddy i mean something that used to be alive she's a real one-off isn't she i love it yeah and i love that um when when she did throw it over and everybody was like she said her friends had said to her, why didn't you throw the potatoes?

And she said, well, it was the most obvious thing to let the bird fly. And it makes total sense. I totally get it. So earnest the way she said that. Dara got a labourer and two pints of Irish cider. So he was thirsty. You guys were hungry.

He was thirsty. I feel like even though that wasn't, we didn't know when that was filmed, that that would be in the last episode it's almost like he's already celebrating I found it quite

a bit in your face to be honest like oh cheers oh look a Wugtus monster alright shut up but the fact that

he bought a man I didn't know you could get a man for under £50 what a great thing to have learnt and Munya gets Moonchee's Vaseline and a Swiss Army knife of course of course he does for under £50. What a great thing to have learnt! And Munya gets Moonchoo's Vaseline and a Swiss Army knife, of course. Of course he does.

I need like a... I need a Swiss Army knife. Scissors, please. Pens. Er... ooh... er... shit! Er... Some sort of taxidermy. OK. Not a teddy, like an animal that used to be alive and now it's... ..that.

A double cheeseburger. A big bag of potatoes. Chocolate. What size is a chocolate? I don't know what the special size... Like, A4? Is that the answer? I mean, £50 a cover, how house labour. I mean, cheap labour. You want me to rent a person? You want to give me a rough description of them? You're nice.

Somebody nice. I want rollerblades. No, no, no, no, no. I want moon shoes. A mirror. So a pint of Irish cider. Or maybe just get two pints that we have a pint to eat. That'd be lovely.

Let's talk about task one proper um eat the grape you must not damage the caravan or climb out the window fastest wins your time starts now now i i would love to do this one sarah just let you know i i love escape rooms i found out i found what you said about escape rooms hugely insulting personally well the truth be told i am actually quite good at them yeah it depends if i if i want to see it's like taskmaster if i wanted to win i don't want so dora's gonna kill me so if i've been in before where we've gone let's get it done and we've come out 20 minutes early i've done that but i've also done it where i went in and two genuinely

two friends i hadn't seen for ages and there was boys went in one and girls went in the other and they were like all arguing with each other because nobody was in charge and well I said we should do that and you said we should do that and then they they argued to be let out even though they hadn't won and it was all this happening and me and my two female friends just sat on the bed that was in the escape room and just chatted for 20-25 minutes and then we were like oh should we just try and do a bit and then we just got let out anyway so I used it as a very much a social catch-up yeah but I do quite I find them frustrating but it's satisfying when it's done and you've done it I think yeah but are you good I bet you're good at escape rooms but I bet you're no fun to be around in an escape room yeah that's a very incisive um thanks i uh yeah i i'd say no i i'm okay i'm better to be

in an escape room with than you might expect but i'm still very like if i'm going with friends who have not done an escape room before i will need to give them a 20 minute lecture on the best way to approach escape rooms first give them a handout give a little handout first rule is as soon as you get into the escape room you search everything it's the search first and if you find any clues they all go on a central location so i think in this escape room i think i would have managed to do what dara did because i would have been looking at everything and then he finds that key straight away but what he doesn't find and i think it might have befallen me as well is is the secret grape underneath the key yeah which you found you found pretty much straight away and then it was just

pop it in the mouth all done yeah and i looked a lot at a lot of things first i was you know but i i just i can't be bothered to do the key that goes to the lock and then, oh, somebody else locked in there and, oh, fucking hell. I can't be bothered with that part of it. But I was kind of looking for an easy way out. Yeah. And what happened, I opened the grips of Wrath and there was a key in there. And then I went, because I've got big sausage hands, I sort of went to grab the key and I dislodged the little sort of shelf it was on. Yeah.

And then underneath there was a grip so it was purely like like being uncoordinated and clumsy that and then and I saw there was a real sense from the the production team and Alex of like oh when I did it because I did it quickly oh yeah and I said oh what's the matter and he was like no no and then it turns out that I think I was the first one to do it and they thought it would last longer yeah so they're really worrying at that point that everyone's just going to find the key the grape under the key but luckily they needn't have worried um because look fern fern also finds the grape uh in the book um but not before doing some excellent fern business of gnawing through a string

shouting at some birds um holding up a baby's foot just asking alex about things yeah to ask if they're clues holding up a baby's foot and going what about this baby's foot no it's just a baby's foot no she's brilliant there was a lot of good good fun content in good fun content exactly um okay well munya munya gets there it looks like he does it quickly but he does everything everything in there basically he looks he always looks like he's doing things quickly and i guess it's how long he's doing things quickly for is the key point. Oh, half an hour of looking like you're busy and looking like you're fast.

Yeah. Tying string around a dart to do that and then getting the dart into the middle. And making up all the Zimbabwe dart story. Yeah. You know, he's always thinking of lies. I wouldn't trust him, but anyway. It's Bairns, isn't it?

It's what Bairns are like. It was when they paired it with me. There was a, do you remember the bit with oh god oh the bit where we had to do the montage yeah did they keep the bit in about lamar because he said something about kendrick lamar and i said lamar and he was like who's lamar and i was like out of kajagoogoo and he was like what on earth is a kajagoogoo and then we i said well you mean lamar from Fame Academy. And he didn't even know him.

I was working my way down all of the Lamars and the Lamars. And they clearly didn't keep that in. But I think that summed us up perfectly, that we were trying to get together to have some common ground. Lamar, Kendrick Lamar, somewhere there's got to be something in the middle there that you can both agree on yeah so it took him 11 minutes but he did you know he did it he was doing a lot of stuff

he was keeping busy he saw for example saw the grapes which is a lot more than you can say for John who had a complete nightmare my favourite John bit was when he said, does this lead somewhere? I couldn't believe that.

And Alex said, the TV aerial. Is this a ladder to something? That's what Taskmaster does to your brain sometimes, but very rarely do people vocalise that. I mean, it reminded me of a moment from Mawaan Rizwan trying to put helium in an egg it's just that people forget that it's still the real world like you still have to abide by real world physics and why would the aerial be a ladder to something and to what it's you think

he has to shrink himself down and climb up the aerial but then you don't know you don't know that in the studio you're not going to have four other people climbing an aerial and him going oh well it's not it's just it must just be an aerial and we're all on the top you know with full of grapes i've been climbing to you don't know you can't trust anything with taskmaster yeah well it's again everything yeah question everything i mean yeah i'd stop short of Munya questioning that there'd be a sewer underneath the bread bin. I love that task. That was one of my favourite ones. But I was so glad that you also had the younger people in because otherwise it's just me and Dara tidying, isn't it? Yeah. It's just doing like a really skill, like we've done a lot of duvet covers where, you know, we're getting on a bit. And in that, like the idea that anybody wouldn't fold it yeah was mad to me

like have you ever put something in a cupboard it has to be folded and it's not for tidy reasons it's because it takes up less space and the idea that you would pick like you think you could get it in a bread bin but as you pointed out in the podcast you can't always get bread in the bread bin if it's an unusual shape or slightly bigger than normal and the idea that he was like oh well there's obviously something underneath and and then oh i mean i love that i love that whole thing i loved john with the balloons and i loved fern just tipping out all the spoons and the marbles and everybody going no what is she doing in the studio and at home and then she just didn't even tidy them up in the end she was like bye you're done tired but yeah that's exactly i think taskmaster does get in your brain even afterwards even when it's

finished you're still questioning things yeah so underneath this house no just just question could i climb up my own aerial just yeah and then after a while it peters out and you realise everything's normal again. It's fine. You'd lost your mind momentarily. Yeah, well, obviously John opens a can of chicken peas to see if there's any grapes in there. And I sort of, I do agree with that. But it's the sort of thing they would have done. They would have had a can sealed, pressurised.

It's not within, it's not without their, you know, that's definitely something they could have organised. Yeah, for sure. And that there'd be a grape at the bottom. But it does, in the moment, when nobody else has done it, that's the thing, when nobody else has done it, it makes him look mad. Now, yeah, Dara, this is an exceptional performance from Dara. Just no nonsense.

Just finds the book, finds the key, the key out he goes grape in there's no messing around straight back but how little fun he would be in an escape room because you'd all have to kill another 55 minutes yes exactly and he'd be going stand over there do that he paid for an hour's entertainment in an escape room and you know he's in and out in five minutes he'd be like when I used to go on the dodgems with my dad, but because my dad is a good driver, he would dodge everything. So you never hit anything. And you just go around everything.

And I always had to put the seatbelt on for safety. And you'd go around everything and then you'd go home. And it was rubbish. And so I think I feel for Dora's kids if they ever have to go in an escape room with him because they won't get a look in and it'll be over in four minutes. Because I was struggling to work out who out of the lineup I would least like to do an escape room with.

Because now you've told me that you are good at escape rooms and when you do the escape room properly, I think you're definitely my pick of the bunch to go in an escape room with. Oh, okay you're definitely my pick of the bunch to go in an escape room okay thanks everyone else absolutely no chance john i think i'd murder in an escape room you see i think he'd be the most entertaining but you would yeah you would have to go in thinking we're not going to get let out we're going to have to be we're going to have to somebody's going to have to let us out we're not going to get out ourselves but it would be the

most entertaining especially if there was a couple of a couple of tv aerials i'd love that i'd love to watch that um john took 20 minutes um when you compare it to dara's four minutes 36 seconds it's quite incredible um uh so john got one point it was two points for munya three points for fern four points for you, Sarah, and the big five for Dara. You're quite different men. Munya is sort of alive with energy, keen, like a newt. Very much like a newt. Solving problems. And, you know, and if he doesn't manage to solve them through logic,

he'll make something up, like Zimbabwean darts. Obviously, absolute horseshit. Yes, but the use of the string was clever, wasn't it? Of course, very clever. You know, sometimes, I don't know that he's the best ambassador for Zimbabwe. LAUGHTER John, did we just witness you looking for a grape

in a can of chickpeas? LAUGHTER Never trust a label, one taskmaster. John, did we just witness you looking for a grape in a can of chickpeas? Never trust a label on Taskmaster. That's true. That's a very good point. Task two. This made me laugh so much. Sculpt your team. Best sculpture wins. Only one person may look at the clay and that person may not touch the clay. You have a maximum of 15 minutes. Your time starts when Alex blows his whistle.

This is where it started to fray, maybe, the team relationship between you and Munya there. It was the balayage conversation that seemed to throw in. That's how you know he's young. He doesn't know what balayage is. He's not lived yet. He will. You know what? he doesn't know what balayage is he's you know he's not lived yet i will there'll be you know what maybe in 10 15 years time he'll he'll be somewhere uh with somebody else maybe i'll be at

the hairdressers and he'll overhear somebody or he'll hear maybe he's going out with somebody or his sister or somebody like that i'll go oh like have you i'm thinking of getting some balayage done and he'll go god damn it sarahicombe is right it is a thing um he described it as balayaguan in the studio which is a better name yeah i so so i have balayage which is where they put lighter bits and darker bits in but it's so to look natural and uh uh Gary Delaney my husband described it as a rainbow of brown which is less nice but um I I so the we started off where I was at the top and he was the hands then he was going to basically have because it was cramped back there and he's a tiny boy and he was and I just thought I just feel like if he has his tit my tits on his shoulders or in his

head for for however long we do this for this is gonna come back in like counseling appointments in years to come isn't it they're gonna be like so was it were you not breastfed is that wine you're like no there was a time when i had two massive because tits aren't always pleasurable they can just be like big heavy bags of meat and he wouldn't have had the bra he would have just had them sitting on his shoulders like he was like an acrobat carrying a man um and I just thought I don't think I can do that to him so we swapped around which I think made more sense oh it's so funny um I mean no matter how much you tried to describe balayage to him he just went he

just went with blonde in the end yeah that's fine i mean his head looked very different um i thought it was going to look very different um because his head he did look i liked greg's impression of it he looked like oh sad uh and because he was like uh right when he did my eyebrows and you know i think he spent more time on his eyebrows than on my hair for sure yeah um but it was it was entertaining i've not played with plasticine for a long time and it was entertaining um and i think we the way we made a good pairing he might disagree but i think the way we made a good parent was that i often just went with what he thought to see how it panned out because i was fascinated by whether like the

later on like various different things that we did sometimes like with the oh with the feather and the i'd said plate and i came in with all the plates and the trays like the other guys did plates and he was like no tubes and I saw his face light up and I thought you know what he wants to play with some tubes let's just play with some tubes like I imagine this is what it's like being a mother when you're like I need to do the dishes and the kid's like oh but I want to hit some pans with some spoons and you're like yeah you know what sod the dishes let's hit some pans with some spoons and that's what I felt like I was doing with him quite a lot was just let's just go with whatever you think but i felt like that was infectious in that feather task

though because when you got the leaf blower you were absolutely over the moon oh well i you know main reason i was over the moon is because he'd gone in and couldn't find it and you need something found you send a woman in don't everybody knows that so it was the way he was like oh it's not there and then alex was like is it not and i thought oh it's definitely there then they're not because sometimes you know how they you go in for a bucket and they've taken everything that could be possible receptacle out of the shed and I was like well it's obviously there then and I went no I'm gonna go and have a look and I was mostly pleased because a I mean I've got a leaf blower which is you know I've never used one before how much fun is this going to be if if

completely useless to the task but then I was like I found something I found something that a man couldn't find sure let's do that so satisfying yeah your your efforts were quite good in this task i think i mean even though when you was so like sad they look great the the little portraits well i think it's always comparison isn't it because you go they look shit and then you go ah but not as shit as the other team i'm surprised when you didn't make uh make his make his little plasticine portrait facing the other direction so you can do it so you can still model um let's talk about the comparison because i mean just this feels like i don't know where it came in

the day but it feels like it was off definitely after the stuff like after yeah it feels late in the day and it feels late in in sort of everybody's week like it feels like it was everybody's last day of everything and i loved one of my favorite bits of that was when john said yeah just put it anyway like he was supposed to be directed and he said just put it anyway but it's it's the fact that it's been clearly been a while they've done a few tasks and dara has run out of ways to be polite to john so when john says sinatra blue and dara just goes oh shut up shut up just so it's i think i i think fern would would have worked in any team because i think you know and but she was the glue that held them together yeah because i think if it just being a two with dara and john that's too much you need somebody in the middle

to be a bit more of a sort of a kind of a a scent more of a centered person in the middle rather than somebody who's like we can only win there's no other option and somebody's who's just taking their time over everything it was yeah that was i mean and when he was it was the the white circle he was like that's dora's face it's so rude somebody's so charming he gets away with it and Fern's

eyebrows that was mad just an M of eyebrows real M of eyebrows but both both great

compared to his face on that which is like someone had mashed up a pig it was so weird

it's like somebody was trying to make a pizza out of plosy I couldn't identify any facial features at all clearly so rushed It was so weird. It's like somebody was trying to make a pizza out of plasticine. I couldn't identify any facial features at all. Clearly so rushed. He leaves everything to the last minute, including his own face.

It's so funny, though. Because when you're in the two, were you in the two or were you in the three? I was in the three. You were in the three. With Rose and Katie, yeah. Oh, that's right. When you're in the two, you're like, oh, they've got an extra person. And then you see what happens when there's an extra person. You two you're like oh they've got an extra person and then when you're in then you see what happens when there's an extra person you're like oh they've got an extra person it's not so good all the time it's just too especially when i had two hands yeah and

they had a hand and a hand from two different people oh chaos as you can see didn't they do like a high five or something at the end and it was just like a mash of sausages? It was so bad. But they get three points each, which I thought was generous of Greg. I think he's a bit Dean Wamp happy because it's the last episode. And you and Munya get five points each. I think he was also trying to prove that he had some likeability. Yeah, I think at that point,

maybe he snuck a look at a book in there. Me doing the double thumbs up. And he just inspired the passable points around. If there was ever a short conversation that summed up the dynamic within a group, it's John saying, what colour are your eyes? Is that Sinatra blue? And Dara goes, shut up!

I have to say, I think the team of three are at a bit of a disadvantage here. No, that's fair. Oh. Oh. LAUGHTER You seem to be quite efficient. We were quite a good team, weren't we? Yeah, I mean, I think we could have been faster, because we were picking stuff

and then you were throwing out these baliwagwan colours and whatnot, and I was thinking, what on earth is this? You could have just looked with your eyes at me hair. Okay, yeah, that's true. Task three. This is the result of the items you picked at the beginning of the series. Throw one of your objects over the caravan,

then completely cover one of your items with one of your other items, then put the covered item on the wooden barrel without touching that item with your hands fastest wins your time starts now so all of that planning all of that they might make us cut something they might make us color something in that everyone was trying to do sort of all useless in the end really isn't it yes it really was um i was terrified to throw scissors it's so against everything I believe in I don't even run with scissors let alone throw them, that is madness

but it was the most sensible thing, I suppose I could have I could probably have thrown the mirror but then who wants seven years of bad luck, I'm already not winning Taskmaster, let's not have seven more years of this. I like that you're absolutely not considering the idea that you could have thrown the chocolate Well then, but also

that was the biggest thing to cover something else with. But yeah, don't be stupid, Ed. That was much like John and his burger. That was purely there for snacks. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But you were smarter with your snacking. Because you'd left it until the end of the task.

You checked it was the end of the task. And then you had a little snack. snack whereas john face first into that burger immediately and then it tried it was the use of the term digest was it digestible tract or something like that it was like what does that count and you're like no that doesn't count i had a horrible feeling that dara was going to put the pint over the man well that was my instinct that's what i would have done that's exactly what i would have done yeah and also you've paid for him he's like yours for the day yeah exactly so you do what you like to him right he sells himself so cheaply he should be prepared for anything but i wonder whether if he'd done that there might have been maybe he'd thought about that and he's not

completely completely covering one of the items with the other item but then he didn't get all of the drops over the caravan as as I pointed out, and nobody listened. Nobody cared that not all of the pint went over the top. I was really trying to claw back a couple of extra points to get me a bit closer to becoming second. But I thought I'd nailed it because I did it, and I'm not a fast person. I don't believe in being fast.

I decided, when we did the tasks, I made myself notes every day. At the end of every day, I'd be like, right, take the task with you because sometimes you forget what it is. You've got pockets in your coat and your dress, put the task in your pocket. So I'd learn from the day before.

And sometimes task to task, I'd try and learn, how can I be better? And it was always read it, read it again, take your time absorb it so because I'm I'm never going to be the fastest because money is there so I'm never going to be the fastest if it's a running thing if it's a jumping thing it's never good if it's a physical thing I'm not going to win it so let's just do it well rather than doing it fast and for this I thought oh I can actually do this fast because I can do that and that and I can put those on there and I threw the thing over the thing and of course didn't check that it had

definitely gone over and I don't have I'm not I think some of the tasks it really benefits you if you're a sporty person I run but I don't um I haven't done any kind of like I felt like when John when John threw silver I thought oh it looks like he plays cricket yes because he threw it so skillfully and so it like it would have definitely cleared it yeah and then fern and i because she does weights clearly fern threw it and it didn't get anywhere near and then it didn't get anywhere near and then it landed and then she realized it wasn't quite over and and i feel like for anybody who's played sort of cricket and also like the one with the Bernard and the yoga balls or whatever, the exercise balls. I felt like that because I'd not played snooker.

I felt like there was I was a slight disadvantage on some of the other guys. And so I think if anybody's thinking about trying to get themselves on Taskmaster, just do a couple of sports for a bit. Yeah, a couple of sports. And, you know, maybe that would help. But I think with the throw and I genuinely throw nailed it I didn't hear it clunk down like you did obviously on camera you heard that and I was so gutted because I thought because I was like a two seconds behind Dara yeah it was yeah I think you you did it yeah two seconds behind you did it in 36 seconds it was it was a shame but maybe it was that maybe it was that reticence of throwing scissors maybe your your arm just couldn't quite bring yourself to hurl scissors

as far as you could well it's like impale somebody or seven years of bad luck you know because the chocolate was never going over so actually but you you don't know what's good and that's there should always be you know every now and again there's one way they're like oh let's come can we just watch that again? And you're like, oh no, did I touch something I shouldn't have done? Like the one way we had to step on all the stepping stones with the paint on and I just held it. Like don't put your hands above your hips.

They were above my head most of the time. Idiot. But then when they showed Dara just pushing his goggles back up again and you're like, none of us did it. So that, it was great because we were all rubbish at it but i like the little reveals that waiting for something waiting for the other two to drop as dora would say yes exactly yeah i thought yeah you were so speedy on this and but then you know so was dara and i think he did think about that that side of situation. So he got the five points. Munya... I would have liked to have seen him throw the man over.

He could have climbed up the aerial. Given him a hand. Now that's a ladder to something. You climb over that. That's so funny. Munya overthought it. He threw the boots and then put the knife in the Vaseline

and then for absolutely no reason at all carried the Vaseline pot over with his mouth. It's more entertaining though than if he just carried it in his hand. Yeah, and he did do this quickly. He's got a really lubed up knife there now as well. That's worrying, isn't it? Yeah, you don't want the lubed up knife.

Thank you. Fern trying to throw the robin over the caravan is so funny. She's just got such a fun physicality to her, Fern. Yeah. And the outfit, I don't know why the outfit really adds to it. I don't know why, but it really does. Because she's like a superhero that can't throw. And because it's so light, the Robin is so light.

I'm fairly sure as well. I don't think that was a real taxid fairly sure as well i don't think that was a real taxidermy i don't think it was either it looked like a christmas decoration the sort of thing you'd put on your mantelpiece i think maybe the production team considered the optics of using real taxidermy in uh in the episode but um but it was still so light that as soon as fern tried to throw it just sort of whiffled down to the ground. But what was she thinking? She completely lost herself in this task about what she'd be covering more. She bit into potatoes.

Yeah. To make them more shovel-like for the scooping of pens. Amazing. And then my favourite bit of that whole thing was when Greg questioned it as to whether the pens were covered by the potatoes. Yeah. And she did like an act out of like well if somebody asked for the green felt a pen you'd go oh no well you can't because it's it's covered in potatoes and you think she's won that i think she's she's nailed that i i can't they're covered in potatoes

yeah she's i mean she's still got the one point but and also so many great quotes from her in this in this task i mean did i meet these potatoes before yeah she has a great use of language for sure she really does um i mean i i feel like i'm always saving john to talk about last but um but uh just he could have done this so quickly he could have done it so quickly throw the lamp over you put the hat over the burger grab the burger through the hat take it over to the barrel put it on done he does what he's done for the whole series where he goes i'm gonna put that in that and then stands there and looks at it for what feels like a minute and a half and Alex goes when when it was inspired yeah and just the way and then he puts the cap on what that was maybe the last time that Alex did that task with like maybe that was also their last

task together yes you know but it felt like Alex had waited for John a lot and that was why he said when like finally that's Alex snapping, isn't it? When. That's as snapped as it gets. He could have done this so quickly. Fern got one point because she did not cover the pens with potatoes. You got two points, Sarah, because of the scissor gate. I mean, it's right. If somebody else had not got it over, had a question it was just but I still felt

badly done too I think that might be the moment where I was like and I fucked it even though I don't think at that point I could have caught Dara anyway John got three points just because he stared at a burger and a hat for quite a long time and ate some of the burger. Munya got four points and Dara got the five points. Oh, did I ask for these

potatoes? Did I ask for these pens? Oh, hello. Let's talk about the live tasks did you enjoy doing the live tasks yes I wasn't very good at them um and I think it was because I was in kind of um chatty funny mode not in task mode I think I was um generally across the board as a general sort of broad brush I think I was good at the tasks and I think I was rubbish at the at the in-studio ones and that's partly because I was alongside of the people and I do think I work better concentrating on my own and doing what I think is best rather than looking and going what's everybody else doing and are they doing it right um but also I think I was just in a different brain uh and I wasn't really in a competitive... I was just having a lovely time with a hula skirt on.

You were all swaying so nicely when the curtain came up. We started, yeah, because obviously they're getting everything ready on the other side and we all just started doing it and it was quite a beautiful moment. It was quite alluring for Greg, I think. Yeah, that's how they announced the series in the end, wasn't it? There was a little video of all of you just swaying and that people must be going what the hell is it taking until episode 10

to pay off as to what that was um yeah it was yeah it was and they're so I don't I mean I I'm so impressed by how they come up with stuff because I can come up with jokes from a blank sheet of paper but how you come with, so everybody's got on a hula skirt with different balloons all the way around. Greg is sitting in a place, they have to fire the balloons at him. And it was so, I don't know how you start, how you come up with these things,

but it was a fun one to do. And also there's not really any skill involved. It's kind of luck. There's a lot of luck, yeah. Yeah, and I like those ones because then if you do badly in them, you're just like, oh, well, it's kind of luck there's a lot of luck yeah yeah and i like those ones because then if you do badly in them you're just like oh well it's not it doesn't mean you're stupid or any of these things that we all attack ourselves for if we don't do well at something like what it means i'm stupid or it means i'm i should have you know i should have concentrated more

and there's nothing if i don't get a balloon near greg then that's just shit look but it's so it's so typical of taskmaster that it all comes down to you know the final thing of the series is floats and balloons towards greg uh while wearing a hula skirt it's perfect it's just the trivial becomes important yeah um but dara again does very well he's had that good final solid last episode but he the first two he doesn't yeah his first two attempts are terrible and then his last one just nails it yeah and i like that because it is really sort of everybody could have won that task yeah you know and then when he won you're like oh he's even good at throwing balloons jesus what can the man not do? He can't do a wank insane with his hand. That's what he can't do. Well, I feel like you've emerged from this series as a hero.

And what Dara has emerged from this series with is, yes, the Taskmaster trophy, but also a new catchphrase for people to shout at him on the street. Wait, what? Wait, what? Which has, I think, already overtaken his life. a new catchphrase for people to shout at him on the street um wait what wait wait what um which is i think already overtaken his life i've had people replying to my tweets and instagram posts simply with that phrase yeah i've had it too he must be getting it tenfold and also you know it's not that long like he said you know like he's only just getting out of the megabus sort of stage of his life and especially now that mock the mock the weeks ended you would hope that that would die with that

but now it's got a whole new one but i think i feel like as a whole i loved it i loved the experience but i made sure that i enjoyed it i didn't want it to feel like it was hard or tricky or I was going to be mean to myself if I didn't do well I was just going to see because it's this I feel like it's it's similar to sort of you know when you learn to drive and you don't know if you're going to be any good at it because you know stupid people who can drive and you know clever people who can't drive so you don't know and it's you don't know how you're going to do until you do it and I had no idea I'd always thought I've got quite a my dad is a former engineer and I often when I do things I think oh that's my dad's brain kicking in I have a bit of logic there and I thought that might help but I had no idea how I do and I was so pleased to just show myself to be

you know sort of hopefully you always want to just be funny on things and to be smart and as gary had said coming second to dara is brilliant because dara is exceptional yes absolutely um in that live task it was one point to fern two points to john three points to you sarah four points to munya and five points to dara, meaning Dara wins the episode with 20 points, Munya in second you in third Sarah, John in penultimate position and Fern last, meaning of course that Dara wins the series by 10 points in the end, it was 10 points

clear at the end, 184 to your 174. Couldn't have caught him in that last episode at all Yeah, it would have been tricky, I think he was five ahead and he had a very good episode Munya way below you there's a the real golf drop off there 150 points and then Fern and John joint last which is always nice I think it means there's no one rock bottom yeah oh as Alex said two people at the bottom nobody came last or two people came or two people came

last with 144 points I loved as well that over the series we all won an episode. I thought that was great. And it did show that sometimes if it was more arty, then Fern was stronger. If it was more physical, then maybe Munya was stronger. You know, and then, you know, some kind of fluke John won. If it was just standing still holding balloons for a while, then John won.

Staring. If it was just staring into the middle distance, then it was very much John's week Sarah thank you so much for coming on the Taskmaster podcast you've been brilliant and you've been brilliant on the series as well of course um we always ask our guests to rate their experience between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster feel free to give me a point rating for your experience on the series in general and also your experience recording this podcast today. My experience on the series in general is a five

because it's one of those things you think, I hope I get to do that at some point. And to say I've been able to do it and to have experienced it and to have just, you know, done... I don't do silly things, Ed. I'm not a silly person. And to be able, you know, done, I don't do silly things, Ed. I'm not a silly person. And to be able to do silly things and have a laugh while you're doing it, it was so much fun.

I loved the tasks. I loved the studio records. I loved it. So five. And I'm going to give you, for this, I'm going to give you three. Ah, okay. Because I want you to always feel a bit annoyed at me. And I want you to not know why it was a three.

All right, okay, perfect. Well, you'll be happy to hear that's worked. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, it's been an absolute treat. It really has. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, it's been an absolute treat. It really has. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for listening. What a great guest Sarah was.

We'd love to have her back on another time, of course, because she loves Taskmaster. So we'll get her back on for a future episode. Thank you very much for listening. Series 14, I'm sure you'll agree, has been absolutely awesome. We will be back very soon, next week, perhaps. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is next week

to wrap up our chat about Series 7. We've got a wonderful guest next week, the brilliant Paul F. Tompkins, amazing American stand-up comedian, actor, improviser, podcaster. We'll be chatting to him about Series 7, Episode 10. But for now, thank you very much for listening to all of our episodes about Series 14.

Don't forget to buy tickets to Sarah's tour. It's called Lake Bloomer. It goes on general sale 10am Friday 2nd December. Thank you very much. Bye bye.