Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 128. Ivo Graham - S15 Ep.5
Episode Date: April 27, 2023Ivo joins Ed to discuss oh so many things... lucky prize tasks, Ivo's fake mummy and what it was like to be on a team with Frankie Boyle. He also thanks Ed for the emotional support throughout the pro...cess and explains why he loves the show so much. Listen to Ivo's podcast Gig Pigs wherever you get your podcasts podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gig-pigs/id1674045788Watch 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Hi there, welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's Ed Gamble. Of course it is, it's me every week.
Hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Taskmaster, Series 15, Episode 5, which you will have just watched or watched at some point in the past.
We're now going to be chatting about that episode in detail, so make sure you've watched it.
And today, our guest for the Taskmaster podcast is Ivo Graham.
Ivo Graham, fantastic contestant on Taskmaster.
Not necessarily points-wise a lot of the time, but sometimes he does very well.
Sometimes it's a complete failure. This is the danger of Taskmaster.
This episode, not great for Ivo, which I'm quite excited to talk to him about Ivo is absolutely hilarious especially when he's sort of mining his own insecurities about something he's just done
uh so this is in many ways the perfect thing to chat to him about uh you know you love Ivo Graham
I love Ivo Graham he's brilliant on Taskmaster we're going to be talking to him about episode 5 of series 15
you must go and get Ivo's new podcast
newish
it's been going for a fair few weeks now
and it's absolutely fantastic
it's a podcast he does with the
excellent comedian Alex Keeley
it's called Gig Pigs
and they take a guest to a music gig
or the guest takes them to a music gig
of their choosing
and then they discuss it afterwards
I have done an episode
I don't know if that's been out yet,
but it was an absolute blast.
I've listened to the other episodes that have just come out.
It's a lot of fun, so you must go and get that.
But we probably won't mention that
because we've got too much to discuss
in this fantastic episode of Taskmaster
with the brilliant Ivo Graham.
Welcome, Ivo Graham, to the Taskmaster podcast.
Hello, Ed. Thanks for having me. What a milestone this is.
Do you feel like it's a milestone? Is it all part of the experience for you?
Yeah, it's very much all part of the experience. That's a compliment to you and the podcast
and the fact also that it's such an amazing career experience and such a career experience one's unlikely to get again.
Obviously, you know, outside chance of champion of champions.
We can't say at this juncture, but people might start to have their own suspicions.
And so as someone who misses everything and obsesses over the past, like this is almost like the last bit of my taskmaster
experience you know what i mean it's like oh it's not completely over because i because you know i
get to talk to ed about it so this this is the wonderful thing about taskmaster you get the
experience of filming all the tasks then you get the experience of the studio watching all the
tasks back and then it's all part of the experience as well when they go out and people start reacting to them yeah and yet greedily i still don't really think that i you know i i think there should be more
just in general well you never know ivo well look we don't know it could it could well be that you
get at least one more episode of it you know you've you've it's been up and down so far for
you i'd say you know there have been some some victories which i'm i'll say
it now look we're we're good pals so i feel uh i feel confident that i can be this honest with you
i was not expecting you to win any episodes in this right
so the fact that i pulled quite an early one out yes exactly i was very very proud of you
the fact that the first thing that happened on the entirety of the Taskmaster series
was when you presented a prize task, Greg had to stop you and ask you if you were okay.
Yeah, that's very much starting as you need to go on.
Also, a prize task, a pretty basic response for a prize task,
and one involving just a ludicrous miscalculation that i'm already
dreading the broadcast off i mean do you want to start with that we can do why don't you take us
through it because people listening to this will have will have absolutely uh seen the first sort
of the first five episodes so take take us through up until this point um what what are you most worried about having done uh i mean there's there's just so much
like you know in many ways taskmaster is one great experience and in sorts of other ways it's about
50 regrets any of which you know would would be enough to keep things sort of ticking along um sort of self
laceration wise and like the prize tasks as a as a sort of general topic you know i think some very
fun stuff comes out of them obviously loads of fun from from the others and some from from my
corner but you know those are the bits you've got a bit more time to prepare i am a prepper i do like to think of myself as an outside the box and yet you've got miscalculations like the weight of a loo roll
that betray both a lack of practical skills and sort of you know real world instinctive
measuring skills and a very slapdash approach to preparation by which i mean literally one google
being like
oh i'd have thought it'd be more than that but there we go on it goes like how much do you think
a loo roll weighs well i i certainly wouldn't have a have a guess at a loo roll uh weight or
indeed just simply google it i think i would have to get the loo roll and weigh the loo roll or look
on a packet for example and do the calculation rather than trusting wikipedia because
i think i suppose one thing i live in a pretty constant fear about without really converting
into into sort of productive action um or seeking help is that everything betrays a cosseted life
of privilege and you know it's like uh know, he's never even had to hold
the loo roll
while he has his bottom wipes
driven eaten. He's never.
That's what I'm saying in my head.
Yeah.
Of course, I dare say
the loo roll at boarding school
must be much heavier. It's probably got its own tog rating.
Where it's like, I just, in a slightly panicked moment,
I genuinely thought, I know loo roll has been done before by, I believe, David Baddiel.
But I thought a four pack of loo roll for a reliable thing, you know,
that's, we can have a longer conversation, and I'd like to,
about whether, you know, price tasks should be like the truest answer to the question or the most surreal.
And yeah, I wish I'd taken the Frankie Boyle approach on a few more.
But I wouldn't say that answering a four-pack of loo roll to the most useful thing, the most dependable thing.
Dependable, yeah.
I wouldn't say that's quite no disrespect to her
but daisy may cooper saying a bottle of wine you know it's it's like you know you thought i i wipe
my bum every day let's put on taskmaster and i do believe the four pack is the definitive
side for euro so when wicker wik when Wikipedia said like, yep, perfect,
that was all the thumbs up I needed.
And I could move to the other price tasks,
which was still causing me a lot more stress,
including the one we're going to cover in this episode.
But to immediately within like,
I don't know,
a minute of the first studio record
be beating myself up over a basic error
with wider implications.
It was a terrible start. and i think because what i've
noticed about you on taskmaster is you're clearly i think a fan of the show so you are you're looking
for a show you're looking for hacks you're looking for way ways around things you're looking for
interesting ways of doing things that you don't think anyone else would do
so i'd but quite often they fail which is which is brilliant yeah yeah um so i would say you're sort of shooting for
richard osmond and you're landing somewhere in between sort of paul chowdhury and nish kuma
yeah uh yeah i mean you know it's it's an it's an honor to be have my name said alongside any
of those names and ultimately i think there is so what's so amazing about taskmaster is that you know everyone contributes to the taskmaster universe in their
own way whether they're playing it straight and succeeding playing it stupid and succeeding or in
my case uh occasionally attempting to play it quite straight but stupidity always ensuing and i
i think that is what frustrates me in general and taskmaster
gave me a lot of opportunities to think about my own sort of general character failings and about
how i managed to get stressed about a lot of like my ratio of stress to productive action
across the board is terrible i need to either get things done more and care less or, you know, like worry about stuff.
But then at the end, I'd be like, well, I, you know, that worry did at least convert to something pretty unimprovable.
Whereas me, it's just like I destroyed myself for nothing again.
And that's, you know, like I remember after being on 8 out of 10 Catsters Countdown being like,
I'm not being funny enough and I'm not being good enough
at the words or the numbers.
And that's the bare min is to be like, oh, well, you know.
I suppose that education wasn't wasted, at least on your humorless eight.
But no, no jokes and a vibe.
Solid story on off-menu, to be fair.
But that's after the event
what I do
notice about you quite a lot in Taskmaster
Ivo is you will often
add things to the tasks
as a flourish that have
nothing to do with completing the task
and impede your ability
to do the task
so you do great things
like the perfect example so far is the drum the drum
kit where you had to get as many as many uh um hits on the drum kit with the balls as possible
and for some unknown reason you went i think it'd be nice if greg plays drums and you dragged the
entire kit over to the statue of greg and that that gave you no benefit what i carried it across
the garden with real athleticism that i remember benefit I carried it across the garden with real
athleticism
I remember when I was
running across the garden
towards Greg
and this is task one
I don't know if
messing up the chronology
is a bad form
on the Taskmaster podcast
but that was the first
task we recorded
that was day one
I don't know if anyone
else has said that
I don't even know if
the others did it
in the same chronology
I was very obedient
to the instruction
not to talk to my
fellow contestants
about the tasks
often even after the live shows but so day one i'm so excited to be on
taskmaster but and it's happening now and it's like drums and i'm like let's get greg involved
and as i ran towards greg with the drums i thought i'm already doing taskmaster with a fun way
and then i think seconds later i'd thrown a few balls against greg and they bounced bounce in completely the opposite direction which i hoped and i then thought that i asked how much
time it elapsed it turned out much more had a real recurring taskmaster experience is to ask a number
which i think is going to be nine and instead it's 17 um and and watching frank and then just
going back to a little room as the next task was prepared and thinking, I could have just
bounced. Frankie's one, as I recall,
was perfect.
Yeah, he lined them all up.
High order. Best way
of doing it.
I've got three.
I think you want
to do things differently and you want to
add little twists to things.
And you do it again, even with the wedding dance uh thing you you did research about greg yeah so you tried to add things
uh add things to it to you know appeal to greg which is which is a nice idea but then the dance
i think all the research impeded the quality of the dance itself i uh yeah i funny enough i don't i mean that's that's in episode one yeah and it's a
shame to have me dancing so badly in the very first episode of taskmaster i'd have loved that
one to be pushed a bit further down the schedule um and yeah greg could not have been much less
bothered about my incorporation of uh his favorite band off an interview i'd found online
um and my dance did look absolutely dreadful but i don't think i'm dancing much better than that
sort of without the distraction to be fair i think that at least was a i'm not going to say
prescient but uh there was almost no prescience across the sort of 10 episodes but an attempt to ensure myself against just
this review solely being shit dance yes and i think the challenge of having to go to spin round
meant that i could you know i i loved i don't need to tell you that i loved caledonian reeling at
school not because often not not just because it was often the only social interaction that we would have
with nearby girls schools but also because in a traditional scottish dance there are there are
instructions so there's no you know opportunity apart from when you're briefly in the middle of
an eighth some real when you are expected to bring a bit of diy flourish to it uh it's like
dancing but with rules and similarly as soon as i devised a dance where I had to be sort of, you know, spun around or whatever,
there were only two or three items in the shed that lent itself to that.
And I thought that'd be fun.
It looked terrible.
Fine.
Maze dance.
I watched Maze dance.
I was like, right, okay.
We're in a completely different universe for this show.
show and before we properly get stuck into this episode Ivo we I should thank you for allowing me one final uh appearance uh on a taskmaster task um in uh in your task where you had to
uh do what was it with one breath do something spectacular with one breath
and and you ended up calling me i remember distinctly the day that happened uh you phoned
me up i picked up hello ivo i just heard a sort of worrying breath uh and then and then the phone
went dead and my first thought was vo screwed up a task.
Yeah.
And I don't think that that would have been the same reaction had by the captain of my local village cricket team,
who I called for a different task.
Whose response to it was,
I imagine what a sudden burst of interest from Ivo in playing for the village
cricket team this summer, which he then didn't follow up on for weeks off.
In fact, I do need to contact him now that they're being broadcast.
Anyway, I mean, I love incorporation of other people.
And I think you, as well as hosting this podcast and doing Champion of Champions, you're in lots of other bits of lineage, like Mark Watson's stealing the trousers story.
I love the thought of being tangentially involved like that.
That's essentially a come and get me plea for future contestants.
If you need trousers,
I've got a lot of Taskmaster regret to work through.
But with this one,
and I can't remember the chronology of the episodes,
has the breath one come out?
Yes,
I believe that was episode two, yeah.
So I went through a few different thought processes with this breath
and also wanted to get hold of Greg.
But in the end, if you don't mind the word, settled.
Settled for gamble.
Oh, also tried to get onto national radio.
Yes.
I think it would have been quite good in a way
for phones to be out of the and i know that obviously people have done brilliant things
with their phones and i was very grateful for mine and prank calls again not to go into different
parts of our sort of shared comedic history but uh prank calls actually served me quite well
in the long if not short term in my life but uh having access to more time to think about things and the sort of
infinite possibility comes up by just having google it's actually quite bad my dream scenario
just i think not my dream scenario but at least a scenario in which i wouldn't have so much capacity
for regret and wasted opportunity is i suppose just to be in a shed with five items and just
have to do everything just with those five items does that make sense yeah totally and I do agree I used I used my phone
a couple of times in series nine and I don't feel good about it I don't I feel like I feel like I
would have been much more inventive in those situations I mean it was only you know googling
the uh Spanish translation of humiliation and uh taking a photo of a picture so I could then draw it upside down.
Some bits were upside down and some bits were the right way up.
But yeah, it doesn't feel good.
It feels like the purest approach to Taskmaster is no phones.
Yes. we're gonna get stuck into this we're gonna get stuck into this episode uh i'll say at the top
we didn't deliberately have you on this episode because you do spectacularly badly uh points wise
um i think if you looked at the points you would spectacularly badly points wise. I think
if you looked at the points you would think you
had the worst episode of all time
but I think you actually have quite
a good episode when you watch it through. You just
have a couple of disasters towards the end
in terms of team situations.
Yeah, I mean I haven't
consulted the
Bernhardt
to see where this would rank for what would
do you have in your mind a score at the lowest ever episode score it's not this i'm pretty sure
someone's got seven like i yeah i i don't i don't think it's this but not getting double figures in
an episode is is quite remarkable i'd say um but i think damaging overall as well i think
hugely damaging overall, yeah.
I think this would be the point where I start,
you know, it's halfway through the series.
There's been such a huge point swing on this episode
between certain people.
And you're starting to think, okay, now there's a real mountain to climb.
Yeah.
If we've got any aspirations towards actually being
at the business end.
At the business end.
Also in this episode, I'll say at the top i believe there is one of the biggest points injustices in the history of taskmaster um i think you know what it is because you are involved i texted you about
it at the time you did text me about it and can i say when i watched it please what um you know
obviously i think it's probably conveyed
in all sorts of ways specifically through the podcast um uh you know from you to all sorts of
other people and friends who've done the show since you but you've been such a support to me
throughout this process you were the like first person i texted i think about doing the show
um you gave you know as much as one can ever give advice,
more just like, it's going to be so much fun.
Yeah.
Delighted for you. Enjoy it.
I think I contacted you, as it were, knowingly and unknowingly
during the tasks, a couple of times for reassurance,
a couple of times just to use my breath for points.
And again, during the records and then you've been able to watch this series ahead of anyone else and you've sent
lovely messages about how um if not always dignified how fun it's been to watch so i i felt
so i've felt so looked after in the same way that taskmaster and its producers and the whole team
make you feel so looked after at every stage of the process you're you're part of that care package well
I'm glad I'm part of the care package I just love the show Ivo and I'm so excited when you were on
because I knew I knew how brilliant you'd be and you have been brilliant and continue to be
brilliant people should look forward to the upcoming episodes um and just so people know
the trend does continue uh where
Ivo is normally the last task they play into the studio I have never seen anything like it I mean
look the Bernhardt will sort this out I'm sure I don't think there's anyone who's had so many
and finally Ivo yeah I think I I referred to I don't know if this sort of stated but I referred
to myself in one moment of real indignation as,
oh, just captain after the break to come, is it?
Or something like that.
Which in a way is quite sort of self-involved
to sort of start to get used to standalone,
but it's usually not a glorious standalone.
It's both chaotic, inefficient and long.
It can't be intercut with anyone else's.
Let's talk about the prize task on this episode five of series 15,
the luckiest thing.
Sometimes they come out with a simple one like this,
and you think, how have they not done this in 15 series?
How have they not done this in 15 series?
And also, because it's so obvious and basic,
you would think that if a thing
is so sort of obvious that you can't believe hasn't come out already that it'd be an absolute
doozy particularly for a fan of taskmaster who's presumably just spending his whole time looking
around their home categorizing items into sort of potential taskmaster prize tasks even before before you've been booked on the show. You know, luck.
And yet.
Let's talk about this,
because you had a Steve Bruce figure,
a silver spoon, a lucky poker hand,
all stuck to a graduation hat, and a cat, and a lucky cat as well.
Now this, can I ask,
because last week Frankie's prize
was the Sylvanian family
depicting the child capture
in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
which I can't say.
Listen to last week's episode,
I simply can't say it.
You didn't do that off the back of that one, did you?
You didn't see that one and go,
oh, I've got to quickly throw this together
because I know that it works. Did you? you well i would say i know that it works this is
pretty pretty bold um yeah yeah yeah i was already pretty sure by this point anything i thought would
work wouldn't work but at least it showed you know sort of dedication i mean listen i don't think
even though it's lovely if a full
series of taskmaster with its lovely family vibe has its running jokes i don't think prize tasks
based on people's previous pies tasks are necessarily a great way forward and also they're
not welcomed by the production team because ideally they'd like to know your price test
with a bit more notice you're filming these these sort of you know the the studio days sort of back to back and i was frustrating on these studio days
i hadn't really ever settled like i think in the same way as i've been like blue roll great done
four of them a kilo a kilogram exactly thank you wikipedia uh rest of the day off i had decided on silver spoon as mine and
in a way i'm much happier that it was this than that but because in and of itself it's it's just
one it's a one single punchline about privilege um and i'm trying to remember i think i had been
on and i'm annoyed that i've not remembered this but I've been on quite a lot of other little panicked sort of thought process about it.
And then I was really annoyed that Frankie's, not really annoyed that, but, you know, show annoyed, which very much by that point is indistinguishable from real annoyed.
It's consumed your whole life.
And I was like, if Frankie just put a load of stuff on a mortarboard, then so can I.
So the day of that studio record, I was running into central London to a formal dresswear shop to try and buy a mortarboard.
They didn't open in time.
So, you know, I'd love to give a shout out to Shepard and Woodward, but I can't because their opening hours compromised me.
And I also, but I realized that I had Sylvanian families because I think I'd got some for my daughter for a present.
And then, you know, sort of in a lovely too many presents situation, hadn't needed to give them to her and sort of kept them in reserve.
And I was like, great, I can just bring those with me.
And they'll go on the hat.
And I thought it'd be a fun little Easter egg for our lockdown poker gang
if I included our lucky thing.
And I did have a figurine of Steve Bruce,
who has been quite a pivotal figure in my own sort of comedy slash podcasting career.
I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just all of those on a hat.
Your classic lots of items
it will be better than one item even though if the item is good the one item is best look i and
i thought i thought it was pretty good like i i think you had a you had a very funny line for
everything like everything had its had its place on there and then to have that line queued up as
well when frankie says but it's all stuck to something that's not lucky to uh to be able to say that every time you call your father after a bad
gig he says you're lucky you've got your degree fantastic well that's very nice and I and that
wasn't locked and loaded I'm pleased that that I managed to think of that to get me out of a tight
spot in time in my own creation but it already the sort of emotional um battle was lost and i remember
when i'd sort of caused a little bit of stress to the to the taskmaster team by sort of trying to
stick this hat together on the day and being like don't worry i brought the i've managed to find a
fancy dress mortarboard it's not as good it's it's a it's got almost no structural integrity
but it'll do um and i've got some Sylvanian families.
And then I tip the Sylvanian families.
Oh, that's it.
I wanted them to be the rabbit's foot, which May ended up doing.
I was like, I thought maybe I could cut off a rabbit's foot from one of the Sylvanian families.
That would be funny and dark, like Frankie.
And then I think the Sylvanian families weren't rabbits they were like different they were a
different animal yeah and I was like oh okay uh fine not rabbits but still Sylvania families
and then I tipped open the box in my dressing room and the and it it's a classic case of
it was Sylvania families bed and chairs set and there were pictures of the
animals on the box,
but the animals weren't included.
And I just sank to my feet, to my knees.
I just went, this whole thing has collapsed.
Oh, this is brilliant.
This is exactly as I imagined you would be in the studios.
Like, I mean, surely they give you the prize task categories months in advance.
Don't say months.
Don't say months in advance.
I know.
It's amazing.
I'm just looking at Andy Cartwright
just being so like, you know,
so can I confirm you're bringing in the mortarboard
and the Sylvanian family folk?
This is about three hours before we record. And we'd be like, ah, I don bringing in the mortarboard and the Sylvanian family folk? This is about three hours before we record.
And we'd be like, ah, I don't have the mortarboard.
And then we go into a different conversation
about a different prize task, which is also incomplete.
I mean, so it's a real shame.
It's a real shame.
Let's talk about other people's prize tasks now.
You can take your mind off that, Ovo.
Frankie also got three points.
You got three points.
Frankie got three points.
I mean, it's more artwork from Frankie, really.
I'd say most of his prize stars so far
have been art-based in some way.
And this was a terrifying bag
left at him for a theatre
with painted pictures of animals
and had him as some sort of
like woodland
nymph character
very odd
and
you know I wouldn't say
that Frankie's prize tasks
I think if you were to give
it's not on me to commission this
experiment but to
give someone Frankie's 10 prize tasks
and give them the uh the sort of the
description of the prize task to which they apparently allude and and be like okay link up
each one to each one yeah i don't know how many people are seeing the bag i mean of course that's
where the backstory comes in but it's frankie and i envy him hugely because i too have amassed a few
stories in my life surely you'd think and and some mementos
and it's just a case of working out how those best fit you know the the price class you've been given
and you know it's a lovely lucky lucky bag but i was i i was just sat there thinking i haven't lived
i've graduated but i haven't lived Did you believe the story about it being
lucky and he takes it everywhere and he's
superstitious? To me it felt like he had a weird
bag and he wanted to bring it on
Yeah but I don't mind that at all
If I had a weird bag I'd be bringing it on too
I wouldn't be asking the lovely
Taskmaster Researcher Luke at the very last
minute whether they might be able to get the rabbits
off Frankie. Like genuinely I was like
could you get the rabbits off Frankie's hat? Would Frankie mind if I got the rabbits off his hat
and cut their feet off so I could put them on my prize tasks?
Like, Luke's running back and forth between dressing rooms
to ask these kind of questions.
So I think Frankie, and he's so unruffled throughout these prize tasks.
Yeah.
He's presenting objectively funny things,
which Greg and Alex can have a lot of fun with,
and they're usually getting a lot of points can't argue with that um now we've interviewed jenny already uh and she did allude to this uh she brings in a picture of her with her grandson
uh and seems genuinely livid that greg gives it two points yeah Yeah, and is she still livid on the podcast?
Yeah, I don't think she was happy about it.
I think the sting might have subsided a little bit.
But of course Greg's going to score that low.
It's too delicious not to, right?
You can see it in his eyes.
To score a baby that Jenny clearly is besotted with two points is...
Well, give it five points. It's not that sort of show.
It's not that sort of show.
I agree. And also, you know,
you've,
what did she say? You know,
he's lucky to have me as a grandma.
You know,
the,
I think it's fudged.
As she says, the photo isn't even framed.
Yeah, and that was the prize.
The prize was the photo.
It wasn't like...
Yeah, so there's a lot.
You don't have to be the gigantic Grinch of Greg
to have a few holes to pick in that.
I also feel, and I'm trying to remember
whether I'm guilty of it on any of my
price tasks i'm probably not but i'm guilty of all sorts of other things on my price tasks and as i
said think about it a lot but whenever you see a photo of something and this i would include
kyle's in this even though it was a great price task when you see the fight the price task must
that the sort of aesthetics of the show is so beautifully
uh sort of well oiled by now you're used to what a prize tasks looks like yeah and that is an item
against a blank background yes i love that and when it's the photograph or something else it
already feels like a bit like when we're talking about using your phone on a on a task it's like
oh you've gone outside of the of what's what's reasonable here so i'm not saying
that jenny should have like there should have just been a photograph of like you know her her
grandchild like i suppose on a sort of table in a bathed in light in a white room uh like it was
under a sort of microscope but i think that certainly would have yeah i think i would have
done a bit more to make it feel like
the baby was quite literally on the table
Yeah but then that would have suggested the baby
was the prize which I think would have been tricky
ethically, I mean yeah
maybe a sort of, you could meet the baby
you could you know, go and say
hello to the baby could have been the prize but I think
when the, you've got to think about what the actual prizes
on offer are and a photo of Jenny
and her grandson
not necessarily
the most appealing prize
because imagine if you won that and just hung it up in your house
I think people would think you're a bit odd
yeah I feel
I think people would think you're odd
I mean that being said
what do you do
with the prize tasks because
I've got this you know Frankie's
you know weird pictures
and they're not going up in my house i don't think um the the sort of mad that sort of magic eye
but not even magic eye just like pictures of weird cats
what's the done thing auction them off for charity yeah charity? Yeah, I reckon so. I reckon so. I mean, I can't believe you took them.
I left all mine at the studio.
Right.
That's a shame to hear.
May.
I mean, I'd say May's done the same thing as me.
Yes, May's done the same thing as you.
And also.
They put a load of items together.
I would say it's, you know, I do love a compound prize.
I feel like May's may have been
slightly more thought through than yours.
And I think that's fair to say,
having heard the story of how you put yours together.
I think May came up with the idea
and they invested time in it
and worked out where to put everything.
I mean, even for example,
just the shot, the change in shot shot and then there was a horseshoe on
the side big laugh there they've thought it through although it is the second pair of glasses
they've brought in yeah um there was a previous pair of glasses with the sort of uh the different
eyes on there yeah yeah well no judgment from me on the glasses front because i've got uh i think
for my um things the weird that are you know that makes you feel weird when you look at it, which I've now got back because that was the episode I bafflingly managed to win.
Again, the episode hasn't come out yet.
I've got to have a chat with the guy who runs my local cricket team.
And I've got to have a chat with my uncle about the fact that of all the things that are weird in the world, I picked very practical glasses that just detach magnetically which aren't even i think a well-known reference
point and again i was just panicking and i've got a really good thing at home i've got this little
um sort of in my parents house this uh sort of clay sculpture of a man's face which is absolutely
terrifying that i made when i was eight at boarding school and that sat on my bed in my
childhood bedroom since 1998 and it was there when I lost my virginity.
And that's perfect.
Why did you do that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I just didn't, I didn't think.
And so now that item, which is still on my bedside table, has got even more sort of deep associations of missed opportunity with it. Whereas I was just like, I think, you know, I do
think that the glasses that
sort of, you know, split magnetically are a bit
odd, and I don't plan to get any
myself. And I'd seen someone wearing them in a
TV show, and I
think the joke about that character was that
it was a bit weird, but
that's not enough.
I quite like that one. I think it was very
specific. It felt like a very
good joe thomas prize when he brought in um uh the smell of best smell it was the tomatoes on the vine
when you unpick a tomato from a vine just like very very specific observational stuff i enjoyed
it um but joe thomas isn't a name you want to hear though when you're when you're looking for
your place in the taskmaster universe, as wonderful as he is.
It's not great.
It's like a Joe Thomas prize.
It was actually a very Lou Sanders prize from May, I think,
because I think Lou did for Best Protection,
had a sort of compound prize of a coat with like a cross on it
and all of that sort of stuff.
So it reminded me of that, but very, very strong work from May.
And Kyle, this is a huge
win for Kyle. A really good prize that
he's put effort into and didn't need to
sort of fudge around or
get indignant, get sort of mock
indignant when Greg gave it a bad
score, which has happened a lot recently.
He's like, what? What are you talking about?
This was just a solid, straight down
the line, great idea. Britain's luckiest
woman by the scratch card.
Do we know if it was a winner?
Did we find that out at the end?
I believe it was not.
No.
No, okay.
And that doesn't really matter.
I mean, you know, it's fun when there's this after story.
Like even where the prizes are revealed,
you don't normally get any more dialogue in the show.
You're just, that's the backdrop to the end titles.
And I remember later on in the series series i do another sort of compound prize sort of slightly
trying to fit a couple of ideas together and it looks all right in the picture and i think i get
some points for it and then it comes out and alex i'm i don't i don't think i'm on stage uh when the
prizes come out i think i'm sat in my chair chair. And Alex looks at them and looks straight at me and he goes,
it's so small.
It's hard to really convey what that is,
but it's something that suggests it's at least quite grandiose.
And it's not.
It's so small.
I mean, I love Kyle getting indignant about things,
partly because he's so funny with it amongst the many ways he was so funny
on the show.
And also it pulls focus from a few of my own existential collapses.
But this was great.
It's exactly the sort of research I'd have loved to put into a few more of the prize tasks.
As I say, I think I would have liked just a simple picture of the scratch card for just the sort of purity of the image.
But no complaints at all.
But I think you need the proof that someone else has bought it.
Because I think if you say, oh, this is a scratch card,
it's been bought by Jolie, the luckiest woman in Britain,
no one's believing that,
unless you have a picture of a woman sitting in a supermarket.
That's very true.
It was five points for Kyle, four points for May,
three points for you, Ivo, three points for Frankie,
and two points for Jenny and her family.
OK, Jenny, what's your luckiest thing?
OK, well, Alex thinks he's very lucky sitting next to you,
but the luckiest lad in the land is this little chap.
Look at him! He's mine.
Well, he's obviously not mine from my vagina,
because my vagina's quite old.
No, this is my grandson, and he's the luckiest lad,
because I'm his nana, and who wouldn't want me to be their nana?
Well, the more you shout at me...
The winner of the episode doesn't get your grandson.
What's the prize that's being offered up?
It's that photo, me and the lad. Yeah.
I'll put it in a frame.
Frankie, can you beat a baby?
Well...
Horrified at the tone you've set.
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Task one, fake something.
Best fake wins.
You have 20 minutes.
Ready, steady, go go um now this is what
i was referring to ivo and i texted you about this when i watched it for the first time so
delighted when you texted me thank you because i think i genuinely think this is one of maybe
three things i genuinely thought i'm really pleased with how that went yeah and it's still
treated in some ways by greg as like a bit of an embarrassment because okay let's look I mean
obviously people listening to this have watched the episode but
you you you pop
into the room with holding a toilet
roll and say are you a fan of ancient
Egypt you go out then
a mummy walks in yeah
and Alex has a conversation
with the mummy who groans blows
the whistle and then you and then you
walk in to the room and it wasn't you all along fantastic i thought it was an absolute stroke of
genius um when i watched it back the second time it's clear that you've given the crew member your
spare outfit yeah getting the spare outfit involved the spare outfit fantastic if you do watch it a
second time do have a look down at the feet
because your shoes clearly don't fit whoever it is.
I can say who it is.
It's Gabby from the Toss Must Have Seen.
It's Gabby.
Gabby has to do a lot of these sorts of things.
I thought it was just absolutely amazing.
Alex seems genuinely surprised.
It's just a brilliant fake out but
the way Greg talks about it
he talks about it as if you didn't realise what you were doing
so he says
when you came in as the mummy I was like
oh no
it's like yeah that's the point Greg
it's five points
well yeah exactly
the points whether they're three points
or four points or the clear
of an obvious five points of almost you know the difference between the underwhelmment you felt when
you saw the you know pretty no disrespect to gabby and the many um crew members who wrapped her but
uh uh you know pretty shit you know mummy And then the sort of hopefully feelings you feel when I poop my head around the door,
because I panicked.
Obviously, I'd used up a lot of the allotted time talking about things that actually did come up elsewhere.
And we'll get to the others.
But, you know, deaths, orgasms, et cetera.
But I'm trying to think what I mean, what's going on subconsciously.
And I love anything in a movie with that sort of kind of twist.
I was a big fan of all of the mask-based shenanigans
in the Mission Impossible films.
I remember thinking that that was pretty much as cool as it got.
So was this that sort of your inspiration, sort of Mission Impossible, M. Night Shyamalan, that sort of level stuff?
I just really wanted it to be quite like, and I'm getting ahead of myself here, shivers down the spine when I put my head around the door.
And, you know, I thought we've got things, you know, it play. It plays well that, you know, carry the same height.
We've got a spare outfit, you know, when it was, you know, her having to make noises, you know.
And of course, I can be very squeaky in moments of crisis.
But, you know, that might give something away.
But I thought even poking my head around holding the loo roll was meant to be a sort of, you know, I,
I don't have a degree in neuro linguistic programming,
but I thought it would make a pretty clear link between me and the thing I
was about to come in.
Absolutely.
I thought that was great.
That was a lovely touch.
Look,
that is just any day of the week.
That is a knock it out the park,
straight down the line,
five points for me.
So I don't know what happened because you got the same amount. got the same amount as may who's you know i enjoyed i thought
doing a fake medium reading is a good idea and also getting the information about alex from his
wife uh and from his mum great idea but i don't feel like may use that information in as spectacular
a way as as they
could have done well thank you very much and then i it's not for me to throw anyone else under the
bus because i loved every single person i did this show with and they tranced me in nearly every task
of course uh we've got to give you your flowers here i give me give me i just i want to hold the
flowers just for a second and of course my task it doesn't last very long because it's just me poking my head around the
door and that's the reveal,
but maybe it not for me to retrospectively edit the show,
but,
and,
and that sort of time in the studio inevitably is quite limited in the
show because the tasks are the meat,
but we did go over it a bit more.
And one thing I remember so clearly was Greg saying,
well,
you know,
it's a shit fake mummy.
I mean,
like me saying,
it's not a fake mummy. It's a fake me. Yes. That's what it is. know, it's a shit fake mummy. And being like me saying, it's not a fake mummy.
It's a fake me.
Yes.
That's what it is.
I know it's a, you know, it's actually a pretty good mummy.
Destructive intentionally wise.
But, you know, that I'd have liked a little bit more dwelling on
specifically what I was faking there.
Whereas, you know, great research with Alex's wife and mum
and a really fun concept and just the same delightful brilliance
that may brought to everything.
But it was a long episode of The Psychic to watch
when we could have been talking about
how great I am for longer.
So that's interesting.
So it sounds like from that,
that Greg sort of missed the point
that he thought your idea of the fake was the mummy
rather than the fact the entire thing was a fake out,
which is which
is clearly clear to me what it was um i'm angry on your behalf ivo but look maze was good it was
a really good idea uh there weren't those explosive moments of them getting something exactly right
but probably it was more in the style of a genuine fake medium just teasing the information out and
just dropping those little hints so you know what i probably don't know anything about it but maze was very good got the same as you though either which i disagree with
um jenny uh fakes a heart attack i mean jenny literally sat there thought of something and
then just did it which i have a huge amount of respect for absolutely jenny jenny's not someone
i think tearing herself apart with the process anything and it thing and it was such a pleasure to do the whole show with her
and yeah just straight
the thought of getting a task
on a piece of paper saying you've got 20
minutes and just immediately going to your answer
like
I would say I was pacing
for the first half of every period
of time that I was allotted for every task
and you know pacing
while people got worried about me.
She was straight in, you know,
solid fit of acting with the death.
As someone who's mimed ketchup for blood a few
times in my life, it's nice to see in high definition
just how unconvincing it is.
To be reminded that they're really not the same.
But fun.
The heart attack was good but she got her arm wrong immediately
she had to switch arms uh within the heart attack quite quickly um and i think maybe it could have
benefited from one to two more minutes thought as to what she was going to do because you know i
think jenny's brilliant right she could have done all sorts of things so i can see why that got two points um kyle's is probably the most i've
laughed out loud all series so far it is insane his fake hand using cake and eggshells it's so
shit but he he looks so proud of it and it's just it's kind of uncanny as well like yeah yeah it's
disturbing and terrible all at the same time. Just really made me laugh.
And I wanted to eat it, which I suppose, you know,
I suppose if it really looked like a hand,
barring some pretty uncomfortable, unconscious designs in me,
I wouldn't want to eat it.
So it's a bad fake, but it was so pleasing.
Again, obviously the show has to be, you know, edited a certain clip.
But, you know, jenny you can see
she started doing it immediately with me you can imagine from context that i've probably had a
breakdown at some point whereas with kyle it just looks like he just was like right where's the
ginger cake order just straight in within seconds he's he's tipping it out and he's carving away
and then the egg fingernails i just he uh he did some incredible things in in this
series yeah like that oh god that and there's a very small moment which made me properly laugh
out loud as well just for how how much of a insight it gives you into someone's family life
when he very quietly says oh my mum would be really angry about doing this she'll shout at me
and and alex says why and he says she'll say I'm
messing up the people's house yeah the people really funny I absolutely love that it's so funny
it's quite I mean to be honest quite mess light in the taskmaster you know the people's house
gets a lot more messed up than a few crumbs of cake from a fake hand.
Let's talk about Frankie's because this gets the five points.
Now, look, I will say this now.
I love Frankie. I think he's absolutely brilliant.
I think this is very, very funny. I loved it.
I think it's a very funny sketch. I think it's well written.
I think it's been marvelously edited by the team.
But in terms of faking something, it is not the best fake it is a deliberately bad fake
you see you see at the end that it's a bad fake that's the whole point of the sketch so why is
that getting five points i don't even thought about it in that much detail and you're right
i mean obviously you've you've got to see what you see at the end because it's one of the i mean
if it's brilliant him and him and carl kim and cars if you to follow the end because it's one of the... It's brilliant.
Him and Kyle... To follow on from Kyle's hand,
I'd say Frankie running away
is also one of the defining visuals from the series.
And what's quite funny is actually
when these compilations are made for the title sequences
or for the reel that came out quite recently
promoting the whole series,
they have to use things that convey that fun is being had
in a stressful environment, but they can't actually reveal
what the best visuals of the show are.
A, like, 10-second compilation of great visuals from the show,
this series, includes Kyle's fake hand and Frankie's, you know,
near-nude escape from his own.
It is fantastic.
It's amazing.
And I can see why it obviously went really well in the studio and sometimes you've just got to you've got to give that a point but if you get down to the nitty-gritty
which which i do that's not the five points you're the five points for me um but you know
there's a reason i'm not the host of taskmaster and it's because i would make every single decision
extremely boring um it was five points for Frankie,
four points for you Ivo, four points for May,
two points for Jenny and two
points for Kyle.
A fate to death.
Oh, phew, nice.
I'm alright, I'm okay.
Am I allowed to do another one?
You do whatever, you've still got 18 minutes and 40 seconds.
Okay, I'm going to do another one.
Seven minutes.
I could boil an egg in this time and then use the shell as nails.
Would you like me to bring you an egg?
Yes, please.
Ow!
Oh, oh, I just ran my nose.
I think I'm having a nosebleed, Alex.
Really, really bad nosebleed.
I brought you an egg.
Oh, thanks, mate.
What's in there?
Egg.
My mum won't like this bit.
Your mum won't like it? No. She's just I'm messing up the people's house
Stopping now
I've had a bit of a trauma. Would you like some chocolates? I don't like chocolate. I like cheese and cash
All right. I'll bring you some cheese and cash. Thank you very much. You seem to have perked up. Yes, I feel fine now.
Happy?
Happy.
Task two.
Play the instrument indicated by the light.
Each time you play an instrument correctly,
another one will be added to the sequence until you make a mistake. Longest sequence wins.
There is a bonus point for the person
who sounds the least worst.
Your time starts when the first light goes on.
Now, I don't know why I vote,
mainly because I know you love to gamify everything
and you do love a game.
I thought you'd be absolutely brilliant at this.
Okay, okay.
And that's fine.
I'm not surprised, actually.
It's conveyed something that I've started to worry about more
in the last couple of years,
which is my sort of short-term retention of stuff, really.
Sure.
You know, I think I've got, very occasionally,
a delightful memory that will dredge up
some very obscure stuff from my past,
and that serves me both well, personally and professionally.
But in terms of following instructions,
I think i had
an already quite chaotic mindset which has been um basically allowed to to rot by the fact that
i'm self-employed and that i um don't have to sort of follow instructions or routine every day so i
just uh just just just sort of run around yeah late and um and when i did you so you've done even more
recently and i did last year the wrestling yes um an amazing sort of common live comedy show but
involving actual wrestling um sort of pulled together by the comedians max and evan and max
used to be a pro wrestler so i did that at edinburgh last year uh we had a few rehearsal
sessions it's obviously
light-hearted and people with no experience or indeed physical strength like me are thrown in
at the shallow end but the shallow end of wrestling is still quite like i remember being told by max
like do you have to get these moves in the right order because otherwise it is more likely that an
injury could be sustained and i realized it was like learning a dance spoiler alert you know wrestling's fake but it's still a beautiful and complex dance
and i couldn't they i couldn't believe and they increasingly palpably couldn't believe
how i was just like on like rehearsal four still putting my feet in the wrong place right it's like
yeah i don't like i'm not very
good at remembering things like that that would explain why i think you only get three and you
get three in a row and alex says yes that's right and you i mean i think it's the most adorable i've
ever seen you ivo you're you go really you are so taken aback and so vulnerable in this situation after getting three.
Really?
Yeah.
It is, I mean, it's absolutely adorable.
But you get through five.
Oh, I don't know.
I wonder whether panic would have taken over.
I saw it, you know, I'm a pretty good Bop It player.
And I know it's not exactly the same as Bop It,
but, you know, there is that sort of pressure and memory thing
so I don't think I would
have got as much as Frankie
and May got but I think I
possibly would have got more than you
but also it's the pressure as well isn't it?
It's the pressure I mean I did play a lot of I went on holiday
and in my rucksack I took
as a child
you know in family card journeys
and that involves similar skills.
It's the same sort of thing, yeah.
But yeah, no, I went to pieces.
I was burdened literally, but also mentally by the clobber.
And I, it's, you know, it's a very fun visual task,
all of us wearing that.
And again, I think it was, you know,
the pictures were used in the uh sort of trailer of taskmaster
but before they could say who's on there was just like silhouettes of us wearing the stuff
it's good taskmaster iconography but i think in i'm bitter towards it because i did so badly at it
but just watching myself um uh follow a sequence not very well and then watching sort of four people almost in turn do that same sequence
but for longer and better.
I found it frustrating television for me.
Well, you didn't seem frustrated
while you were doing the task
unlike, and I do want to mention this quickly,
the potato hat task
where I think it might be
the most genuinely angry I've ever seen you.
You absolutely hated it. Yeah. course you know i was hating the fact that i should have
clocked the system and used the system better well you did clock you clocked the system which
a lot of people didn't do but then you seemingly ignored the system or got lost within the system
i got lost within the system um that that's that's that that's that's
me in a sentence um yeah because that's another thing and i don't think it's really covered uh
oh it is covered in the next task um you know you said you're on taskmaster have a great time just
enjoy it's such a it's such a treat and my friend who I was living with at the time, Jack,
he said, he loves Taskmaster, he said,
obviously you can't really prepare, but do try and,
what did Sarah Millican always say?
You know, look under the table.
Look under the table.
Check the back of the task is a new one to remember as well.
Yeah.
So my friend Jack basically said, like, try and, you know, he said,
why don't we watch a couple of YouTube compilations
of people thinking outside the box on Taskmaster?
And that thing of like, there's always fun to be had.
And yet no one can have thought about that as much as I have without really getting many of the loopholes.
Do you know what I mean?
I've fallen between the two stools again.
I know what the potato system is, but those potatoes aren't in my hat.
But look, this was a tricky task.
I think I would have struggled with this one
or panicked quite a lot.
Frankie and May, both very impressive
getting through nine rounds.
Jenny, I'm very surprised that Jenny got through six rounds
because, I mean, she's absolutely brilliant, Jenny,
but also she attacks everything with quite a chaotic energy.
Yeah.
So this doesn't seem that it would be a benefit in this task,
but she gets through six rounds.
And also this is yet another task where the joy Jenny is experiencing
during it just carries her through and is so fantastic to watch.
The other one being the potato hat task, actually.
She seems to enjoy anything where she gets to wear something on her head yep incredibly specific yeah just so excited can i interest you
in a graduation cap um kyle's is great obviously because uh he gets what i now refer to as the Nish Kumar edit, the Nish Kumar basketball edit,
where apparently he gets through 15 rounds
and then we cut back to another video
which shows him having multiple goes.
And he was in there for 45 minutes just having another go.
It's brilliant.
The fact that they can do that on this show on the hoof.
So when he says, oh, can I have another go?
And Alex just goes yeah
why not I'm sure we can work with that we can work
something out from that and it's just it's just perfect
yeah how did you feel
about him getting a bonus point though Ivo
oh fine yeah
I was not
I wasn't thinking about
you know having any sort of
role to play in the winning of this episode by this point.
And this was before the mega swing.
I make a swing coming up shortly.
I think I think I love Kyle.
And also, you know, fair enough.
He wanted to stick around and do it.
As you say, credit to him for doing that credit to the team to accommodate it.
I think all things even out over the course of a season in taskmaster and in football and in life and even though our you know one-man band tasks weren't filmed on the same day it still
feels like the time that kyle would have had to keep doing that for the sort of benefit of his own
ego and our laughter in the studio and his bonus point was more than balanced out by me failing the
task almost as quick as possible and having absolutely no desire
to be wearing those instruments for any longer
after that failure.
I was in and out.
It was five points for Frankie and May,
three points for Jenny,
two points plus a bonus point,
so three points for Kyle,
and two points for you, Ivo.
Pretty impressive, Kyle.
I'm a music boy.
How many did he get?
Fifteen. I'm a music boy. How many did he get? 15. I mean...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The only negative thing I can think to say is that in a previous task,
you had problem blowing a marble into a tube,
and then you had another blow issue.
Did you have a blow problem? I'm an asthmatic boy.
That's fine. To music boys. Music boys, asthmatic boy.
Yeah. Oh! I'm an asthmatic boy. It's not to music boys. Music boys, asthmatic boys.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm really sorry.
There are two Cael clips and I think I've played...
I'm going to fucking kick off, Alex.
I've played the Cael clips in the wrong order.
I'm so sorry. Oh.
Can I play the other one? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Oh!
WHISTLE BLOWS
BUZZER
BUZZER
Kyle, you have finished the one-man band task.
Go on, give us another go.
You want to keep going, so you can go further?
We gave him quite a few other goes.
We were in there for 45 minutes.
It seems that music boys are cheeky boys now we've left a bit of time to talk about this one i'd say you probably hit a high uh in terms
of the fake task i'd say this is the this is a crushing low um task three salvage the most spoons
you may not leave the lab and all the spoons must be salvaged with a magnet.
Your salvager must not remove their headwear.
Most salvaged spoons brought to the lab wins.
Also from now on,
you must speak in a very high pitched voice.
You have 16 minutes.
Your time starts now.
Look, I think this is a brilliant task.
The addition of the high voices was absolutely perfect.
This, I think, I mean, let's just talk about you and frankie because i've never shouted at a television more than when you oh no with no time left
decided to go to the kitchen the kitchen dash yeah yeah uh yeah and and that was i i don't need to tell you that the uh you know i i don't want
to play up how invested the live studio audience the taskmaster on um because like any live tv
or record i'm sure there are some people who have got itchy bottoms and just want to go home
but there's it's so fun so they queue up, not in Taskmaster. They queue up, man.
Yeah.
You know what?
I don't know why I needed to include that caveat.
These fans are rabid.
And they love the show.
And the people who are on the show, myself included,
usually love the show.
So there's just such a collective enthusiasm for it and the jeopardy of all of it.
And I didn't remember this task.
I'll tell you how I remember this task.
Frankie and I filmed tasks together all day,
and we'd had some, I'd like to think it's real fun.
I think we'd had some very bonding chats in the dressing room,
and we'd had some tasks where I'd brought a couple of things to the table.
There was one task where he slightly frustrated me.
And in this one, I had this idea about the spoons.
I was thinking a taskmaster hack is you just go to the kitchen and get the spoons.
It's a good idea.
And I'd been, and of course's you know all covered by the edit i think i'd been pushing for the spoons a little bit more than is conveyed and my memory of this task
because i don't think you get told how close to the you know how close you are to missing it to
missing the timing i think i just had the sense that we probably had
just not quite done everything we needed to do but my memory was the task where frankie didn't
instruct me to the spoons in the kitchen that would have won us the task that's how i remembered
it that the task where frankie in his delightful glaswegian squeak uh was was was telling me to uh to go and get spoons from the garden
when we could have just gone to the motherlode.
And I was thinking with a Taskmaster hat on
as well as another ludicrous piece of headwear
that no doubt Jenny would have loved to have worn.
And like Frankie had just played it a bit too straight
and that's a bit of a shame.
Whereas in the room it really
was brought clear to me from this sort of total sort of tectonic gasp of the studio audience
that i'd fucked it colossally
oh my goodness i mean it's it's sort of i mean if if just for the audience it's sort of how i
imagine iva arriving at all gigs.
Right.
Just like, you've got to be on stage at a certain time.
Oh, it's okay.
Well, I'll just nip in here before I go.
It's being a bit scatterbrained or having things that you want to do and then doing them regardless of the next thing you have to do.
And fitting them in at the very last minute.
I mean, I think you've already covered on this series worth of podcasts
that I've recently, I i think had some very enjoyable fun um trying to buy a
lot of cereal at short notice midway through a gig yes you know yeah and then we did a gig where
there was a little bit a little bit of a tricky sort of train to get um and we needed to make it
to the station uh and then i was waiting at stage door for quite a while while you went around and
personally thanked all of the technical staff,
which is a lovely thing to do.
But there...
In my defence, they really had been very helpful
in fixing a Freddo chocolate frog to a Frisbee.
And I didn't think that could go uncomfortably.
Yeah, no, fair enough.
But I loved this task.
I thought it was great.
And obviously the drama of you going to the kitchen
was baffling, but also extremely enjoyable.
But Frankie's voice in this,
also the fact that you joined in with the voice,
I think you knew that you didn't have to do a high voice.
I think you were just so in the spirit of it
that you thought you'd do your own.
And you turned into a wonderful high voice double act.
My favourite thing that Frankie said
was at the beginning when you said
you couldn't see. And he said
Are you blind, Ivo?
And you said
They've blinded me, Frankie.
It just turned into this really
odd play.
Yeah, there was quite a
Samuel Beckett energy to it. I'd say quite a lot of mine and
frankie's uh shared uh shared tasks but this one was you know there was all sorts of stuff going
on watching it back you know he's really doing a number on me with with uh my depth perception
almost the whole way through yeah i mean it's good he's he's anticipating the risk often well
in advance of the actual risk.
If anything, what the task...
You know, they say they don't want you to get injured,
but they want you to bump your knees on a bath, don't they?
Yeah.
Or walk into a bush, which he did at some point.
I did, yeah.
They got their bush.
That's the level, yeah.
But they...
But yeah, you know, we did pick up a lot of spoons.
I think we did that bit better than the team of three.
22 spoons.
You didn't need the kitchen spoons, man.
Alex also pointed out heartbreakingly back in the studio
that the kitchen spoons would not have,
they do not have the magnetic properties.
I could have grabbed a load and shoved them into my apron pocket
and who knows how that would have been judged.
But it certainly wouldn't be the most egregious. Well, you the magnet yeah also i looked in that drawer i don't know i can't
remember if it's conveyed in the aerial shot of the drawer there are loads of like knives in there
and a couple of quite sharp with the thought of me rummaging in there i think quite good that i
didn't do that yes yeah i don't think i don't think that was in the edit about the uh the
kitchen spoons not being magnetic so that would have been even more heartbreaking if
if you did have the time and then you spent it trying to pick up those spoons um jenny kyle and
may i mean this this is great for so many reasons kyle is annoyed immediately um every time every
time they say to him uh oh there's a spoon over by the bath.
And he just goes, I don't know where the bath is.
Just really angry and petulant straight away.
Fantastic.
I think Greg characterizes it as a brother
who's being made to play a game by his two siblings.
It's so funny.
And just something about May's high voice
made me scream laughing every single time.
I think it's one of the lines of the series for me so far is,
inch forward very slowly until you feel the grass under your feet.
It's because they go up at the end.
It just made me absolutely scream laughing.
Oh, it's such a, this is a joy, this task.
It is, yeah.
High voices are high for everyone brings their own different high voice to the table.
Yes, absolutely.
Frankie goes English for some reason.
May's got this sort of chipmunk charm.
Yeah, chipmunk charm, exactly.
They did nine spoons.
So just imagine nine spoons and they got five points.
You and Frankie had 22.
You would have absolutely thrashed them,
which makes sense for the team of two.
There's a clear voice.
There's one voice telling the person what to do.
It should have worked out fine,
but we wouldn't have it
any other way, Ivo.
We love the drama.
It was five points
for the team of three,
zero points for you
and Frankie.
Have a look in the dome.
The dome might have spoons in it.
Yes.
Yes.
And you've dragged it
into another spoon.
It's a two. Well done. Excellent work, Ivo. Get out of there. Yes! Yes! And you've dragged it into another spoon. Into two?
Well done!
Excellent work, Ivo.
Get out of there!
How much time have we got?
We've got to get to that kitchen.
Ivo, you've had 15 and a half minutes.
Of how many?
All the information's on the task.
How many minutes have we got in the whole task?
We've had 15 and a half minutes.
Really?
I think we're nearly done.
Come into the lab, then. But, Frankie, what about the kitchen spoons?
Stay forward! Stay forward!
You're going desperately quickly.
Run! It doesn't matter if you hurt yourself, Ivo.
No, not in there, Ivo!
What did I tell you not to do?
You greedy bastard!
You've got 30 seconds!
Well, you don't...
Watch your life, listen!
Oh.
That's the spoon hob.
Frankie, we've had an absolute shocker.
Let's talk about the live task.
Part one, stuff all these things in your teammates' outfit.
Fastest wins.
Part two, just for the winning team, this,
which was Jenny, Kyle and May.
Say how many things you
stuffed into your teammates outfit if you're correct your points are doubled if you're wrong
the other team gets your points you must tell the taskmaster your answer one minute after alex
blows his whistle now great task i feel like the reward for the second part of the task
is pretty big and the extra five points is huge but i guess it's it's quite difficult to work out how
many items are in there and even with the hack of the birthday card um how did you feel about this
task in general ovo uh we had some really fun studio tasks um and it's a credit to just how
fun a couple of them were that i would say this was up there but not at the very top yes
and inevitably it's at the end of an episode full of um shame and where there's already been a big
point swing so you feel like lots of things have slipped away from you and then for the second half
of this task you're also playing quite a passive role which of course like that's that's absolutely
fine but um you know in fact I individually am playing quite a passive role
for the whole thing.
I'm just still with my hands on my head
while Frankie shoves kitchenware into my boiler suit.
Very intimate.
Again, another line I didn't really expect
to cross with the great man,
his hands shoving so repeatedly down my front.
And then I'd like to think I had a bit of fun
jumping around, trying to wiggle a bit of fun jumping around trying to just
trying to wiggle we got a few of those items further down and i think i kick a kick a colander
yeah that's a nice technique to try and get them off their counting yeah um i i yeah i think live
tasks i instantly knew you'd love these because like i say you do you like a game you're always
the one to be like right okay what we're doing how we we playing this game? And imagine on tour in dressing rooms,
you're always coming up with little games to play.
Oh, the fun I had with a bouncy ball
with Ray Badron backstage in Christchurch
a few months ago.
We don't have the time to discuss the game.
And actually, it didn't gain very much traction online,
so perhaps it doesn't have broad appeal.
But Ray and I enjoyed ourselves.
But it was no points for you and Frankie again,
and it was 10 points each for the team of three,
which is huge.
And I'm sure we'll go on to have huge impacts in the series.
Not quite as much as the Catherine Ryan rabbit catching game
where she got a point per rabbit,
which had a massive impact on the series.
But I still think, yeah,
this has probably got massive implications.
It is May who wins the episode.
Kyle on 25 points,
just behind May's 28.
Jenny on 22.
Frankie on 13.
And you on nine,
Ivo.
Nine.
Real shame.
But there's been,
you know,
you've had some ups as well.
This isn't a,
this isn't a constant disaster for you so far,
this series.
You're doing well.
Jenny's still in the lead in the series,
but only just 88 points to May's 87.
Kael on 76, not so far behind.
Little bit of a drop down.
Frankie on 69 and you on 63, Ivo.
But five episodes left.
Like you say, it feels like a mountain to climb,
but stranger things have happened in the world of Taskmaster. three Ivo but five episodes left like you say it feels like a mountain to climb but
stranger things have happened in the world of Taskmaster I uh yes indeed and I shan't say
anything more on specifically on that other than that you sent me a text message saying
uh see you on zoom for the podcast with a photo of my cross face and the number nine
you knew what that symbolized Ivo thank you so much for coming on the taskmaster podcast
we always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points in the
style of the taskmaster uh have you had a nice time and if so what point score would you give it
well I know it's not very uh uh fun or cool to say five but um this it's been everything i i have wanted it to
be which is a chance to you know just work through a few issues with someone who understands those
issues and has already helped me with them more than anyone else possibly could so thank you i'm
sure the therapy analogy has been used many times on this podcast but i owe you money thank you so
much ivo thanks ed thanks taskmaster on this podcast, but I owe you money. Thank you so much, Ivo.
Thanks, Ed.
Thanks, Taskmaster.
Thank you so much to Ivo for coming on.
Absolutely fantastic episode.
That's one of my favourites actually so far.
Love Ivo.
Love him on Taskmaster.
Love him in everything.
Go and get his podcast, Gig Pigs,
that he does with Alex Keeley.
It's a real blast. Thank you very much for listening we will of course be back next week uh the main Taskmaster show goes out 9 p.m on Thursdays on channel 4 and this episode will
come out straight after not this one we've done this one next week's episode where we're talking
about episode 6 with a very special guest See you next week. story. Whatever your next chapter, get support with health, education, finance, and more
at veterans.gc.ca slash services. A message from the Government of Canada.