Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 146. Mark Watson - S16 Ep.7

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

On this week's podcast Ed is joined by comedian, author, TM fan and previous contestant - Mark Watson! Mark and Ed discuss why the current line is so special and who Mark thinks will reign supreme!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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Tasmasters podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble, back again, with another episode of the Tasmasters podcast, and today of course we'll be talking about Tasmasters series 16, episode 7. Yes, it's the current series of Taskmaster and what a series it is so far. Although episode 7 always starts to feel like we're coming towards the end. But please don't think that. There's 7, there's 8, there's 9, there's 10. And episode 7 is an absolute belter.

Some amazing tasks in this one. Hope you've seen the episode because we will be talking about it in detail with a brilliant guest and the brilliant guest this week is the wonderful Mark Watson. Yes, of course, Mark Watson, brilliant contestant in series five, an amazing comedian all round top guy. We'll be chatting to Mark about episode seven of this series. So stay up to date with Taskmaster 9 o'clock on Channel 4 every Thursday. You can go watch the episode on all four now if you have to. And come back here and listen to the Brilliant Mart Watson. This is Series 16 Episode 7. As discussed by Mark Watson. Welcome Mark to the Taskmaster podcast.

Nice to be back, Ed. How are you? It's very well-thank you, and it's very nice to have you back to talk about this new lineup, to talk about series 16, episode seven. You were saying just before we started recording, you've had a chance to watch a few little bits of this series, and you've watched this episode

we're gonna talk about. So you've got a flavor of the lineup. What do you think of this new lineup, Mark? I mean, it's sort of often remarked upon but it is amazing how good the line up is always are. This look good right off the bat I had to say. Jim and Clarey felt like a kind of a statement booking so we say. I felt like not having seen Clarey perform very much for quite a while, I think I was sort of expecting him to be the way I remember him from a bygone, I, very high energy and camp, and kind of, tricksy, but it's been quite fun to watch him instead, weirdly shuffling through the tasks, sir. But Sam Campbell was sort of the standout name for me when the line was announced because,

like most comics, I'm more familiar with him than the general public and all of us know Campbell is firstly a maniac and second exactly the sort of person who would either be incredibly good or incredibly bad at Tarsamaster. So far it's been incredibly good to be fair. be good or incredibly bad at taskmaster. So far, it's been incredibly good to be fair. Yeah, he's certainly using his massive brain power and alternative thinking to his advantage, really, isn't he? And he's, I think that's, he feels competitive as well. Yeah, that's the thing.

Sometimes, someone like that has got the brain, but simply, in fact, you could, might suggest that Perkins has got a similarly versatile brain, but doesn't have to kill her instinct where points are concerned. Campbell is the perfect company, I'm not saying he will win the series, but he's obviously in pole position and he follows in a line of winners like Mortimer in my series, who are kind of pretty unhinge enough to think of funny ways to do the task, but also enough of them wants to win.

I mean, Baltimore was pretty relaxed about winning, but nonetheless, he just found another gear at times. Yes, absolutely. No, I think you're right. And you actually, this was brought to my attention by our producer, who was interested and I was talking about this, and I think it's a very interesting point, Mark. You were tweeting recently about Taskmaster making a point of showcasing sort of people who we all know within the industry and comedians know

to be good, but haven't necessarily had that moment in the general public. And I think it is rare for a show like Taskmaster as big as it is to take those risks and inverted commas? Yeah, it truly is. A couple of people tweeted back saying, I don't really see these as risky bookings, you know, somebody like Susan McCormick is obviously, I mean they're all in a sense big names going into the series apart from Sam Campbell who is only a big name within our big names going into the series apart from Sam Campbell, who is only a big name within our circle.

But yeah, the thing is people underestimate how risky TV bosses and commissioners think if the thing is, unless you have a lineup that's basically God, Pele, and I'm trying to think of a woman for balance. I was gonna say Margaret Thatcher, but I like Pele, she's unavailable now. Basically people are so obsessed with, with, understandably, TV is quite risk of earth.

And so, I remember when Taskmaster started, obviously I was, mates with Horn and followed the drama of trying to get Taskmaster on TV in the first place. And that first lineup had people like, obviously Frank Skinner, a key was not everyone. Now quite a lot of it rested on the reputation of Skinner and Ramesh, I suppose, and also, but also the fact that Greg himself was hosting it. I think that one of the reasons Taskmaster

eventually got made was there was a feeling that Greg would be enough of a kind of lure on his own. So those first couple of lineups were quite kind of heavy on big names and what's been amazing is that now in a situation where almost any big name would do it but they still use that leverage to get people like Suncumple onto TV more than the ever has been before and that's partly to do with Alex's faith in the fact that Alex is still a guy that knows who these people are. That's the thing. A lot of TV people almost through no thought of their own just don't know who the most exciting live comics

are out there because they either have a few opportunities to watch live comedy or someone from can't be asked to do that. Yes. Whereas someone like Alex and the whole taskmaster team have still got their ear to the ground and so they keep unearthing these. They or someone from Can't Be Asked to do that. Yes. Whereas someone like Alex and the whole Tarsmas the team have still got their ear to the ground and so they keep unearthing these. They also, again, one of the great things has been it's never had to be all comedians, or certainly not all stand-ups.

You can, one of the things that held back the traditional panel show format a bit was you would get five or six comics basically doing very similar gags back and forth at each other. But Tarsmas to Elijah's, you just throw in Susan Wukcoma next to Sam Campbell, two people that perhaps would never have met. Otherwise, yeah, it's joyous.

And you can see why people look forward to the reveal of the lineups so much, because it could be literally almost anyone on earth. It's always surprising, isn't it? And it's always exciting. Whenever I hear, you know, occasionally, I think if we're working within the industry, we hear the lineups maybe slightly earlier than they're announced, or you hear rumors of who's going to be on it.

And it's exciting for us as well, because I think they're so good the team and Alex at picking people who we know are brilliant. And I think they've just been proved right time and time again. They put someone on, and that massively helps that person's career, all the people fall in love with them, and then they sell out a tour, I think, is fantastic. Yeah, which is why every comedian that you and I have ever met, who hasn't been on Taskmaster, is now desperate.

And I still quite regularly receive approaches from people asking if I can sort of put them in touch with Alex. It's, and that's another reason for the fun of the reveals as well, because you start to get a mental index of who the most desperate people to be on it are. And there's people that got it out of the way fairly early. You and I are in the fortunate position to just be able to sort of watch that scramble. But obviously there is quite a tiny window for comics to crawl through, because it's, again, it's not even all stand-ups. But yeah, it's, I think there's been very few occasions that someone that a contestant hasn't had their profile and their sort of

public love massively boosted. And I suppose the only one I can think of without naming names are people who already were quite famous going into it, and it didn't weren't as hungry for it. Or I think it's interesting in it. We've seen contestants have quite a lot of disdain for the tasks the show, like have a really negative energy, like Julian often does, and that itself can still work really. Well, that can be your thing.

The only thing viewers don't like is if it appears you genuinely don't, yeah, I think, or don't. You can even not care about the scoring, you've just got to care about something. You've got to exhibit some sort of emotion even if it is impatience and fury. Yeah, because I mean, I agree with that because, frankly, if you're saying yes to a 10-week series where you do have to do stupid tasks, and it's well, the series is well enough established now that you do know what you're going into.

It's no secret now that super tasks are involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you turn up and you're like, oh, this is dumb. Of course, people are going to hate you. You got to throw yourself into it in a way. Yeah, I remember when, and it's a long time back now, but even when poor, even when poor treasury was on, which was a fairly early series,

but it was still remarkable how unprepared psychologically, you was for the fact that he had loads of tasks in this show. I don't know what was his third or fourth theory, but enough taskmaster was already available that it shouldn't have come as a surprise to him. Every time he was asked to do something stupid, he seemed to be shocked all over again by the... But yeah, I mean, these days there's such a heritage of taskmaster that you should...

What's amazing again, Alex is someone I know really well, and of course not just him coming up with these tasks, there's a very talented creative team, but even so I'm still surprised by what they're able to keep pulling out of the bag by the imaginativeness of it, and sometimes by the intricacy of the setup as well, that business with the switches was coming up. Absolutely, obviously demonic from a contestants point of view, but also just having been in that house and seen how long it takes them to get stuff set up, the switches things seem like a technical nightmare. It really does. We'll talk about the switches, but I actually... Yeah, this episode in particular has some seriously inventive stuff that you're like, what, we're 16 series in and you're just doing this now.

It's truly amazing. I mean, in my series, I'm probably yours, there were a handful of tasks that just didn't really work out and would drop from the, but it really was a handful. Only two or three tasks I think didn't, didn't provide any, and normally it was because everyone did it the exact same way or, I think there was one involving making concrete and sticking a flag in which was just quite a shit task, it wasn't entertaining to watch or fun, but that was, that's since been released online I believe, I believe you can now watch that on YouTube. That's right, yeah, but this is a pretty miserable few minutes of telling it. And I don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to live in a kind of, well actually in the end my

bonus task triumph where I kicked the yogurt pot against the wall was, they generously put it in the broadcast obviously, but yeah, it's amazing how much extra taskmaster, you get a sense from online of the, and obviously there are taskmaster obsessives that curate this stuff. So there's extra stuff out there, but yeah, the amazing thing is I almost say every task. I suppose with five contestants, someone will do something that stands out from the rest of the fight. I certainly remember that,

because obviously you're in the house and you're just shutting a room while they get everything ready. And sometimes those gaps are very brief. Other times they're so long. I remember getting a real ominous feeling if it had been... One time it was, I think it was that one where they swaped everything around, they spot the different taskings. Yeah. That was absolutely ages in the setup and the longer you're waiting for them to call you in, the more alarmed, especially if it's in the lab,

that lab's got a creepy vibe to it as ever. Yeah, no. If all you know is you're going to be in the lab in definite amount of time and then you're just sort of sitting there waiting. You start to imagine awful things. Yeah, and it's always when Andy will come in and Andy see this as we'll come in and say, oh, we're a task for you now. This is one of our favourites. Or this is a crew favour, and you think, right,

well, I'm going to be absolutely human-hearted here. Yeah, that cannot be good news. LAUGHTER They're not saying that about a task which everyone completes competently within five minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But mind you, the flip side of it, the time thing is, and I thought about this in this episode with the,

well, come on, talk about it. But any task that's open-ended, like, the clock is just running until you finish it, you have I might have mentioned this last time I was like, oh, you have this dreadful sense of how long you're taking. Yeah. The camera, obviously Alex is there with this little clock, but you've also got four or five cameras on you, the producers, you feel as if the whole of this production has come to a stop while you dick about with a basket ball or whatever.

So I was reminded of it this week because of a time sensitive task. That's like at least in my most sort of negative moments, I remember thinking at least 20 minutes is the limit that this can go on for. At least there's a delineated period of humiliation here. But anything where it's just like this will happen until you stop it is Terrifying. I know I mean Mark We've talked about it a lot on the podcast, but yeah, I had to do champion champions and I took 97 minutes to get a duck into a pot Oh, I remember yeah, well, I actually didn't get the duck in the pond I took 97 minutes and it's when the it's when the delivery driver arrived at the gate Yeah, but that's when he starts to feel guilty. Yeah, when people are coming

to look around the Tajmaster House of Potential Purchases, you start thinking. I was quite weirdly quite close to getting on champion champions because going into the final, near the end of the final episode, I still could have taken it from Morty. I was sort of like my main thing about how great it would be to win the series was I'd get to do it again when I saw a champion of champions I thought this is now a different arena of terror. I wanted to enjoy this very much. Also, I seem to remember the champion of champions for Series 1 to 5 didn't Bob basically have to go straight from it was pretty much back to back

I think he had to go and film it relatively quickly after the studio series. Yeah, that's right, because I remember, it's a weird one where my agent said, they want to check these dates of free because you might be doing another series or I'm never hands you might very well not. So it's an odd experience. Yeah, it's clearly like being in the world cup

or something and you're either going through to the next round or you're just going home. But yeah, that's right. It was Bob was still punch drunk from the first set of tasks, I think. But yeah, I mean that 97 minute one was a classic, obviously, niche with the Trump throw the basketballs in or kick basketball in another one. And again, a particular winner's mentality is I'm just going to keep it going. I'm going to do this however long it takes. But yeah, there aren't many shows where you start to feel like I'm wasting these people's

time here. Yeah. And it's really... You know, a panel show or something, the producer will just call it when they say that's enough of that. Or, you know, this... I don't think I've ever done anything like Taskmaster where it can just go on for as long as they want to keep you

until they want to put you out of your misery you can. Yeah, and obviously when it gets to but the elusive thing as well is the you can you can do it for half an hour, it can be going appallingly badly but for all you know other people who got disqualified or you know this has happened loads of times so you don't have a dare to give up in case you can. You can. You know, that, um, trying to get the, uh, just to get the ping pong ball out of the tube thing, which, like, still was my worst task going to have, still occasionally have awful, for any time something's going wrong for me in life,

like I'm struggling to open a package. I, like most previous contestants at some point in the day, you matter, this is like Taskmaster. And, and, and I'm specifically thinking of specifically thinking of that ball in a test tube horror. Yeah. But I still got three points out of five for that, because two of them are into contravening the rules. So that's a classic example of that, it's what you've got.

You may as well keep going. You might be the only one that observed the rules. Yeah. That happens to me a lot on Series 9, but in championing champions, I think once I got past the 90 minute mark, I thought it's probably safe to give up now. Let's talk about episode 7 of series 16, though. The prize task is the thing that is most guaranteed to make you grown.

Now, Greg was expecting an entirely sexual lineup of prizes, and there was almost no sexual prizes, I'd say. No, they all sign up your answer. Well, I suppose someone would have been turned on by the Brian Blessed recording to sure. Yeah, there would be a whole branch of cameo where he gets sex requests, I don't know. But you're right, I think at this point in Taskmaster's evolution, it's hard to tell whether a specific cast is more horny than the previous ones, or whether Taskmaster's just become

a place where people sort of expect this. Certainly Alex doesn't help by saying things like, here are the contestants flicking themselves mad or whatever it was. I'm watching it back, I might be wrong, but I believe that compared with when I was on it or you were the level of the level of innuendo purpose, I was definitely ramped up, but I don't think that's to do with individual contestants I think there's just a culture of sort of weird smart has started to infect taskmaster to some you can hear the studio audience is sort of Sort of waiting for it almost. There was there's a little I mean I would put maybe later

at the door of some individual contestants on this series. To be fair, so I've just been more worsened out there. Yeah. Perkins is a great example of how, if you're sort of wholesome and intelligent seeming, you can get away with the absolutely appalling stuff. Yeah.

If you're trusted by a radio for audience, I think you can get away with more filth. Yeah, it hasn't come as a huge surprise to me in her case, because I've worked with Perkins a few times as you probably have, and she is quite like that. She's well aware that exactly. She's, her sort of head girl vibe gives her almost carte blanche.

And that, in a way shouldn't be surprising, because head girls, like, quite, well, seriously, it's exactly posh, but sort of well educated, innocent, seeming people often are, the filthiest people in the world, of course. And, um, yeah. And also, years of Regifor have given Perkins the ability to slip disgraceful stuff in without anyone noticing.

Absolutely. But what a prize, what a prize from Sue, let's talk about the prize she brought in, the most guaranteed to make you grown, and it is a command to grow by Brian Blessed. Yes, I would say, well, I had, I'm just gonna discuss before, a history of doing quite well in the price test,

because of this kind of approach, basically the sort of throwing everything into it thing. I mean, I think I don't know what I would have done, but I would have done something similar, I think, like basically compelving people to forcing people to grow in some way is kind of the thing. I think because these are the sort of ones that when you first received them, you think, I don't know, your mind is a blank, basically, you can't imagine what will make people grow. Most of them just went for a faintly distasteful item. So it was widely put for Perkins, like a conceptual one like Perkins,

to when it, having said that, Julian's weird bust thing was like quite a good grown-worthy item. And now, it's, yeah, you don't almost don't know why you're groaning when you look at that. The grown comes from a different place to where a lot of groans come from. Exactly, yeah, it's more of a shudder if anything, I think. It's, they didn't get into it in the conversation, but you sort of longed to know what other terrible

items clearly has got, and it's how long this tradition's been going on for. Well, we've seen a lot of the things Julian has in his house, but he thought that was what you had to do for the price tasks. Yeah. But a lot of it is very, like a high high-art, very classy, I mean like a bum table, but a beautifully made bum table. That's true. Yeah.

I sort of, I mean, again, you can often tell people who have watched a lot of the show before, from people who haven't really, it's been quite, it's quite warming to imagine Clary looking around, his existing possessions thinking I'm going to have to give some of these things away for this television show Superkins is going to own my table. Yeah Um, yeah, but the bus the bus was odd it was it was slightly hideous, but it was sort of it was creepy and I think it was really it was a good I mean, it's I was almost disappointed that no one did bring it in anything sexual But also that made me feel bad because I know if I was on this line up,

I absolutely would have just, I would have just waded into the mucky end of the pool, you know. Yeah, I feel like I probably would have done, don't know exactly what, or the other thing I thought was I might have made, tried to make Greg physically grown with effort by like forcing, like getting something big for him to carry on his shoulders or something like that.

But of course you'd be heavily punished in the points for doing that. So it's interesting. If you do start getting competitive about it, you actually do have to try and impress the taskmaster with the price task. If you do anything, stealing the trousers thing, our most famous collaboration is a great example of that.

I mean, it's one of the best bits of our combined and individual legacies, but we would punish for it in the points, because of course, all he sees is a theft of his own personal property. So that's a taskmaster contestants dilemma in one there, basically. If you're cheeky enough to Greg, you can be richly rewarded for it. But if you're actually inconveniencing in his personal life, you're in difficulties. You're in tricky waters. Yeah, I think I would have ended up ruining it. And yes, I would have brought in a sex toy,

but I would have had a Christmas cracker joke printed on it for the double-grown. For the, yeah, that's the other thing I thought. Just a bad joke would have been one way of doing it. I suppose. A Christmas cracker joke, exactly, or a sort of uncool type joke. Yeah.

If I'd done that, I would have tried to read it to the whole audience and make them, because I think a groan is not particularly common. People don't really vocalize groans that much. So I think I would have tried to actually get a groan going, a bit like Spurkins did with the Brian Vlessed recording, basically. That was clever stuff. In general, I always felt like ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdynyn ymdyn ymdynyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdynyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn y come to the prize task. Definitely. Susan, I thought this was clever and self-aware of Susan, because she struggled with prizes in the previous weeks, and quite a lot of the weeks.

And you could see, I mean, we talked about this in the podcast. Episode one, you could see in her eyes that she realized she's completely misjudged all of them coming up. Yes, great. It's great that she changed hers to a collection of her previous prizes, which is not pretty bad, she just did the greatest hits of the most disappointing price basically. Yeah, good boy. It's interesting. It's I do sympathise but again how how much you nail the price task partly does depend on how much taskmaster you've

already seen. You get a sense of what it's because also Alex Never gave me any sort of prior warning or information or help as I've said before in fact famously He stitched me up in it's still one of the most regal fashion's ever seen I think so but one thing he did say to me in the in the pub before it started was You should take the prize tasks seriously because it's surprising how people ramp up their points even if they're and and having been in the house and felt like loads of the actual task went really badly. From way out, way before the studio, as soon as I learned what the prize tasks were going to be, I was like, right, this is important, this could be free money here. This could compensate me for any number of test tubes that wouldn't yield ping pong ball over the fuck is. And whereas if you yeah if you don't take that bit seriously and just grab whatever comes to hand you do you

get a real sinking feeling in this studio looking at the intricacy of others or even yeah even with the prep that I think Ashley for example in our series a couple of herds were quite half-assed and then when it comes down to it, you see someone else is spent like a week making something. But again, the flip side is, Greg can easily look at that and go, nope, don't like that, and then you wish you hadn't put that in time. So that's again, with Taskmaster, if you go for a high prep strategy, like someone like me, you do risk the idea that you've just wasted

a lot of your life and someone else just grabs a hairbrush on the way in and gets five points because that's just what Greg decides. Yeah, it's a tricky balance. I mean a lot of these people are very busy Mark, you know, I can see why. Whereas I think you and I both, as soon as we were doing Taskmaster, completely clear our diaries to make sure we did the best job we could. For six months, my life is Taskmaster. Even now I'm amazed to see people who are clearly just fitting Taskmaster around the rest of their life.

Although, I think this came up, the other time I was on this podcast, I had also been on Begrill's Island, so during the long period of Taskmaster, especially because in my day Mae'n gweithio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ysgwyrddio'r ygwyrddio'r ysgw having and carrying to death. And then two weeks later you're back again. And once again Alex, it's just asking you to sort of eat a twiglet. So I've at least got a brief sense of how those are the two oddest things that I've done in conjunction with each other, I think. But it is true, everyone on the show is obviously busy and in demand, and it's only a particular type of person

that, and this was a particular mentality like Nish genuinely was, as we said before, happy in his world of being in last place. And no point drawing this studio. Yeah, he never showed any remorse. Whereas I think I'd have tired quite quickly of being the bad one over and over again. I'd have lent into it the way Nish did, but I think I'd have taken it personally in the way that he definitely didn't.

His self-esteem didn't ride on doing well in the actual scoreboard. Other people are not like that. No, no, absolutely not. I mean, talking and putting a lot of effort in, Sam really is in these prize tasks. We've got to talk about this toothbrush because there was no one went into any detail on this tooth.

No, he just, it went on screen and Greg went, yeah, yeah, he's just almost like exasperated by how little he understands Sam now. Yeah, I, I, from Sam being announced, I thought this is the way the Greg Sam relationship would probably go. Yeah, there's a significant age difference. There's a significant mentality and energy difference. I think I, I, Greg, not really being a gigging comedian anymore. I'd be surprised if he'd even met

some Campbell before the series started. So, and again, having spent a bit of time with Sam being in hotels with him, but like nothing really prepares you for the man's energy. So, yes, already, and we're not even at the end of the series here, Greg is manifesting quite a lot of only partly famed weariness, I think it's fair to say.

That bit where Campbell started talking about Samurai's, for example, Greg wasn't joking about wanting to shut that chat down. So we're going to continue, like with the toothbrush, we're going to continue to see moments in this series where Sam embarks on an explanation and Greg just moves on to the next person. I mean, Greg's always got a headmaster with a naughty schoolboy vibe about him, but we've rarely seen it as pronounced as with Sam Campbell. It's very pronounced. I mean, so the toothbrush seems to have a bat wing and like a hair on it. And then, was that like sort of Domino's garlic and herb sauce next to it?

Yes, I think I'd like to at least explore that a little bit more. I mean, it might have been something that Sam created for the series, but you wouldn't entirely be surprised if that was his regular tooth brush. I think, again, having been sort of close up to him, I don't think it's his real tooth paste. I think I'd know if he was regularly brushing with garlic and herb sauce. But yeah, that was quite a good example of what we're talking about. That's sort of quite intricate artistic effort only for it to flash up for three seconds and then Greg

say, okay, what's everyone else got? Yeah, move on. Yeah. Well, Lucy, I mean, Lucy's, this is very Lucy as well. Her prize was a lesson in the importance of cartilage. Yes, I also didn't mind this, but it didn't quite hang to go, brilliant moment where he said, how should we look after a cartilage? It's so they don't know. I don't know. Yeah, there were quite a lot of questions. Like with a lot of Lucy's responses to Tarsett, it didn't quite make sense or stack up logically and yet it was sort of exactly what was required. a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r api'r ap She's a kind of ideal, again, ideal taskmaster contestants, because she seems like lightly bemused by almost everything that's happening, because that's what her energy is.

And that is quite a good mentality to be in approaching taskmaster. I mean, you never are, but I always used to think it would help to be just lightly pissed for quite a lot of the task. Sure. Just junk enough that you wouldn't interrogate your circumstances. You would just think, yeah, yeah. I'll climb up that thing and put a bear's head on or whatever.

And I'm not just in Lucy, or in fact, Lucy isn't like that, but she does have that slightly out of it vibe as a person. Whereas again, the people that have maybe struggled to fit into the mindset of a taskmaster contestant are the ones that are logical and sensible people who simply can't understand why they've been putting this into place. Why you would be doing it?

Yeah, Lucy. Yeah. So, I think people have asked me a lot recently whether Lucy is genuinely like she is appearing on taskmaster and I didn't really know for sure and then we had her on off menu live the other night until and I mean she is just that's her like she's. Yeah. Honestly it's like talking to an alien from a planet that is very similar to Earth but there's just tiny little differences. Exactly, yeah and Hull alone doesn't, you know, explain that.

It's more than just being from high. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, well, I imagine her off menu choices being weirdly sort of panicked. It seems like she'd be quite sort of fussy and specific about food. Yeah. And, but yeah, again, it's, it's,

we've seen her several times score, like not, seemed like she didn't do that well in tasks and then well we'll come onto it but her observance of rules is very strong and her kind of decorum and surprisingly often that, again I benefited from this, if you're, it's good to be a bit of a risk taker on taskmaster but if you just wade in and sort of either disregard the rules or fail to observe them, You often really are often in trouble. Yeah, I think Lucy is benefiting from them, despite being from a slightly different planet.

She does have a sort of a well-developed sense of right and wrong. Absolutely. Well, that's the same on her earth. Okay, well let's do the points there. It was two points for Lucy, two points for Sam, three points for Julian, four points for Susan, and five points for Susan's Brian Blessed recording. I've got a voice that could still a goat from over the mile away. And when I ask her aloud noise, it gets done.

Just ask the Wing Birdman, Brian Blessed, you grown like a life depends on it. Come on, come on. Go! Go! Factors, bastards! Come on! Go! Before we're calling you on this memory stick.

You've really act on yourself, there, Perkins. That's a lot. That is Chewpendus. Today's episode of the Taskmaster podcast is sponsored by... Kozy. Who are Kozy I can hear you asking? Well, Kozy are a Canadian furniture company that creates thoughtfully designed furniture made for modern living. I actually think they should maybe get some Kozy furniture in the Taskmaster house because look, it looks

lovely in there, but let me tell you, it's not built for comfort. Some of the furniture in there has been battered over series and series of multiple messy and disgusting tasks, and I think it's about time they gave the place a spruce up. And cozy, it's the way they can do that, because it is incredibly thoughtfully designed furniture made for modern living. It allows owners to easily elevate any space, and I'm talking to you, Taskmaster, that sounds like the perfect way to improve your house. They are modular sofas, you can choose the design, you like, configure the shape and

number of seats for your space, and pick your favourite fabric. And you can add modules over time if your needs change. I mean, think about that, the lab, it's a very bare, white place, isn't it? Maybe a pop of colour in there with a colourful fabric on a cozy sofa for when people are feeling a bit stress during the task, they can have a little lie down. And we need new shelving space in the taskmaster house. Cozy is a launch new solid wood modular shelving systems, the altitude collection. It's super easy to assemble, you could even do it as a task, get the contestants to do it, and the installation can be done on any wall in a couple of minutes.

And let me tell you the customer experience at Cozy a second to none. There's free and far shipping on all orders, and there's over 3,500 five-star reviews. You got a five-year warranty and a 30-day risk-free trial. And if you need to speak to someone about something, the customer support is actually human. You don't find that very often these days. Transform your living space today with Kozi. Visit kozi.ca.coz.ca to start customising your furniture. Task 1, part 1, lot of reading here. Do whatever you like with these switches for five minutes. You will then do a task in the lab for five minutes.

The conditions in the lab will change according to when you switch the switches in here. Your time starts when Alex is confident you understand the task. And then part 2 was balance the most teas on the shelves. You must stand on the platform throughout the task. You have five minutes, your time starts, when Alex is confident, you understand the task. I love that. I added to both bits, by the way, that the time starts, when Alex is confident that you want the task. Me too. I'm- So we can only imagine how long he was sitting there with some other contestants,

because I think if that was me, I wouldn't have, I don't think I would have inspired that confidence for some time. Any task where the rubric was as long as that you're immediately sweating. And also this seems to me like walking into a nightmare, all of the different tags, the switches, knowing it's a two-part task. This is an awful lot to, um, I, this was, it was first in the episode, and I remember thinking, again, this is the sort of thing that a former contestant thinks. I remember thinking, I hope this was early in the day, because this is the sort of task that if you're already tired, and then that happens, you can barely even read the scroll without it. Yeah. I saw it as, because I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly in terms of, in terms of what it was, I saw it as doing like a tech I got the hang of it pretty quickly in terms of, in terms of what it was,

I saw it as doing like a tech, you're like a tech for a play in the first one, programming it all, and then you're performing in the play in the second task. Yeah, and I think, and it's easy to have, it's easy with hindsight, and I, and I, and I don't always think this by any means, but I do think I would have done well here, because for start, I definitely wouldn't have flicked the do not touch this. Yeah, I mean, I would have, like Lucy, I would have thought this is,

it's almost a double bluff. You think that they want you to switch it, but in fact, they want you to be naughty and you'll be punished for it. I think that is kind of, but also I think I'm quite jumpy around like loud noises and bangs and stuff. I think I would have convinced myself that something awful was going to happen in the

shed if I flipped that stuff. Yeah. I wouldn't have touched it. And in general, I think I've scored highly here because despite being quite a fidgety person, I don't really, I don't like kind of switches and like electrical stuff. And basically I think my instinct is immediate. As soon as I read, the conditions will be determined by what you do here.

I just thought, surely, just stay the hell away from the switches work. I wouldn't have put it past myself to almost not touch the switches at all for five minutes because I think it's, I mean, you couldn't tell exactly what was gonna happen, but you definitely have a sense that the more I interfere with these things, the more problems I'm going to have in that lab surely.

Yeah, and I do agree with you, that would have been my first thought, but then I would have overthought it, and thought, well, we don't know that for a fact, do we? Who knows, the leaves might have been helping, it might have been getting the most leaves into a bucket or something. Quite, or the winds think might easily have been without the winds, your screw, that's the trouble. You do overthink it. If you've got a minute, then you're just like, the safest bet is not to touch the switches, but five minutes of silence without it.

It's a little long time, yeah. And you can see how it feeds on itself. Once you've flipped a couple of switches, you think, well, I'm just, I'm not sure, do ever want it. Yeah, like you're doing a pink Floyd concert. So it's perhaps not surprising that in the end, all of them went from tentative to just like, as a result, all of them had a terrible time.

In particular, the voice saying your name thing was inspired though. I think I'd have found that almost more of putting anything else. Well, Sue, absolutely hated that. I mean, the quote, don't make me fart into the darkness into my own name is well up there, isn't it? Yeah, as Greg said, yeah, that goes into the pantheon of things people have said.

That'll be, they'll be meaming that as we speak. Yeah, yeah, absolutely astonishing. But it's, it's that, the thing that really made me laugh is when they get the, they've done their first switches and they see what they do. And it messes everything up. They're then thinking forward because they remember a bit first switches and they see what they do. And it messes everything up. They're then thinking forward, because they remember a bit later on when they just flicked everything over and over again.

They realize they're gonna be in darkness for long periods of task. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, but then nonetheless, it came down to, actually stacking a technique, balancing technique. And I thought Perkins, where I was doing it, was really ingenious, but also I thought immediately that won't go through.

She's not gonna fly. There's no way Greg is accepting that that is balancing. Whereas Campbell's little sort of envelope, like pouch thing he made, well, that is ingenious, that wouldn't have occurred to me. In fact, I remember, I think in watching this task, it might have been similar to me with the one where I found a light switch But then still drew a shit rainbow like I reckon I would have successfully

Swirved the danger of the switches, but then it would have been really bad at the actual balancing I can imagine it yeah, yeah, I can imagine them all suddenly coming down with 30 seconds to go and being horrid strike Yeah, I had a weirdly had a similar rainbow based one. Yeah. I had to organise the lollies into rainbow order and I was the only one to be able to remove my mask and still couldn't do it. That's right. Yeah.

It's so embarrassing when all of the hurdles are removed and it turns out you just don't know the colours of the rainbow. Yeah, you just can't do the thing. So I mean, soon soon as, as soon as great, and might you say she didn't, she didn't get her balancing technique over the line. Susan, it's, she's laughed through most tasks on this show so far. So to see her immediately lose it when the platform started vibrating was just a sheer joy. It really was, yeah, And you can see why. That must have been really funny to be part of.

Yeah. And as you say, as soon as the thing starts vibrating, your brain must be going ahead, so there's winds, there's darkness, there's leaves. Yeah. It's also interesting that, I mean, none of them were able to resist choosing leaves in particular. And you can sort of see why.

I think it's because, as you said, a part of your brain is like, that could be nice. That might, I might like the leaves. And then as soon as they fall all over you, you think, right, that was, there was no interior. There's no innuendo. There was no other meaning there. I am just getting leaves.

A load, a load of leaves is just knocking every tea off as well, like that's just, you know when the leaves are coming, everything's gone. Everything's gone. Yeah, yeah. Campbell did well to scramble any actually, because he looks, inevitably, he was always the one that was going to tamper with the most of them, so he was likely to have the most, but he still found a way to get some points, and that's why he's doing well. Yeah. Partly why he's doing well in this series. He hangs in there even when he's brought problems upon himself. And he's been true to himself, but he's also trying to get the points, which is great to say.

Yeah, and that, I mean, the bowl thing wasn't, didn't go through, but again, he has a real knack for Sing Beyond the Wording a task, which, as we said before, is sometimes key to everything. There is nearly always something to hand, which would make stuff so much easier, but you just, in your panic, you simply don't see it. Again, I applauded if I mentioned this before, I think I did mention before but I'll always when I think about that ping pong thing I always remember eventually working out that if I raised the water level it would pop out but then there was only a small glass of water so I said this there's not enough water though and Alex patiently saying you don't think there is enough water in the world to do this. I was only then I thought oh yeah there's a kitchen I could have as much water as I wanted but at certain moments your brain simply can to do this. And only then I thought, oh yeah, there's a kitchen.

I could have as much water as I wanted. But at certain moments your brain simply can't do that. Shut down avenues, doesn't it? Yeah. So many times in the taskmaster house, you think, if I'd just gone into the bathroom and removed the toilet roll or whatever it is. But it wasn't.

The task didn't say anything about bathroom, so the bathroom simply wasn't on my mental landscape. Yes, the main danger is making up your own rules, I think. Exactly. Yeah, if I could have my time again. One of the big things I would do is just take 30 seconds at the beginning of every task, I think. Now, what have I already seen today, which would really help me out here?

Julian was marvelous as he is in all of the tasks, who he flexes, which is because he was just bored. Yeah, I was really when he said there's nothing else to do in there. Really revealing of a particular mindset there. And, you know, I mean, we've all, we all know comedians. It would be interesting to see how many comedians could resist five minutes in there. Just because of that thing of like, well, I'm not doing anything, I'm not driving the action here, is, I mean, although, and obviously Julian's contemptuous impressions of Alex have been a real joy, he said there was no cherry chat from Alex, but it wasn't, I don't, I don't think it

was a rule that you couldn't talk to Alex. I think anyone could have had just quite a pleasant time there hanging out with Alex for five minutes. But again, as we've said, five minutes is really, really long. A long time. When someone's sitting there and you're watching it, can't they? Also, I'd imagine Alex was doing deliberately less cheery chat.

He was doing a lot more watching, basically, in the hope that people would do what Julian did and just try and fill the time by flicking the switches. It's true, of course. And even if you you are friendly with Alex he has a job to do. He doesn't project chat to me. He even knows him well for 20 years. I still was psyched out by the clock and by his sort of silent disapproving body language. So I sympathise with Julian. Yeah. And there's nothing else to do really made me laugh, because it's just like, you

don't mention it, they're not much against Henning you. And Lucy, of course, is the only one who gets points, because everyone else flex the don't button, it's what we were saying, Lucy sticks to the rules and it paid off on this occasion. Sir, often, so often the, I didn't guess that it would be a disqualified thing. That was great. But it was quite a classic taskmaster reveal. You sort of, you fancy that the camera would pull away to see something awful when they did that.

Yeah, it's just, again, what's difficult is, eight times out of ten, if something says don't do this, you should take them at their word. But again, the winners of the show have traditionally been people who are mad enough to just occasionally throw the dice. Like, I wasn't much of a risk-taker. I did, like, racked up points quite solidly by observing the rules, but what marks out of Bob Mortimer or Sam Campbell is occasionally they'll just do something deranged to use the experience work. I don't think Alex would have, or you know, the team would have a switch that says don't. And then if you flipped it, something good happened. I think there are rules within the universe. And I think that's right. Yeah, that's right. And also we don't know when in the overall,

well, it will have been at different points for different contestants, but I think that's something you get an instinct for. Yeah. As well, the longer you do tasks, the more you think the rules are actually far more important than I, and again, it's interesting that the taskmaster, the sort of geeky world of taskmaster fandom, really respects people that don't break the rules, I think. In the early series, they used to often be people

that just thought it was funnier to not care. Well, I think. In the early series, they used to often be people that just thought it was funnier to not care. Well, key, Tim in the first series used to bend rules, but also just out and out break them. Yeah. Because that's what key is like. And it's surprising how many people reacted against it. That's cheating. That's not allowed.

And then this is Gorman's another classic example. People used to judge our, our Murray for just like paying for stuff. Paying for stuff. Which is something I adopted several times. Yeah. I don't think people, I never had people judging me apart from Ashlyn because I think the stuff I paid for and the amount was so stupid that people, people, like if he wants it that much, I guess, just but it's interesting. People, people like to see kind of lateral approaches to rules, but the fan base is quite, comes down quite hard on what they see as genuine injustices, which is, and that's the beautiful thing about Tastmaster, it is because it comes down to

Greg's judgment, because of all the points are in his hands, you sort of have to be respectful of the rules, because one of the first things he'll go for is, you didn't do what it said there, you go. As happened to be several times like with the chopping up bread and also the the test tube thing, there was no better feeling than believing you've done very badly on a task and then watching it back and you still have done really badly and then that last second reveal that one or more of your colleagues have broken a rule suddenly you're moving out. It's the feeling of relief. Yeah. And Lucy must have had that, because it was not points

for Sam, Julian, Sue, and Susan, Lucy, the only one who balanced any teas, she didn't get 19 anyway, so she was going to do well. Yeah, but five points. What a feeling to get it. To wipe, wash the rest of the contest. Yeah. Oh, forgot.

Say. Sue Burkins. Sue Burkins. Oh, I don't sake. Superkins. Superkins. Oh, I didn't want to listen to that. Superkins. No, I don't want to listen to that. Superkins. Superkins. Superkins. Superkins. I just thought I'd just talk to kids. Superkins. Superkins.

So maybe part of the genre. I darkness into my own name! Toss two, pie wane in the face. Wane is outside the front door. You may not touch wane or step on the red green. If you miss wane with a pie, you must copy wane's dance moves for ten seconds. Fastest wins, your time starts when you open the front door. What I really like about this is I think, I mean, I don't know this for a fact But it feels like someone's gone. I'd like to use one of those things that waves their arm around 100% yeah Why have we not have one of those things in touch?

How are we gonna do that? I believe that Desray brought in one as a prize task For my son floppy things so maybe that was the seed of Alex going Oh, I'd like to use one of those in some way. Alex must have thought this is exactly the kind of item which appears in Taskmaster, yeah. But still this is a truly brilliant moment. You're trying to guess who or what way you might be. Obviously you're thinking it has to be something that's, well that's be big, it has to be difficult in some way to pie. But it was funny to me that Julian didn't seem to immediately have absorbed the task and so he was like oh I suppose I've

gone get another pie there. I think surely at some point you just bring the whole lot out you're going to be there for a little while. There was a lot of two in fro as Susan was doing that as well that yeah. Yeah we saw Lucy immediately take the whole stack of pies out and the studio audience laughed, but that was in fact, that was someone that knows how to plan ahead. That was smart things to do. But yeah, it was brilliant. The joy on their faces when they opened it, the reveal,

that's sort of what Tars Moss has all about. You're thinking, what is weighing who is weighing how? But you still couldn't have, I thought maybe it was going to be just a guy with a mass face protection or something, you know. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, Mark, I thought, you know how in other tests they've used the small children of crew members. It was amazing. It came out and there was like a three year old boy stood in the middle of the red grid

and you had to throw up. Yeah, writhing around with using the whole stool. Yeah, yeah. And the thing of like, they were quite specific about you cannot touch them in any way. So that would have also that would have made sense of it a bit of kid or a very old man. A very old man. Yeah, very very old man. Yeah, when Alex, I don't know him well, my brain went to the sort of some of the people that have been volunteers in the studio tasks. So we're just, you know, people they've found for, yeah.

But no, I don't think anyone could have predicted that. And then straight away, when you see that, you're thinking some of them are gonna just chuck pies endlessly, like Nish with the basket balls, and some of them are gonna try and bring the thing down. Yeah, and yeah, we certainly saw that. I mean, Susan just started lobbing pies, loved the dancing. She almost seemed delighted when she missed one so she could properly interpret

what Wayne was doing. Yeah whereas Julian had to be reminded to dance again and again. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that was sometimes I mean Susan is a very good candidate but what will maybe prevent her from being an actual series winner is she does sometimes enjoy, like she's having too much fun, she's not thinking like an assassin. Absolutely. You know, those dancers had to be rigid ten seconds and then you're straight back to the...

It was interesting because initially you were thinking, and part of this was maybe the camera work, you're thinking there's no way of lobbing a pie. You can't do this manually. He's these far too high. But then there are these, uh, these kind of tantalizing moments where he went really low and she's eventually did just, did just just get him. Yeah. And quickly and quickly as well, one minute and thirty nine. Yeah. Well, when I started watching it, I thought I would be rubbish at this because I would have just kept doing the pie phases. My brain wouldn't have thought lower him instead. But then in fact, if you got lucky or if you just hit him in a good moment,

it... Yeah. So yeah, there was no right way to do this. It was you could do it either by trickery or just athleticism. Yeah. Well, I thought we were going to see Susan doing that just for absolutely ages. But no, she lucked out. And she, I mean, it's pretty accurate pythrowing. Julian's was the one that made me laugh the most because it was just so brutal, too. It's a swing ball and then rip Wayne off himself, but. The swing ball was fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. Again, a good example of what we're talking about, almost anything can be a weapon in the task I'm asking you first. Yeah. Now, it was quite dramatic seeing him being brutally lowered to earth and flat. Yeah, and so, so he kills him as well, but by using the flamingos to turn him off, which is of course, I guess that's the first thing you do if you were trying to think outside

the boxes. How do you turn Wayne into that? Wayne is being mechanically operated in it in some way. You can, and that was was the person seemed to think that Immediately it was then just a case of can I do that without interfering with that? Of course then After all that she two of them would disqualify for their feet touching the very very edge of the green which it's a shame You know, it's it's a shame, but we've seen you know, a taskmaster history is riddled with these you know Tiny tiny oversteps. We all know it. We've all been part of it. So he had to do it. But to see someone like Perkins get disqualified in consecutive tasks is a tough watch, I think.

Gutsing. Gutsing. And yeah, Paul Lucy as well, after such a great start to the episode, she also touches the red green. And I know, but I think she may have been disqualified anyway Mark by she was holding on to him. She did touch him and then claim the wine was touching her. It was touching her which I think you have to say she had more agency than that. That's a floppy thing. It's funny, almost any task where it's like and this is quite a lower abiding bunch of

contestants as well. They very rarely question the you know when Sue says that's harsh by accepted that is kind of the vibe of this group. There's not a lot of, there's no, you know, Asselin was always in the taskmaster's face. This was even though he barely had a leg to stand on. These guys basically seem to accept their greatest judgment quite meekly, and yet still, at least one of them were always of broken rules and as soon as you see something like, you may not touch him, you think one of them at least.

Some were touching him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've already seen it with the big duck, but yeah, you're right, they're exesid adjustment. They're boat liquors, Mark, every single one of them. They're absent, they're subservient, yeah. They're too much aura for Taskmaster. Again though, it's a funny thing about the brain.

It's one of those Taskmaster psychology things. You think the main rule here is don't touch him, but then after two or three minutes, you're so adult by chucking stuff. You've cleaned, forgotten it. You're on the red green, you're on the red green. You're on the red green. All you want is to throttle the guy,

as quickly as you can. Yeah, the rules of, even the very simple set of rules have completely gone out of your head. Yeah, absolutely. Sam also goes with a sort of rope-wacking technique with a rope that he brought from home. He did bring tools with him from home for taskmaster. It's amazing hearing someone say this is something I brought from home. It doesn't say you can't do that.

It's just very few of us arrived at the Kitted Up to taskmaster. But there you go. That's the sort of guy Campbell is. Yeah. Campbell is the bloke I know most likely to have a Swiss army knife, for example, I think. He's just, he's that guy. And then him saying, am I allowed to lasso him or whatever it was? It is pretty close to the definitive bit of sound Campbell action really. If anyone's making a lasso, it's that guy.

Which still a very, very difficult very difficult he still set himself a difficult course I think that's case to try to try and capture him like that was audacious but again sort of worked. Got him the points he didn't break any of the rules so Susan gets the five points Julian gets the four points even though again he just took things quite slowly didn't seem didn't seem to move at pace and still... No, it wasn't. It's your turn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sam gets the three points, and then of course, Lucian Sue, both disqualified, not point.

Julian, your pie technique was dreadful, but I thought you were a very graceful dancer. Oh, thank you. Oh, welcome. Anything else to say? No. I thought the most dramatic thing we were going to see in those attempts was some shouting, I got in big time.

He had it too good for too long. What turned down to be the most dramatic thing was Julian Clarey taking Wayne down with his wing ball. Yeah, that was the most dramatic thing. Lucy, did you think the task was touch-way as much as you can? The swing ball touched him. As well, yeah.

I mean touched him, big touch. How? With your hands. He touched me. Task three, put yourself somewhere within the boundary. The person furthest from everyone else wins. The person closest together, the people closest together, both lose two points. Also throughout the task, you must behave really weirdly, which honestly, Mark, the first time I watched this task, I, for some reason,

didn't take that last part of the task into account. And... You wondered why Lucy was... No, I didn't, for example. I didn't. I didn't take it into account. And I, no point did I think anyone was doing it. It was being weird. Yeah. In Taskmaster, how you meant to tell whether anyone is being weird or not.

Because you know, you're moving a cardboard cutout around. So I think people, I thought people were just keeping themselves in to be honest. Well, yeah, I mean, certainly Lucy just sort of singing and yodeling softly to herself wasn't that different from Sam Campbell, it is with the best one in the world impossible to say whether he's deliberately acting weird or not. In fact, I'd say what we saw, he was being less weird than you normally expect. I think so. Yeah, yeah.

It's, this was, this was a great one. We had a slightly similar task where you had to, you just had to cast a vote for, you like to do a general election to vote someone else. And it was something like if two people voted the same, they both got a... So any task where you try and guess what the other people do is... And of course you haven't...

I knew everyone a tiny bit, but you haven't met at this point. So Alex asking, where do you think Sam would put himself? Where do you think it's impossible anyway? It's impossible if you do know the person you've known for your whole life. Exactly. Yeah. What was interesting was like I think your brain here goes to one of two places either do go as far away as possible, like the moose's hair whatever, or or trying double bluff by doing right on the boundary. It was interesting, but somehow not that surprising how many people went for just the simplest possible thing, thinking no one else is going

to do that. It's to like, if I think another one this reminds me of is that business with getting as many coconuts down the ramp on a skateboard as you can, which is pretty serious. And you could use any item, any instrument, but again, if you use anything else that's done, that's why I just stacked them all shoved it and hoped for the best, because the more you start thinking what would anyone else do, the more screws you are that the range of possibilities is infinite. We had a task in ours that was one of the ones that wasn't shown, which was go round and point all the stuff in this area. It was one of the location tasks and pointed it and

say what is called, but you can do it in one language. That's right. You can say in languages everyone else, then so they gave us like a book of Swedish and like all of these things. And so I was for ages going, what should I do? Because this person's gonna do this

and I think this person speaks a different language. And then I just ended up doing it in English. I was just the thing guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but again, that's kind of sometimes the simplest route is the one and you kind of any task, there's always a couple of these per series. Any task that requires you to do something differently from what everyone else would do is it really is, like you say, even with your best friends, you wouldn't back yourself

to get. No, no. Right. If I had to do this with Tim, Alex, any contestants, or could I still wouldn't know for sure that we're going to see. We're basically four years. I mean, they're two, they're two, they're two. They happen to be your best friends,

but then also are two very unpredictable men in general. Actually, yeah, I don't think anyone alive would be comfortable with mimicking Tim Key's actions in a given situation in particular. But no, however you know somebody, I don't think it is great. It's, it's, it's, Taskmaster does explore these psychological, yes, kind of principles quite well. In trying to be as different as possible from other people,

you will very often do almost exactly the same as what they've done, it's basically the less in here, which I think is really interesting. That's, yeah, so a lot of people go for the boundary line. So Susan, Julian, and then in the end, Sue, all go on the boundary line, which is very funny that there's a lot of places that they could go and they all do that. It's kind of amazing. It's something like your brain goes, yeah, either go for the other go big, or go as small as possible, and your brain just factors out all of the many Possibles if you just plomped it in the middle of the room you would leave it was yeah, leave it

Yeah, I think I think my instinct would have been to go high because I'd be like I'm unlucky if anyone else gets that specific slot, but it's funny again the more what the taskmaster you watch, the more you feel you know what's coming. That brilliant cutaway of Perkins with the calling, I thought, I bet you it's gone to the front, it's gone to the front. Yeah, it's perfectly, it's perfect for that to have happened. So good. I think I would have gone behind the curtain, you know, you don't know what you'd done the day, but I would have definitely gone for a cheeky behind the curtain position.

Yeah, I think when you saw Campbell consider putting it under the carpet, something like that feels like, well at least, I'd be unlucky. I think mine's been to conceal it in some way or at least make it inaccessible. Yeah. I would also, I would have been a total dick about it, Mark and gone, oh, is everything behind the line within the boundary and you know, so that you start being outside and doing all this business? Yeah, which again you don't know like there's probably is a way you could have

Interrupted the rules where you could just send it in a in a cab to Manchester and you would have technically been a writer Definitely again My brain certainly would have first of all gone to can I get it out of here all together? Would that would that be a large? Yeah, and those those kind of risks as we've said, sometimes pay off, but it is interesting. Part of the problem with this task is it's not difficult to actually do the thing. You can, you're capable of putting it wherever you want, and so the range of possibilities is limitless,

and that is quite difficult. That's why I think that's why your brain narrows it down to immediately to either here or here, because if you start, if you've got 10 minutes and there's infinite points on the compass, again, you're just like, I don't know. And again, you start thinking, maybe Susan will come, is the sort of person to do this. Yeah. I reckon it's impossible, but for future contestants, if you ever have something that involves second guessing the other people, you're best to think about them as little as possible.

Yeah. Decide what you're doing. Yeah, just more often than not. That'll probably yeah, that's a better strategy Yeah, it was five points for Sam with the decapitated cardboard cutout Four points for Lucy at one point for Susan one point for Julian and sadly It's not points for Sue again Yeah, but now you're just accepting it's not your episode, I think. Yeah, I think so. What we need to know is what the coin decided for Sue, of course, before we do.

I'll praise you for a very credible tube-accompanied pressure. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no The tossed heads. This is it on the deer. This is the cliffhanger. Yeah. It's all about the toss. Here we go. Heads for that deer's head Tails for on the boundary line Thank you, Sue. Thank you LAUGHTER I'm so intimidated. Guys, I mean, I knew what had happened and even I'm a swept-off by the magic. Um, live task. Catch three balls on your head. After your quarter ball, you're my shout ball.

You may not step off your circles. Move your head, after your quarter ball, you're my shout ball, you may not step off your circles, move your circles, adjust your arms or touch the balls with your hands, fastest wins. Now, I loved this because the overriding message at the end seems to be all they're cooperating with each other, but I don't think they were quite cooperating with each other because it was a moment where Sam and Lucy were helping each other and Sam doesn't put the ball in because he knows that will make Lucy win. That's right.

They help each other until it dawns on Campbell that she's about to get her third. It's a great example of, and it's a little bit, something about Tarsamast. Some cooperation is good, but some screwing people over is also good. Yes. It's, it was, I can't, was it Sam who said can we cooperate to Alex before? One of them says, can we cooperate? And Alex says, I guess we'll find out. And you can see who I'm thinking, yes, that is the key to this. So I'm not going to say anything, did we?

But, obviously you're in it. I remember a similar studio tasks where you think, well, this is gonna be easier if we help each other. We had one involve in fruit, which was, but there's a bit of luck involved in who you're standing next to for a start. Yeah, it's fine for a start. So you might be just the loser just doing it on your own.

Yeah. And plus, again, the intensity of, like the adrenaline in those studio tasks is enormous, especially when you've been forced to wear some sort of humiliating garb. The whole time they're putting you into that stuff, you're thinking, what awaits me? Now, I remember being put into a boiler suit or something

in advance of the studio task, which turned out to be basically get as much powder paint on yourself as possible. And as you're being put in the suit, you think, well, this cannot be good news. They were also was a moment where I thought, yes, they're cooperating a bit. But no one's helping Sue. And she's the one who's only got five points. Yeah, surely it's time for the charity towards Perkins at this stage.

She's not a threat here. Yeah, yeah, it's funny isn't it? You just, um, basically it dawned on Sam and Lucy to help each other quite quickly and they were standing next to each other. But yeah, your nightmare, it's a bit like a last kid to be picked for football in school situation that your nightmare

is to be the one that's just on the end of the row going, well I can't really get these in my own hat. And it's so she got one point in this as well. Susan got two points, Lucy got three, Sam got four Julian again Gets five by sort of semi semi half-fans against way through it and it's fun Yeah, it is Julian scores a lot of points for someone that never seems like he's taken in the information or cares that much Whereas Perkins is effort is sincere each time and yet and yet this happens. And again, there have been contestants in the niche

bracket who have only themselves to blame for low scoring, but there is a genre you don't want to be in if people that gave it everything and still couldn't win the task. And that's how I pictured myself before the shoot, because your brain fixates on the ones that went badly. I remember thinking, I don't want to be the sort of hapless, like, lovable loser here. And that's why it's such a relief on a start. I've seen what Nisha done. And I'm going to come forth at worst in this series. So the episode ends with Sam and Lucy and joint top with 14 points, June and on 13, Susan on 12, and Sue, of course, with six points,

which is a very, very low scoring episode. Meaning there's a tie break between Lucy and Sam, a rare studio tie breaker. Whoever fires their party pop, a furthest wins, which is Lucy, she manages to do that. Interesting, a studio tie breaker. Yes, I mean, you can't help suspecting

that they just didn't have one that they'd got ready in that. Yeah, they'd queued up, yeah. I mean, it has, it feels an awful, I'd Greg made a joke about, I've run out of budget, it felt an awful lot like at the last minute, a runner had been sent to get two party properties because they'd realized. Yeah. But it certainly looked like if you had to do it, if you had to sort out a tie breaker in five minutes, then that's probably how you do it. Yes. I also don't like party poppers, again,

I don't really like, I mean, they're not noisy, but that sort of thing, like bangs and sort of noises. So I was simple as with Lucy when she said, I hate these, but weirdly, still worked out for her, because, Yes, it did, yeah, yeah. To be fair, maybe because she hated it so much she was holding it and actually holding it away from her yeah I think that probably was key yeah there wasn't a lot you could I wondered if you could have just

thrown the party preference out of still I there could have there was again in a more sort of in a nausea cast at least one of them would have done something sneaky there. As it sounds pretty naughty, but also I think he wanted to win that one. I think he felt he would be able to beat her distance, but you never think about how far you can fire a party for his contents until these moments. And it's Lucy's first episode win as well, so we're glad you won that tie. It's nice to see, obviously Campbell's been really dominating the episode wins. So I think you'd rather have seen it go this way. Also it is absolutely. You are longing to win at least one episode. You want to have that moment where you're standing with all the prizes. Yeah, unless you're in which case you genuinely don't

care. And you know that you won't anyway. Yeah. So Sam is in the lead in the series. He's got 120 points, Julian is second with 108. So there's a bit of a gap there. Lucy's on 99 and Sue on 95 and Susan on 92. So Mark, we've obviously got about three episodes until we have about eight, nine and ten. Do you have a prediction on who's going to take it home? People probably have come back from further behind, but Sam's lead does look pretty commanding, unless, you know, in a different type of show, Greg might start, or Greg might be instructed to deliberately

and never let up a bit, but we know Taskmaster isn't like that. The people would never have that if it looked like there was a sort of corrective put in. So, as we've said, I mean, Julian, if Lucy was the closest challenger, then you feel she, you can see her getting ahead of Sam. Julian, I just don't think so because you can get, as we've said, quite a lot of points by either half-asking it or not fully understanding it, but I don't think anyone's won a series quite low. So, um, and Sam is not there by accident as we've said he might be mad but there's a quite there's a calculation to the madness so I think he's very good at he's good at

this isn't he he's very good at this he has exactly the sort of brain that as we've said he is is able to think in the weird ways that you have to but he also is prepared to just get down down and dirty with things to grind out the points. So I think it would be a surprise. He's looked like a possible winner from the outset and it's pretty hard to better go into him now. Yeah, totally. Thank you very much Mark for coming back on the Taskmaster Podcast. We always ask our guests to rate their experience on the Taskmaster Podcast between one and five points in the style of the TM. So Mark, we hope you've enjoyed yourself. Please give me a point score for today. Yeah, I really have. I have to give it five,

I think. I have no notes, as they say, except that the more you talk about your own experiences, the more nostalgic you become, the sad you become, the time is passing and that you, but I don't think the passage of time can be pinned on you or on Taskmaster podcast in general. So I can't, I can't, I can't dock a point for the fact that I'm now six years older than when I had a great time on Taskmaster. That really would be harsh.

That would be harsh indeed. Thank you very much Mark and you are welcome back anytime. Ah, look forward to it. Bye. Bye. and you are welcome back anytime. Ah, look forward to it. Bye! Bye! Thanks so much to Mark for coming on the Taskmaster podcast. We loved having you here as always. Next week we will be back talking about

Series 16 Episode 8 because that's how numbers work. Very excited, watch the show. Next Thursday's Channel 4, 9pm, then come over here and listen to the podcast. Goodbye Imagine how lonely you can feel to be facing mental illness or addiction on your own. Now imagine how lonely it might feel during the holidays. That's why CAMH needs your help to light the way forward. Your donation can help us make sure no one is left behind by fueling progress in mental

healthcare and patient experience. Donate now at CAMH.ca slash giving Tuesday to double your impact with a match donation. That's camh.ca slash giving Tuesday.