Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 43. Iain Stirling – S4 Ep.5

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

This week Ed is joined by comedian, actor, writer and the brilliant Love Island Voice Over – Iain Stirling. Iain discusses his highs and lows from Series 8 including the mentos volcano, his fart in a jar and the team tasks. The pair also discuss Series 4 Episode 5 which involved the cutest thing, questionable sliding and some eye contact with Fred the Swede. Iain’s new Sitcom Buffering Starts on Thursday 5th August on ITV2 at 10pmGet tickets to Iain’s upcoming tour Failing Upwards at Iaindoesjokes.com Get tickets to Ed's Touredgamble.co.uk Pre order Bring me the head of the Taskmaster https://taskmasterstore.com/products/bring-me-the-head-of-the-taskmaster Watch all of the Taskmaster on All 4https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail]  Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster  For all your Taskmaster goodies visit www.taskmasterstore.com    Taskmaster the podcast is produced by Daisy Knight for AvalonTelevision Ltd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hello, it's Ed Gamble here, the host of the Taskmaster podcast, coming at you with dreadful sound quality. I'll explain why. The basics of it are I forgot to record the intro and outro when I should have done, and I'm currently in a holiday in express in Watford Junction where I've had to check in for an hour and a half before I get a sleeper train to Glasgow and I've just done a gig in St Albans so in many ways it's the least glamorous

evening of my life but you know mainly didn't record the intro and outro when I should have done so now I'm doing it into the microphone of my laptop rather than my very professional setup at home. I've got a glass of Shiraz and a pack of crisps. Actually, I say it's bleak. I'm actually having the best night of my life. So apologies for the sound quality. Very exciting Taskmaster podcast today. We are, of course, still chatting about Series 4. And today we are talking about Series 4, Episode 5.

And we are talking about that episode with Ian Stirling, of course, star of Taskmaster in Series 8, where he was excellent. I love Ian Stirling very much. He is a friend. He is a lovely, lovely man. You may know him as a stand-up comedian. You may know him as a children's TV presenter. You may know him as the stand-up comedian. You may know him as a children's TV presenter. You may know him as the voiceover of Love Island. He's a man with many strings to his bows,

and he's recently written and starred in a sitcom, which is starting on Thursday, August the 5th on ITV2. It is called Buffering. He's written that with Steve Begea, another wonderful comedian. And there'll be a double episode on ITV2, Thursday, 5th of August at 10 p.m and then all episodes will be available on itv hub now i've seen the first episode i got to take a sneaky peek and it's excellent it's really good i can't wait to see the second episode very funny great characters well worth your time and he's touring he's touring his show failing upwards nationwide from the 14th of september and he's an. He's touring his show, Failing Upwards, nationwide from the 14th of September.

And he's an excellent stand-up comedian. So you should go and see that. Tickets are at iandoesjokes.com. And that's Ian with another extra I when you're not expecting one. He's a sneaky I, Ian. So let's listen to Ian Sterling and myself talking about Taskmaster Series 4, Episode 5. Obviously, go away and watch that episode on all four. If you get the chance beforehand watch along with this but otherwise i'll see you after the episode

welcome ian sterling to the task master podcast hello hello hello ed gamble nice to see you mate it's lovely to see you it's so exciting to have you on i. It's lovely to see you. It's so exciting to have you on. I've been looking forward to this. Oh, I remember. Do you remember we planned to go for, like a lot of people, we had the optimistic, out of the first lockdown, let's go for beers once it's all normal again. We did, yeah. Still not materialised, sadly.

No, but this is the next best thing. I think so. I'll have a digital water with you right now. Yeah, exactly. i just realized i could have i could have an actual water you could have a real water yeah i've got i've got a coffee here we could why don't we have a pint it's only 10 13 a.m that's fine that's fine um thank you very much for coming on the taskmaster podcast in uh of course you uh did the taskmaster series eight yes the series before the best series of

all time the little warm-up into series nine the greatest i remember we were both winner we were you did very well and we were both booked around the same time weren't we so i was sort of we were sort of brief we were sort of chatting to each other about because i think inter-series challenge tasks chats are sort of not as frowned upon so yeah i think that's fine isn't it yeah i i'm very i stick to the rules pretty hard like uh i don't know how i mean i know you did a series with lou sanders he's a little bit more uh free with rules uh she lives her own life was there i'd imagine there were some times when she was trying to talk to you about tasks and you were having to absolutely shut her down well do you know what not not not really when we done the team tasks me and lou are like very good friends in the world

of comedy and we we done new zealand with your fine self we spent a month in new zealand so we're quite close so definitely me lou and paul were told by the production to stop talking about the tasks and we were sort of treating it like um getting points off the taskmaster sort of going well actually if you're we weren't actually talking about necessarily our um individual tasks but merely the how we felt emotionally doing the task and it sort of became another sort of like a sort of like staple of that series just arguing the point for sort of no real reason see because you're all naughty i wouldn't have taken any of that whatsoever would have shut down those conversations because we've got champion of champions coming up uh i was a little bit obsessed with getting on that now this we had a lot of

questions about this actually only but i think you're the only person to ever shout out champion of champions on the show as you're doing a task but i think what a lot of people don't realize is of course you're doing it deliberately as a buildup to something going badly, right? It's the volcano task where you say, this is for the champion of champions. And it's the worst volcano. Do you know what?

The thing about that is, in hindsight is a wonderful thing. And when I thought of that volcano thing, I, hand on my heart, genuinely thought I had absolutely smashed it. Oh right okay. Everyone around me and I think I've listened to this podcast a fair bit and I've spoken to some comedians that have been on the show Taskmaster. The crew and Alex and everyone stay pretty poor faced throughout but I could feel a sort of tinge of excitement with the

crew and Alex and I thought they're excited because this is going to be the best volcano of all time and in hindsight now I know what's happened is they're excited because I have looked out all the characters from previous Taskmaster series victories, lined them up on a hill to put Mentos into a coke volcano that has been lying out for 10 minutes and absolutely has gone flat and isn't going to work so i think they were just sort of excited about it going wrong and i mistook that for excitement that they thought i'd absolutely smashed the task when i'd actually just created quite funny content as it transpires so it's at that point you decide to say this is for champion

of champions and then the volcano does a sort of little a little trump out the top and a terrible a terrible eruption basically sort of really disappointing wet fart really yeah i loved that that was such a highlight for me of that series it's a really fun series i think it's uh the selection of people again really good chemistry and really uh and people you would never ever see together i think yeah i think our series in particular was also sort of like there wasn't any sort of um panel panel show comedians um meaning more we none of us really had experience at the time of that sort of show and also i don't know if it was done on purpose but a lot of us were sort of known for one thing and we're sort of maybe trying to show

another side of ourselves yeah that's interesting i hadn't thought of it like that yeah all of you all of you have like i mean of course do a lot of things but have one thing that's sort of your headline headline thing that you're known for that That's really interesting. Yeah, the thing that you would be shouted at on the bus. A lot of us would be called by a TV show on rather than our name. Like in between us, the chase, Love Island is the sort of thing that would be shouted at us and then everyone would be like,

do you know what my name is or who I am? No clue mate. So yeah, I think there was a bit of that. And I think that definitely flavoured how I approached the show as well, rightly or wrongly. In what way? How did it change it? Well, I've never really done, I think I,

I've not, I mean, first of all, Taskmaster is, and I mean, you have talked about this many times, is genuinely my, well at the time and still is, my sort of favourite telly show on the telly yeah and um the one of the few sort of comedy shows i would seek out and watch live on television and like i'm a huge fan and really enjoy it so i was pretty excited but i've never done a panel show so i think what i've done was i sort of thought right what who is my character on this panel show i know that's sort of a way when in fact i think taskmaster should be more like be yourself I I don't want to talk to him

about him too much because I'm sure he'll come on the pod he might even been on but Joe Thomas we were getting together the other day and he was saying how he's like parents saw him on the show I'm like because he obviously does so much acting they were all brilliant we've that's our son we actually see our son whereas my parents watched Taskmaster and went I don't know if I'm allowed to swear but who the yeah yeah go for it who the fuck is that and I went I thought it would be funny to be sort of like quite um uber competitive and then but then also to to caveat that, I think when you're joking that you're being competitive, but you also are already competitive,

you've got a sort of competitive squared thing going on. Yeah, that's interesting. So I do wish, I loved being on that show and it was like still my favourite thing to do and I'm really proud of it. And I think there's some really funny moments and obviously getting to do it with like, particularly like Lou and I know because we know each other from comedy and we're so friendly and Paul I know for ITV family and stuff and I met meeting Shannon Joe was great as

well um I don't massive regrets but I feel like maybe I should have been a bit more like how I am in real actual life yeah it's it is difficult though. I think, but I certainly saw lots of lovely glimmers of the real, the real. Glimmers? Yeah. It was like, I was like Bruce Banner, just sort of like every now and again, I just show up naked in a ripped up Hawaiian shirt, having shouted at Greg for five minutes. It's the reverse. It's Bruce Banner,

except he's the Hulk most of the time. And then occasionally when he gets, when he relaxes, he turns back into the lovely doctor. Every time he gets four points or more. That is really interesting. I mean, I wish I could say my competitive nature on the show was part of a decision beforehand

to be the competitive character, but unfortunately, it's just my genuine personality I think no, but I think as well I said to my family Oh, yeah, I was just putting on that competitive nature. They were like no no you are that you are But but the not to that degree and also I think as well the thing I don't know people notice when you film it you do like two shows a day So because it was my first time doing a panel show the funny thing about it is if you watch the whole my whole series anyway I sort of calmed down a lot for the last like three or four weeks but actually what's happened is I've done that for about three days realized it wasn't a great fit and then changed

my mind but the problem is by day three day four you've already filmed six or seven or eight episodes yeah so it looks like i'm keeping that up for two months i've only been there three days yeah i think i saw you halfway through the recording process as well so i think there was you had a couple of days off maybe and we went to a birthday party together yes i think it was ashling's birthday party and uh you you and lou were there and i was like oh you're filming taskmaster at the moment how's it going and you and Lou were there, and I was like, oh, you're filming Taskmaster at the moment, how's it going? And you just look, you look quite tired. I think you'd been so,

you'd been absolutely gunning it, all guns blazing at the records that you're like drained of all this competitive nature. Yeah, I think, yeah, and it's just that thing as well, that's the reason the show works so well, is you don't, you just assume, not entirely, but a little bit, you assume everyone must be doing it

the same way and trying just as hard. Yeah. And you do it with the same approach. It's not till, obviously, until you get into the studio you realise how odd your methodology is or how successful or how unsuccessful. Yeah, that's the joy. Part of the reason the show is so brilliant, isn't it?

Sometimes you just, it holds a mirror up to you and you don't always like what you see. Exactly, the joy of the reason the show is so brilliant isn't it sometimes you just it holds a mirror up to you and you don't always like what you see the joy of the show look this is going to be a fun chat because you're clearly a massive Taskmaster fan

so I think you know yourself and this is one of my favourite series as well that we clearly a massive Taskmaster fan, so I think you know yourself. Big, big, big. And this is one of my favourite series as well that we're going to talk about. You know what? I think it's one of mine, and I think I'd forgotten that until I started re-watching it. It's kind of perfect, this series. Yes. Before we get stuck into this one, do you have any particular nice, memorable moments from your series? Any task highlights? Any big moments that you'd uh

you'd like to shout out now um i think the general i mean it sounds a bit cheesy isn't it but the general the general vibe in our series was like really brilliant yeah and like at the at the party we were all just like hanging out and like had such a nice time um I really liked the the fart in a jar that I done yes and again it's that joy of giving it to Greg and everyone everyone knew what was gonna happen passed over to Alex knew it was gonna happen the audience knew it was gonna happen and he had a little he had a little sniff and it was um a real highlight and then the highlight for my friends uh and whatnot was when um i think it's also this is like one of the sort of like an absolute textbook fantastic taskmaster moment where i it was a i had to kick a ball into a goal yeah and i found the perfect loophole of i found a massive goal because they

didn't specify what goal yeah got the bigger goal thought i was an absolute demigod and then obviously missed the full size like a like yeah it was yeah i failed like an awful penalty shootout it just went horribly wrong so obviously i get sent that has been made into a gif that is shared in the majority of my WhatsApp groups whenever Scotland play in any sort of major tournament that gets sent um so yeah it is so but you're right that's a classic Taskmaster my favorite moments are when people smugly find a loophole and they're like yes I'm going to be that guy on Taskmaster I think and then it messes up i absolutely love those moments i think the ultimate one was from the series we're about to talk about oh yeah because it was episode one so you must have talked about on the podcast

already where they had to draw the person without looking at the person and hugh dennis found the mirror so could actually see the person and still drew the worst picture yes fat white bald man yeah we've talked about that already yeah yeah it is genius it's so good right let's get stuck in so the prize task uh the cutest thing we've talked we've talked about your your fart prize task already did you enjoy doing the prize tasks and yes and again I think a lot of people do this particularly comedians with Greg very often you can gamble with some lateral thinking or some creative thinking and every now and again he absolutely adores it but generally

speaking whatever I think the lesson to be learned is whatever they ask for you give them exactly that very good point and this cutest this task is sort of a perfect embodiment of that really i think because um i don't know if you want to go for them one by one first but like knolls was one of the most ingenious, clever price lists I've ever seen. It's a really good idea. Whereas Lawley just followed the note to the letter. Yeah, I think quite often Greg doesn't like anything too clever, clever. So obviously Knowles thought about this and he's picked the googly eyes

and you can make anything cute with them. But, you know, I kind of, I mean, look, I's still, I think he still gets, well, he gets three points. But I kind of agree with Greg there because it is a clever idea, but they themselves are not cute. The prize task is the cutest thing. And you've brought something in to make other things cute. I suppose that's my point. The fact Noel got three points in that task is purely because it was such

a brilliant right executed idea I think if anyone else without his sort of artistic acumen tried to pull that off Greg would have gone plate of eyes one point yeah if Hugh had brought in the plate of eyes yes he would have got he would have asked to leave the studio but the thing is whatever Hugh brings in at this point um he's always getting one point so I think Hugh is the most underrated terrible Taskmaster contestant of all time you're right he doesn't get talked about enough as being a terrible Taskmaster contestant yeah like Nish Nish who obviously was what a joy was to watch but like you've got like your Kumars of the world and he was sort of running on under the radar and he's also hugh is also genuinely like really bad but in like such a such an enjoyable way yeah just quietly

terrible it's really good so he got he got one point in uh in six out of the eight prize tasks he came last in six out of the eight prize tasks. It reminds me of Joe Thomas in our year because he's an actor and never done this before. Again, I don't want to ruin it for you cause you'll need to speak to him about it. But he felt after day one, he had the same moment of Hugh of like, I have horribly misjudged this. Where Joe just got the quiz, the prize task

and filled it in 10 minutes. Like it was sort of like a genuine questionnaire. Smallest thing, thing a p next one so he was genuinely looking over to us going and then lou's obviously like i spent a month on this i took a retreat to a cabin in the woods to think it through not you know what i mean yeah i've used a bit of artistic life and joe's like i filled it in like on the train on the way here yeah I just thought this was just like a to get a flavor of my character I don't so yeah yeah for the smell one but I thought this was brilliant so I thought I don't think he necessarily did that

well but the smell one which I guess is the one that you brought the fart in for he had the tomato when you take the stalk off a tomato the smell just like you take the stalk of a tomato which is it's really he taps into he taps into certain people's brains so i would i'd watch those with my girlfriend and she went oh my god yeah that smells amazing it's like all right you're weird as well yeah he did not tap into greg's No, not specifically didn't tap into Greg's mind. So let's, I mean, let's talk about Hugh's, Hugh's one pointer, a toy cat that when you press it, its eyes pop out and it meows. I mean, I don't know what Hugh thinks cute is, but that is not cute. It's absolutely horrifying. It feels, and also it feels like one of the first tasks where he sort of tried to

think outside the, I don't know, it feels like he tried to do something a bit clever but he wasn't was he just thought this is it's almost looks like he's tried to be clever and actually just or he's literally just like he's gone into like no the bowl you've got by your um door with like key like an old key for like a garage and there's like just a random cat with mad eyes and he's just going off whatever taking a picture that i sent it to some producer it's when he he he's the only he does this a few times during the series he's the only person who has the thing with him in his hand like he's obviously insisted on demonstrating it to greg as if that's going to help he's like and he keeps saying it's cute

as well he's like isn't that cute it's like well you know you failed already if you keep saying it's cute my and i am and for anyone listening to this podcast i know i am um the worst person in the world for this but the the mistake of once greg's made his mind up the worst thing you can do is so greg goes that's not cute and then hugh goes wait i've got it actually in real life like that he goes oh actually no when you see it up close beautiful yeah that wasn't the case at all so it's another i think another deserved one point solid that's i'd say it's his most solid one point of the series actually yeah even more so than malcolm x i'd say it was um one pointer yeah because some of them he's unlucky like i quite like the cloud

yeah i like the cloud yeah yeah um he's i'm yeah he's okay so i think mel comes close to the one point here which is the cuddly um pea pod with the three peas only because i think there there is a world in which they are cute um not personally to me greg doesn't think they're cute and she has a chance with the voices to make them cute and she makes them i mean it's such a good moment but horrifying the voice the voices to make them cute. And she makes them, I mean, it's such a good moment, but horrifying. The voices are awful. They're like Chucky's sort of little nephews or something.

Horrific. But then again, I do think Mel got, this is where the show can be frustrating in that Mel got a little bit unlucky in terms of she was told to bring in something cute. Those peas have been objectively designed by a company to be cute peas like that's what they are so by the letter of the law i can feel myself already getting back to like taskmaster ian they are meant to be cute so when someone just turns and goes no i don't think they're cute yeah she done well not to sort of um

get more frustrated because that's the thing isn't it because i guess cuteness itself is subjective anyway and then you've got to remember that you're doing the cutest thing to appeal to greg so i but how do you know that you need to do a little bit i guess a little bit of research into what greg thinks is cute yeah but but then like lolly's picture of herself is undeniable there's going to be no one in the world who doesn't think that that's the cutest thing yeah there's still enough there is still enough chance for greg that he'll just go no yeah because it's funny to say of course put the picture of the sweet child at one point yeah but yeah like again by the letter of the law that's why i'm saying

that's why i like um these tasks so much every now again, you get, in our series particularly, everyone would try to be clever, particularly in tasks, then Paul would just try his best to finish a task. And sometimes, merely by finishing the task, he would finish first or second because we all tried to be clever

and messed it up. Yeah, and flamed out. Whereas Lolly's gone, cute, picture of me, job done. On to the next one um joe uh lysa i think would have won with a picture of his dog bertie but you can't if you've got a picture of a tiny lovely baby and a picture of a dog you can't you can't start putting the dog first well now that i've got both i can officially tell you baby trump's dog every

time unfortunately yes you've got yeah of course yeah baby cuter's dog every time, unfortunately. Yes, you've got... Yeah, of course, yeah. Baby cuter than dog every time. Four points for Joe's dog Bertie. I think I'm on that, yeah. Yeah, very solid, solid stuff. Mel? I bought him... It's so cute.

It's a little toweling pee pod and then you unzip it and then you see the little three peas inside It's honestly going to check this out It doesn't like it now what what's wrong what's wrong great don't work for me They've all got different characters and different voices You can do different voices the voices of each of the three and I'll see if that makes it better. The one on the left, he speaks like that.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. And the one in the middle talks like that. Well, I mean, he's clearly having an inappropriate relationship with everyone. And the one on the right talks like that. Irritating.

So, let's move on to task one It's another good one It's another very open task Slide the furthest You have 20 minutes and one attempt Your time starts now This is all about the definition of slide really isn't it Yeah I think again in our series

This would have descended into absolute chaos And Lou would have descended into absolute chaos. And Lou would have been dragged down the M1 on the back of a lorry or something. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Ian. I think you and I both would have done something very similar to what Joe and Lolly did. A hundred million percent. I'd have, I would be like, some, some poor taskmaster assistant would be in boots buying so much lubricant that they would, they'd be investigated by the authorities. Would you have gone for lube then? I would have definitely gone and I would have gone for a, I would have probably overthought it and for a laugh, gone for like a particular flavor or something like that it's a good idea though like lube and

maybe like a like a sort of giant novelty condom that you could climb inside that i wouldn't have gone that i wouldn't have thought of that and then i would have been gutted for not thinking it and then someone would have told me that on twitter and i'd be upset for a week because that was my first thought when i saw this was definitely do the slip and slide thing of the tarpaulin and some sort of lubricating substance. I'm thinking like, yeah, I'm thinking like American sort of what's it called frat party. Is that right?

Is that the term? Where they've got this hose and then everyone's sliding that sort of thing. Cause I think I've done that sort of thing when I was a kid in like people's gardens and loved it. And I think for a long time, you know, that sort of thing you're like i wish i could do that as an adult yeah i definitely use that opportunity on my state when

i where i grew up it was like on a sunny day when one of the neighbors got the hose out it was just like it was the amount of children descended it was insane and we're all like flying around fairy liquid in a hose you can keep children I mean, a lot of people got quite severely injured, but it was still a laugh. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really work. The system doesn't work. Both, you know, Lolly came bottom and Joe came second bottom.

Lolly's in particular is hilarious because she builds up to it for so long and then misses the sled completely. I had volcano flashbacks when I watched Lolly hit that. Yeah, if only she'd shouted, here comes champion of champions before she did it. Yeah, yeah. She really dropped the ball there, actually, to be fair.

And it is the youngest contestants who go for that. So I think it's the people most in contact with their own childhood, like the closest to their own childhood, who have that sort of, that nostalgia for that sort of, that nostalgia for that sort of thing. I think if Hugh had hit the ground as hard as Lawley did, I don't know if he'd be getting

back up really. Well, Hugh is the man who tried to do flips over a pommel horse onto concrete and they made him put a crash mat down. So I reckon... Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that. Yeah, so I think he probably would have been all right. I mean, the thing you've got to remember about Hugh is Hugh is now 60, but he's in pretty damn good shape.

There's some moments during this episode where I'm like, Hugh's keeping it tight. Yeah, well, I'm Scottish, so I'm probably about an English 56 at the minute. Noel slides down the drive as well but minimal effort I'd say from Noel on a sort of standing on a bodyboard and still manages to make it look cool.

Yeah, it's sort of mad that that he was just sort of slowly shifting really unimpressively down a hill and you're still like, huh. It felt like you could see that projected on a wall at a sort of like an art exhibition and it would mean sort of like about the fertility of life or something like that it's the it's the silver boots isn't it in the in this instance and the just sort of loosely pushing himself on the and he did a good job i mean he tried to he tried to hack the task as well by starting again at the top um but uh but they would only allow one attempt which i think

was fair and he got quite angry about that i think one of the first times we've seen noel angry and calls alex a dick in the studio yeah i would i did i wouldn't you'd never see me doing something like that no you'd never see me doing something like that no uh hugh uh uses the rope tied to a tree to uh slide himself along on the sled again straight hugh again trying to hack it by uh claiming that's a slide which i i guess it is a slide but i think if you're being pernickety it's lots of little slides over and over again so really you should only take the first little shift. Yeah, well, I would also... There is an argument for his...

I suppose he is sliding, but he's pulling himself. Yeah, but I guess you need that forward momentum, whatever, right? Somewhere, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think you can probably argue that it is a slide. It's just whether... Like, if Noel isn't allowed to get off the board, go up to the top and start again, why is Hugh allowed to do lots of little ones?

Yeah, I thought that they decided, all right, okay, yeah, they were only going to do, because I would have technically thought, the way they said you're only going to take one into account. One attempt, yeah. Initially, I thought they meant one little slide. Yeah. So when he said that originally,

I thought Noel was going to get the distance of one, like one shuffle. Yes. So he would have got about three centimetres or something. Well, same with Hugh, because he was shuffling as well. But it says slide the furthest. You have 20 minutes in one attempt.

So it's quite open. Like they both do slide the furthest. But in that sense, I feel like if you're allowing Hughes, you should also allow Noel's multiple restarts. But in that sense, I feel like if you're allowing Hughes, you should also allow Knowles multiple restarts. I think it's, yeah. And I also, I do still wonder if you could say one attempt

at the slide is one shift of the bum or one pull on the rope. Yeah. There is an argument to be made there. I mean, in that, yeah, if that was the case, then I think, yeah, Lolly would be third. Yeah. Because Mel would have smashed it,

however you look at the rules. Absolutely smashed it. They all get in. So great. Always getting other people involved, hack. Yeah. No matter how many series you go, when it's done well, it still blows your mind. Yeah.

And quite often Alex will refuse. But obviously it wasn't Alex in this case. It was, I think it was Gary, the cameraman and someone else. I can't remember who did it. But Gary was definitely involved. Yeah. Mel basically turned herself into the peas. She became one of the pea pods and climbed into the sleeping bag,

got all trussed up. And then two crew members pulled her around for 50 56.5 meters it was great and i love it and the cushions from the caravan as well so she could glide over the concrete because yeah i sort of initially forgot she'd put the cushions in and when she was headed towards the concrete i thought oh my god and then it was fine crisis averted the thing when people find something like that when so she did that when rob in series three uh when they had to propel the p found the system of putting it in the wheelbarrow so you've got the thing that could technically go on forever yeah how do you decide when to stop because the paranoia is is that you found that thing and you're like well i've

definitely smashed it i've gone 56 meters how do you know someone you know someone's not gonna al murray it and put the p in a cab yeah well this is the problem and also how would you not know that your loophole has actually rendered the whole thing pointless yeah for example in my um in my uh series and we have this with the um live task at the end of the show we had to run the furthest with making this continuous noise yes so i beatboxed and ran about seven laps of the field nearly killed myself and then they said that because it was beatboxing it was one beat so i got about three inches registered i was absolutely knackered i ran that around that field so much so yeah there's also that worry that you can carry on doing this forever and then but

that but to be fair this is the joy of task must you may not have done well on that task but it did introduce the world to boots and cats and boots and cats yes it blew my mind that um greg didn't know that you know yeah and that's just the sort of thing he loves yeah let's see who this is what i'm saying about the greg who would have known known that the amount of time I spent on my prize tasks, and he hated most of them, and then I say, oh, boots and cats. He's like, brilliant. I missed it. If Lolly had worn a wool suit and fallen onto Velcro,

would she have slid the same to the side? Lolly slid 3.2 metres. That's the same height as Kylie Minogue standing on a horse. Joe, 5.80 metres. Vince Vaughan on Owen Wilson on Ben Stiller on an unlit barbecue. But there's a clear winner, and that is Mel... Get on! Bye! Task two. Maintaining constant icon... This is a long winner, and that is Mel Gidroy. Bye. Task two.

Maintaining constant eye contact. This is a long one, strap in. Maintaining constant eye contact and making continuous small talk at all times with this Swedish person. Put on the wetsuit, flippers, fake mask and snorkel. Your head may not leave the Swedish person's frame at any point. You may not move the laptop from its current position. Fastest wins.

Your time starts when the Swedish person smiles at you. You get a five second time penalty. Every time you break eye contact, a bonus point will go to whoever puts on the wetsuit. The best. A lot to remember. And most of them forgot at least one bit of it. That, those, I think, Alex, now, as well as the comedian,

I think the reason Taskmaster has lasted as long as it has, as the comedians and contestants find ways of, like, finding loopholes and getting around tasks, Alex also now knows ways of tripping people up. And the sort of, like, feet-first people, I'd say I'd put myself there a bit, maybe, like, yourself, someone like Nish, we are starting that task with about 30% of the information by the end because.

You just see wetsuit. I know, so there's something that, this is where Alex is so clever. Do you know the one thing you'd never forget about that task? Swedish man, absolutely not important, but for some reason that is the one thing you remember at all times. It's like, this guy's Swedish. Don't forget he's Swedish. It doesn't affect it in any way whatsoever. I guess it might help with the small talk. Good point. Also, it was horrible

watching this back in the current climate, just watching a bunch of comedians essentially doing a Zoom gig. Yeah. And Mel keeps saying, I don't do this. She goes, I don't do this sort of thing. And she doesn't even know what it's called. She goes, I don't, I've never filmed myself into a computer before.

Filmed myself into a computer. Even my gran would go, that's not the terminology for that. And Mel was on this podcast last week. And let me tell you, she is now very used to filming herself into a computer. Yeah, I did actually feel a sort of tinge of like sadness when Mel's like, I hate doing

this. I'm never going to do this. I'm like, well, for about 18 months, if you want to talk to people you love. Yeah, it was very, it was very odd. I mean, yeah, I think this is a tricky, tricky task, but it is funny seeing people trying to stick to the rules. I mean, let's talk about Noel straight away. Disqualified, and I think he very much deserved to be disqualified. This is one of the only times with Noel,

and he's such a good Taskmaster contestant, and wins the whole series. One of the best. This is one where i feel like on that day he just wasn't having it no he could not be bothered with this i think there's certain ones where he thinks right this is actually physically like just a physical task you've got to physically do a thing and i can't like like the sliding like the it's like there's no way i can art this up i can't like be creative or like left field

so i've just got to do what i'm told and and he's not about that life really yeah i think you're completely right i mean he tried i mean he tries to look like he's arting it up by putting everything on like the wetsuit on his head and stuff yeah which is like still like quite an old thing to do but i think it really comes from a place of not being bothered with it at all yeah yeah he's basically good i'm not putting this on. He's not taking off those silver boots for no one. No way. And tries to say, oh, it's on my head, so it's on.

But we all know he just wanted to get out of it in two minutes, and so he did. He's still got a bonus point for quality of small talk, though. I mean, you can't think. He's just got it because the thing is he's got so much to talk, like so much to talk about. Some of the, we'll get onto them, I'm guessing, but like some of the questions people ask. Absolutely. Any highlights of the questions people ask?

Joel Issa, favourite type of yoghurt, probably Swedish man, wetsuit, in his brain went yoghurt. Favourite type of yoghurt, please. I mean, I'm guessing this task took place just after lunch. That's the only thing I can think. He just had a yoghurt, yeah. He literally just had a yoghurt.

That was a beauty. Joe did very well, though. He did it in 6 minutes 32, and he got the wetsuit bonus point for being the only one to put the wetsuit on. Yeah, he was the only one to put it on, right? Yeah, we would have put it on, wouldn't we? I would have. Are you joking? Yeah, I would have had it on. I would have still had it on now.

Mel did terribly at this because, like we say, she's not used to filming herself into a computer. Doesn't like filming into a computer at all. No, kept breaking eye contact. There was a lot of that. I mean, it is hard. The idea now of even us doing this now of having to get something and, you know, unzip the thing, I guess you can sort of do it, but your eyes constantly feel like they want to be pulled away. Even when you're on a call, like a sort of Zoom call, there's a horrible moment where you realise, oh, I've been looking at the little small square in the corner of my own head

rather than the person that I'm talking to. So it's like really hard on a screen to like stay engaged. And like I said, that's why Alex does this task is packed full of so much information. The eye contact thing, quite often, I think people just genuinely forgot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of those things like they're so busy

with the wetsuit that they completely forgot. Yeah, you've got wetsuit and Swedish man in your head and there's not much room for anything else hugh did okay uh hugh did it in six minutes 45 uh got three points uh lolly was the quickest absolutely smashed it five minutes 45 um and got five points five points as well yeah i think i think this task as well was like if you you had to predict how Hugh would have done on this one, it's basically he's sort of like done exactly what you'd expect. Yeah, exactly. And then Noel was sort of like, I thought he was going to do a lot better.

He really surprised me. But like you said, I just think he just wasn't having it. He'd been slid on his bottom for ages and he was just furious. I like Hugh. Are you single? Yeah. Do you like to cook Swedish food? No, I think it's quite boring. Really?

What are you looking for in a relationship? Good question. See, that's probably why I'm single. Oh, no. What's your favourite type of quiche? Quiche. What's your favorite type of quiche? Quiche. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials.

Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices.

We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Task three, Team Task. Please whisper this task to Alex. Hugh and Lottie's task, put as many different things in the bathtub as possible. Most different things in the bathtub wins.

Joe and Mel got seal the top of this bathtub with cling film. Most successfully, cling film bathtub wins. And Noel got fill the bathtub with water. Most water in the bathtub wins. You have three minutes your time starts when alex blows his whistle i mean what a team task this is i mean how much do you want to talk about team task seeing because we got we did get some questions in about no absolutely i'd love i'd absolutely love to talk about it because i think this particularly is a really interesting team task to talk to you about because in this team task

the idea is to make all the team work against each other and the bathtubs involved yeah whereas whereas there was a famous team task in your series with the hammock with the hammock where everyone just started working against each other anyway even though that wasn't part of it i don't it was it's such a it's really funny with those team tasks because i think we were all sort of working together and there was a big i think if you watch that there was a first because obviously there are two times i think the first five ten minutes we sort of had this steady plan together yeah and the plan started falling apart and that's when i tried to sort of take control of the situation and then I think what

happened was as I leapt in a hammock and just sort of started getting frustrated we just so it was a yeah because it is but it's also that funny thing of and at the time this is the weird thing about it watching it back at the time when that task had finished me Lou and Paulul went back into the house and were just blethering away like it had been any task yeah sure yeah like literally i don't none of us thought anything of it like nothing it went yeah but me lou and paul were very bad at team tasks like they just we didn't have the right chemistry as a unit to sort of work together. And we're also, we know each other as well. So like also in between we're sort of just blethering about life and like just having a friendly chat. So our heads aren't really in the game

either as much as they can be for Taskmaster tasks. And then it isn't until, and lots of people have this, you watch it back and then you see the sort of harsh reality of what's taking place and you're like, oh God. So I was like, on the day, I was, I actually got quite upset in the studio during that task. Actually genuinely upset. And it was just because it's not how I remember the day and how anyone else remembered the day.

But yeah, so like I can totally see this with this task at hand. It's a weird one where it is that funny thing of it's not even so much the people are working against each other. I think they've all just plowed on with what they need to do. No one's taken 30 seconds to have a chat with one another

and then they would have realised. Whereas we spent too long chatting with each other and then there was no time to execute. And then there was frustrations flying around. When you're shown that in the studio, it's a very human moment actually. And you're like, oh man. Yeah. And also it's like Paul and Lou, like I said, I hope they don't mind me saying this, Paul and Lou, we all got equally, like we all equally messed up that task and got equally frustrated by that task. Because I can, we know Lou,

in that task she's quite serious and is like quite focused on it, which is not normal for Lou at all. So you can tell she's frustrated because she's not being like really silly. So like you can see everyone's focused. I mean,ul's just stood next to a barrel for most of it isn't he paul's paul's you know you know revising for a quiz in

the background somewhere um but yeah it's uh it's a it's a real it's a really interesting watch i gotta say i feel like this is what a lot of like reality tv stars saying i did but like that was obviously a 20 minute thing that got cut down to like two three minutes yeah and also there's a context that people don't have of like me and lou are mates yeah i mean i was on lou's podcast and we were talking about it like that i suppose the most the reason i was so upset on the day was twofold there's one seeing yourself like that and obviously there was an element where i did get frustrated um and i'm and i did behave in that way so like that that is horrible to see yourself like that but then there's a other argument is like then the other side of it is like but it on the day in context it wasn't it wasn't like i was just shouting at

some random people like it was my friends we were doing a task exactly progressively got more wrong and it was everyone has arguments with their friends like that like that just looked like you know anytime you have to work with a mate or like it looked like you know if if you invite a mate over to build a flat pack or uh and you just get frustrated with each other it was yeah you know it's the fact that you're so close that you could act like that with each other it's just the i suppose ultimately the maddest thing about it was the fact that me lou and paul walked back into that house just thinking oh well that's another task done like there was no point where we thought oh we got really frustrated at each other there yeah yeah well i mean safe to say if if i'd had to do

anything like that with david baddiel i would have strangled him with a fucking hammock. If Noel Filden had to paint a portrait with Hugh Dennis. So Mel and Hugh did very well here. They worked together. They obviously established with each other that they were doing different things. They said out loud to each other, each other that they were doing different things they said out loud to each other they communicated that they were doing different things because that was not not allowed that was not banned within the task you were allowed to talk to each other and you're allowed to communicate which they did very quickly and then they realized that you know you got to put all the things in and then cover them with

cling film which he helped with and then they covered alex's feet in cling film as well it was great. It was proper, proper teamwork. It was brilliant teamwork. I still don't understand why he threw that. Was it a Zimmer frame? He threw in one object that was bigger than the bath. I just thought you've absolutely smashed this so hard.

Why not just put in loads of golf? He put some like loads of golf balls, loads of small things. And he still threw in a thing that's got quite sharp edges and larger than the bath, making the cling film more difficult it's classic here isn't it getting it's it's snatching uh snap snatching defeat from the jewels of victory absolute classic here um they did very well anyway joe lolly and noel i'd say the opposite yes i always find um sort of the if there's an older pairing in the team tasks,

they tend to do better than the younger. I mean, I also think the two people are an advantage to the three people, generally speaking, in the team tasks. Yes, definitely, which is why I think maybe Joe, Lolly and Noel deserved maybe one point at least because of the fact they had noel as well doing the water thing and that was not something that the two-person team had to had to contend with but then i think they absolutely screwed it didn't they they just was horrific crazy this team is so chaotic because there was a task where they had to get flower onto

a target a couple of episodes ago and they just went feral they just started chucking as much stuff as they could like they're all so chaotic there's no organized one in there um so there's an amazing moment in this where where i think lolly puts the table in joe immediately takes the table out without saying anything and then just from nowhere noel runs in with a hose and it's just so mad when noel appears with the hose i laugh out loud every single time it's you know another thing as well um genuinely true the first time i watched this i think i was just like not paying attention so i didn't i thought it was fill things with a bath and cling film because i'd watched the the two team because i watched basically the the first two get the task. So I'd missed that

Noel Fielding had to fill the bath with water. So when Noel Fielding just runs in with a hose, I lost my actual mind because I thought he just, I thought he'd done another thing of like he thought well each droplet of water counts as a thing or something. I thought he'd done that with his head. It was just absolutely mad. Anything in life where you can be like, I was trying to do a task, and the whole time Noel Fielden was stood next to me with a hose is going to be pretty tricky. Yeah, I love it.

I mean, I wouldn't change it for the world, but they were terrible at that. They didn't communicate. They all sabotage each other. It just turns into absolute chaos. Nought points for them. I've been there. I understand their pain,

and they deserve what they got. I mean, what have you got to say to yourselves? I mean, at least Noel, there was a slight nod from Noel at the beginning. Is this a team task, he asked, and then he just stood there pissing water into a bath while Rome burned.

And I've got another question. What's with the table? You put a giant table in about five times. I thought the table would stop the cling film from ruining my journey. Task four. There's a lot of four-task episodes in this series. Yeah.

Throw something into something. Most unbelievable throw wins. You have ten minutes to plan your throw then 10 minutes to pull it off your time starts now i'd say i mean this is gonna might sound harsh i'd say all of these attempts are quite bad this task smacks of when i'm on the show and i every now and again you sort of imagine what alex wants to happen right and i can sort of see in my head that he wants four people to fail and the law of averages one person's just going to pull off an absolute wonder throw and boom that's television it doesn't quite happen does it it's we had a few

of them in our series where yeah none of us gave you what you needed there. I can only apologise. When the highlight is Mel throwing a dummy about an inch. About an inch, because she saw it on the A-team, throwing a dummy into a car. But why is she blindfolded in that scenario? Also, the blindfolded thing, if she was not blindfolded, she could have made the throw look more impressive, I reckon. And also, also you can't pick it's also funny that you do a throw that the whole point is you have to take hundreds of throws and they just get one and they keep it so if you do the throw first time you've

got to think to yourself probably not hard enough that but it's still look she gets five points which is a lot about a perfect a perfect example of it example of Paul Sinner approach of just complete the task and let everyone else mess it up and you'll get higher up the leaderboard than you'd ever expected. They all seem to forget that they needed to do

the most unbelievable throw. All of these throws, I mean, some of them are unbelievable in that they thought they would be unbelievable. Lolly from the umpire's chair throwing Skittles into alex's cup of tea

how long did it take her to come up with that she she must just be like oh yeah i'll just do also like they're they're sort of weirdly it's the first time i've seen them like properly make like especially joe like joe's throw was actually quite impressive because it's such a small hole that he's thrown the thing into yeah but you want to make it a big object into a big, do you mean like a basketball over your head or something? Yeah, exactly. So actually Joe's throw is probably more tricky than something that would have looked rather impressive.

Yeah. But it's just, it was so intricate. He's so close to it as well. Yeah. So it was a, it was a funny one. Yeah. Maybe the internet viral sensations weren't as big a thing back then no one had watched like people you know slam dunking from the halfway

line or whatever but i thought hugh's um idea was brilliant yeah like a really good idea i mean he himself points out the logic uh the logical flaw in it of why he's throwing toast back into a toaster i mean yeah then if you're looking at the logic of it why is the toaster on the roof um but it's great to see the roof involved because quite often they won't let anyone use the roof I think everyone every series asks to get on the roof to do something and they have I can imagine obviously wasn't there I can imagine Lou Sanders asked to go on the roof every task even they told her every time you're never going on the roof and then she kept asking

get this thing wet take me to the roof hughes reminds me of weirdly just a weird connection reminds me of that series of breaking bad where there's a pizza on top of the house oh yeah um the problem with hughes is well the the main problem is he never get i don't think he ever gets one in, does he? Or does he get one in? He gets one in, but he goes up a stepladder and basically places it in. Places it in, yeah. If he had got one in from the floor

and he'd remembered to take away the old attempts every time, then it would have been great. It would have edited out so nicely. It's like the way they did Nish's thing of getting the basketball in. Yeah, I think that's why I've said basketball so many times during this, because I think I've got that in my head. Yeah, where he took multiple attempts,

but they first showed the one he got it in with and it looked like he'd done it first time. I think that's possibly what they were after, or maybe even where the idea for that task came from was this task. That's what I think. I think they were looking for them to like yeet a bowling ball into like the door

of the caravan or something. And instead everyone started picking up. Alex's heart must have sunk when skittles and nuts were picked up. And then with Mel, she picks up a dummy, oh, we're getting somewhere here and then she puts on a blindfold and he goes brilliant um noel is the only one we haven't talked about uh he got four points for throwing the tennis ball into a caravan and then i guess the idea is that it

bounces around in the caravan and then comes out the window right yeah we obviously know that's that's not happening which in itself is unbelievable That's another way of looking at this task is you could have faked a throw with camera trickery. I thought that's what he was doing because when he caught the ball, I thought that was a record cut when he caught the ball. It's hard to catch a ball on a tennis racket, really hard. And then he failed to get it in the bucket.

Which was actually, also the funniest thing is he should have caught that catch of that tennis ball ball if you know that is really hard he should have caught that and then walked off yeah five points yeah yeah straight i mean five points easy in this one um but it didn't go in the bucket one point for lolly two points for joe's uh nut cone three points for hugh's toast uh four points uh for niles tennis ball and five points for Mel's blindfolded throwing half a body into a slightly moving car. I think the proof of the pudding with these internet videos is whether you can imagine people chatting next to the water cooler

on a Monday morning about them. So perhaps we could role play some of them. OK, you just be standing by the water cooler. Have you seen that video? Which video? The one of a guy throwing a nut into the small end of a traffic cone that he is seated relatively close to. You try and do it, you bellend.

The live task, make the longest continuous noise. There will also be a bonus point for the best noise. As you say, the longest continuous noise went on and evolved and turned up in series eight as well, paired with the running. Did you enjoy the live tasks, Ian? I think I was quite bad at them, but like I liked the,

obviously being in front of an audience and stuff was quite was quite nice there was little moments when you got away with stuff and like the audience maybe clocked it but Alex and Greg didn't there was one we had to name different types of birds and I made one up and then immediately failed when they came back to me for another type of bird because I genuinely was like oh I might my bread I thought well I've lost I didn't you were going to carry on the audience laughed when i went there's spooking them bloop or whatever it was and everyone just let that slide greg look to me and for this guy knows these birds we better um so busy thinking about that i hate things like that where you've got to go around a circle and say something and then you're spending the whole time while everyone else is answering not thinking of a new thing but going oh god i can't think of

anything i can't think of anything it's or you just think or you think of one and you just focus on it and then just the person before you always says that one thing so yeah how did you find the live ones some of them were fun it depended what they were really we had a lot of fun physical ones i think i did pretty badly in a lot of them um but then there are a couple that i just nailed and it was very sort of just by virtue of throwing myself into them uh but there are a few artistic ones which i'm not good at and anything like we had one which should be so much fun which was sliding um drinks along a bar um like in a like in a saloon and I should have

been good at that but I just fluffed it, I fluff anything like that so I think I went out maybe sometimes. I always found whenever I was in a position where, again it's because you care so much right, because I love the show so much you sort of want to win at least one of the episodes so you can

say you won one and you've got everyone's cool prizes and stuff um so when when the live task was between like winning it and not that's when i just absolutely crumbled i just put far too much yeah i the the final um live task was um guessing the length of breadsticks uh and in my head i was like if i don't do well at this i'm not going to win the series and i i went out first and so i think in my head I'd lost I think I'd done the calculations wrong so I had to go and sit on a little bench and if they'd cut to me more than they did it would have they would have seen a very grumpy little boy really ruining the end for myself

this is a fun live test though this I'd forgotten about this one it really made me laugh the longest continuous noise uh bonus point for the best noise noel's noise that makes greg laugh straight away and then no laugh straight away is so funny it's so good this is why this is why this shows like unrivaled and like on like you can't you can't make it up like it's just yeah no field and making a noise at greg Davies and then they all both just laugh for ages imagine if you went into Sky right here I've got a plan here's my pitch oh does this noise last for ages

no like a couple it'll be about seven seconds of telly it's so good it's so good Mel I thought did pretty well I thought she was I thought it was unlucky that there was a little pause there great noise

Lolly's made me laugh as well because it was so loud so immediately and I thought Lolly the great thing about Lolly is you think she's going to do something sort of like quiet and weird and she just goes and you're like whoa because she's such a good singer as well she's got a proper set of lungs

on her so she managed to absolutely wail her way through that um joe very very good noise as well really and so that was that made me laugh because it was way quieter than i expected yeah and so poised he looked like a little choir boy you can tell he saw i think he thought i'll let out less air this way i think is what he's thinking and he really he's really trying as well that makes me laugh and then hughes had all that time to think about it so he's like he And he's really trying as well. That makes me laugh. And then Hugh's had all that time to think about it. So he's like, he starts to take his belt off and says, I don't know if this is going to work.

Because I thought he was going to pull down his trousers and pants and fart. I thought he was going to do a fart. We all, I mean, it says, does it say more about us than it says about Hugh? I don't know. Or blow across his dick hole like a bottle top. Yeah.

Play it like a pan pan. know or blow across his dick hole like a bottle top yeah play it like a pan that's my next pitch for sky all right my plan is hugh dennis plays his genitals like pan pipes i reckon i reckon he'd do it if he also got to do the voiceover for it my dick sponsored by Warburton's he lost 30 seconds but he gets the bonus point for the best noise so he gets five points as well as Joe and then it's Noel with one Mel with two and Lolly with three that means the final scores this episode it's a draw

between Mel and Hugh on 21 points then Joe then Lolly then Noel so there's a draw between uh mel and hugh on 21 points then joe then lolly then noel so there's a tie break eat as many peas as possible you have one minute your time starts now those there must be so many tie breaks from taskmaster that have just never been shown because i think you filmed maybe five i think five yeah and there's there was definitely there was one tie breaker one where I and I think they tell you about yeah correctly because there was one task where I was like well there's there's like I think there was two tasks that at the end of the task I was like well that's no one's done it that and then the one of them I got like two

points but there was one I was like I've absolutely smashed this and they were like yeah it's a tie breaker and you're like oh yeah uh hugh won 199 p's well done hugh dennis uh he wins an episode um series points um it pretty much now i think stays as the series wraps up so it's noel first joe second mel third hugh fourth and lolly bottom which is how the series ends and i think it stays like this for for the rest of the series yeah but a very entertaining series it is too it's just brilliant it's just it's just got it's got all it's got all the elements like the arty one kooky one the useless one it's got it's got everyone it's got everyone and no there's no real angry one actually like Like Ian or Ed competitive. No, there isn't.

That's interesting, isn't it? It's almost as if you don't need an angry one. What? It's a little joke. A little joke there. OK, on the whistle. Good luck, Laurie. I have asthma.

Me too. Ready? Love the stance. It's good. WHISTLE BLOWS HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS

HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS HE SINGS APPLAUSE If only you'd finished that with a full vomit onto the stage. So we've got some emails here for you, Ian. I mean, we've covered quite a lot of it because there was an know an email from mario saying how the hell didn't ian's volcano work he put a million mentos in it i think what

happened was i took all the coke out of the bottles poured them into a non-airtight tube and over the preceding minutes the gas went out of all the coke that'll do it um that'll do it you found the one way it doesn't work um hi ed and ian uh does ian still wear his greg onesie uh and matching clothes uh love the show and competitive contestants like you too many thanks connor from plymouth yeah i do i wear the t-shirt every now and again to my my wife's delight yeah quite a weird thing to wear it's the only t-shirt that your partner doesn't like that they don't say i'll just wear that one to bed yeah because that's even worse but yeah no i was really

i was really happy with that yeah that was it that was a really really really good prize task um this is from anne hi just want to say that ian is one of my all-time favorite contestants his sheer joy enthusiasm and determination are how i think I would be on the show my question is Ian says he'll be on champion of champions at a few points of the show at what point did that dream fade um probably about episode three when Lou was had more points than the rest of us combined yeah she really she really runs away with it she's just made for it like do you know I mean and it was that thing of, again, you won, so you'll be that person. What you thought you thought was something really clever,

and she always had another way of doing it. Our series was a lot closer, though. So the lead of ours switched around a lot. So I think it was never David. David was never in the lead. But between me, Rose, and Katie, it bounced around quite a lot. So it's pretty close up until maybe the last couple of episodes i'd say but it was i think the moment i knew i wasn't

going to win it is when we had to like get near to alex without alex seeing us and lou immediately popped a bin on her head that was genius i was like this woman is like made for this TV show. She's unbelievably good at it. That's when I probably, that's very, very good. Let's have one, one more. This is about the fart in a jar.

This is from Amy. Hi, Ed and Ian. Did you actually fart in a jar? If not, what smell was actually used to torture Alex? If so, congrats.

Thank you for the podcast. Thank you. The, the full disclosure. Initially, Thank you for the podcast. Thank you. Full disclosure, initially, I did attempt a fart in a jar more times than anyone would care to imagine. And then it was decided,

I think by Alex, that he would locate something that smelled bad and pop it in a jar. There is a thing, I think it's that smell stuff that's used to like wake unconscious people up you ever seen that like smelling salts that sort of idea but it did have a real whiff of um of guts about it though yeah i love so when were you attempting this was this in at home at home and i washed out three um uh three marmalade jars specifically for it you wash them out that's so yeah i didn't want it i didn't want greg thinking that my fart smell of like apricots

yeah and you want yeah you want someone to smell it and be like that's a fart you don't want to be like oh and then i did think but then and then a friend of mine on the way i said i said i couldn't get in the fight and they went Pringles tin and I thought of course. Yeah that's classic. Of course classic I should have done Pringles tin. Yeah But then I would have felt sorry for the person that works on the show

who would have had to have spent an hour before the show de-branding a Pringles tin with a fart in it The effort was there I do promise. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. No one's doubting that. We all know, Ian, as a contestant,

the effort was always there. That is a good point. Do you know what? People, I might have split some people, but no one can deny I really tried. Yeah, I mean, the worry with you farting in a jar is you would have been so determined that you would have just done a full shit.

Just done a shit in a tub. Five points. And then got mad. Then got really angry when I didn't get five points. Ian, the challenge was the cutest thing. Rah! Ian, thank you so much for coming 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 Taskmaster. What is your point score for your experience on the podcast? Absolutely. Genuinely a five. It's been cathartic. It's been enjoyable. And I got to have the pint with Ed Gamble that I never thought I'd ever have again. Hooray.

Five points. Thank you very much, Ian Sterling. Thanks, mate. Well, there we are. A wonderful episode with Ian Sterling. What a guy. Great chat. We'll get Ian back on

when we're talking about Series 8, but that's a while off, so we thought we'd sneak him in now. And also, we need to remind you that his sitcom buffering premieres with a double episode on ITV2, Thursday 5th of August at 10pm.

And all episodes will be available on ITV Hub after that. And Ian starts touring his show Failing Upwards Nationwide from the 14th of September. Tickets at iandoesjokes.com. I think go and do all of those things. He's a great man. He's very funny. Apart from that, we will see you next week to chat Series 4,

Episode 6 with another fantastic special guest. And I believe that special guest will be Phil Wang from Series 7 of Taskmaster and from lots of other stuff. He's written a book recently. He's touring. He's another brilliant guy. So get your questions for Phil Wang to taskmasterpodcasts at gmail.com. And we will chat to him next week. at gmail.com, and we will chat to him next week.

I'm going to leave you now because, you know, I'm in a holiday in Watford Junction, so I need to think about my life, and also I need to finish my Shiraz and crisps. All right, bye-bye. Bye-bye. We'll see you next time. Ice cream? Or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders? No. But chicken tenders? Yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

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