What a boon has been the latest series of Taskmaster
in keeping some of us sane these past few weary weeks. A glorious kind
of alchemy pervaded from the very first episode in 2015: five highly
personable individuals, of undoubted “celeb” status but staunchly
non-sleb in outlook, a pair of sweetly bickering hosts (Greg Davies and
Alex Horne) and a phantasmagoria of truly outre tasks, the stuff of
cheese-dreams – how this recipe somehow magicked itself into unmissable
telly still has the more by-numbers tickbox “creatives” of the industry
scratching heads.
There
were those who fretted a little that it might not survive its
transition from the self-consciously wacky Dave channel. That it has
done so, and in spades, is surely half-down to a canny producer’s choice
of lineup for this first series on C4: Katherine Parkinson, Richard
Herring, Mawaan Rizwan, Johnny Vegas and the phenomenal Daisy May
Cooper, who did it all while pregnant. It felt by Thursday’s finale as
if we’d known them for years as, if not friends, then the loud (more
interesting) table a couple of seats away in the pub, full of disparate
characters who could giggle together while disagreeing and competing. As
used to happen the minute before social media landed.
