Phil Ellis is one of the contestants on the latest season of Taskmaster. He is up against Maisie Adam, Ania Magliano, Reece Shearsmith and Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Below he talks about what it was like appearing on the show.

Read more Taskmaster interviews here.

Taskmaster, Thursdays from September 11, 9pm, C4.

Why did you want to do Taskmaster?

I was just really chuffed to be asked. I don't get asked to do an awful lot, so I jump at anything, to be honest. I’d jump at GB News. Okay, maybe not, but it’s the main show that all comedians want to be on. It used to be another big one, but only about three people watch that now! 

I think Taskmaster is a perfect show, because you get to experience it three times. You do all the tasks, which is incredible and when that ends, you feel really sad. Then you do the studio bits, which are brilliant, and it’s sad when it ends. And then you get to watch it when it’s on air, and see how they’ve edited it, and relive it all over again. 

Also, the team are incredible. You do get nervous at first because you don’t want to muck it up, but then you relax because you know that the director and the editors are brilliant, and they will always convince the audience that you’re actually quite funny, by making you look good.

Were you competitive?

Not really, I just wanted to be funny. Although the weird thing is, you start off going, “I'm not bothered about winning,” but if you win even one task, never mind an episode, you do start to get weirdly competitive. But above all, I was genuinely excited to be there, and I didn’t hide it. There are some people who’ve been on it who wander into a task with a cup of tea, not that bothered, but that’s very much not me.

You were definitely enthusiastic. You’re quite the giggler, aren’t you?

I couldn’t stop laughing in the tasks and in the studio as well. My stand-up shows are quite free-form: they’re scripted, but there's a lot that’s done in the room too. I remember my agent saying to me that I laugh a lot at my own jokes and I was like, “Well, that was off the cuff, I’ve never heard it before and it was funny”, so yeah, I do giggle a lot. I'm trying to rein it in a bit.

Greg has a running joke that you’re like a throw-back old comedian. How do you feel about that?

Well, I get that because I do have a weirdly old-school patter, although my actual stand-up is contemporary. I always used to get very well reviewed in Edinburgh but some of the more stuck-up reviewers would always underlie it with calling me a Northern Club comic, even though it’s not club comedy. Greg said I looked like I was about to sing Fly Me To The Moon at times, which is fair comment.

Did you prepare or have a tactic?

You can't plan anything, you can’t prepare. In the first couple of episodes I was trying to come up with proper responses, and they really felt flat because the audience is used to how natural it all is. So I just talked my usual rubbish and you think, “Is this even going to go in?”, but that’s what everyone likes. The whole production team knows so well what works and what doesn’t work. When you talk through your prize tasks, obviously it's up to you, but they might say, “The audience will know it’s not real so it might not land.” I definitely tried to be a bit too meta a couple of times.

Was there anything you wanted to do, but weren’t allowed to?

I wanted to bring in something which, when opened, loads of mincemeat falls out. I thought that would be a nice surprise but they said, “You can’t do mincemeat, it’s a waste of food.” I thought, it wouldn’t have been a waste, I’d have eaten it. Anyway, we found a way around it which I won’t spoil, but there are sometimes things like that, that you’re not allowed to do. 

But in general, they are amazing at helping you buy or source the things you need to do your task. It’s quite upsetting because Reece spends weeks on his prize tasks and I just ring up the team and say, “Yeah, just shove some mince in a grandfather clock.”

I do love the prize task round. Everyone's so different and they all make me laugh so much. For one of the prizes Maisie brought in, I thought I was going to die, it was that funny. It’s funny when you're going last and you’ve got to watch four really good ones and you know what’s coming and Greg doesn’t.

How did you get on with the tasks: did you surprise yourself by how good or bad you were?

I'm not a good lateral thinker. I never do quizzes, because I hate feeling stupid. I'm not a stupid person, and I have some very specific areas of knowledge that I focus on because I’m interested – for example, you can’t tell me anything I don’t know about the Treaty of Versailles – but I'm not good at thinking laterally. I tried an escape room once, and I just sat down in the corner and let everyone else escape. I couldn’t be bothered trying to figure how to solve a riddle when I could just wait until the door opened and get out.

So I knew I wouldn’t do well on any of those types of tasks. I did well in an arty task which was a massive surprise. I think it was a fluke. Everyone was amazed at how it came out, and we all took photos.

Did you learn anything about yourself?

I'm a very sweaty man. I mean, I really sweat. I'm the healthiest I've ever been because I used to be a massive chain smoker and I would drink way too much, but now I'm at the point where I'm really healthy, yet it seems that I look my least healthy.

I’ve also learned that I don't learn. I just carry on making the same mistakes in life. I've learned that I laugh a lot. I've been told that before, as we were just saying, but seeing it is insane: I can’t believe the amount I'm just laughing constantly.

The main thing I've learned is that I really am not competitive. I really don't care, because I suppose I've got built-in confidence in certain areas.

Nobody on this series seems competitive, though: do you agree?

Yeah, I think some people quietly want to win, but not in the way that they go out to sabotage anyone else in the group to get what they want. We were all just having such a fun time with each other. We genuinely got on. 

Let’s talk through your fellow contestants.

I already knew Ania and Maisie from the circuit, and that was really nice when we all knew we were doing it. That relaxed me quite a bit.

Sanjeev just doesn’t care: it's on another level, but he's so funny. I love it. He's so funny on the tasks and so quick-witted in the studio. It was just dead easy as soon as I met him because he’s such a nice guy. I think initially he wanted to take the tasks really seriously, and to win it, and then he realised that you’re just meant to have fun with it, as opposed to win it, and then he really relaxed, and that was nice.

What about Reece?

I’d met Reece before, but in a creepy fan way. I was a ridiculously big League of Gentlemen and Inside Number Nine fan, and I know Steve Pemberton a little bit because he came to a show I did years ago with his kids. It was this inappropriate kids show called Funz and Games which was more for adults, but we had kids in and they got sweets and prizes and had a good time and they didn’t really know what was going on, so it worked on two levels.

So I knew Steve from that, then I saw him at the Taskmaster Live  launch, and we were chatting. I didn’t tell him I was going on too! 

I actually queued up to get Reece’s autograph many years ago. In fact, I found all the merch I had signed by him the other day!

What was it like to work with him, being such a fan?

I did talk to him about League of Gentlemen quite a lot! It’s really nice to talk to him about it, but I tried not to overdo it, because it gets a bit sickly. I used to work at an airbags factory in my twenties and I found a way I could have an hour lunch break instead of half an hour just by going through different doors, and nobody quite knew what I did anyway. I’d nip home and watch Catterick, the show Reece was in with Vic and Bob. So, yeah, quite a fan. 

What’s funny is he was quite nervous about this, which I didn’t understand at first because he’s such an icon. But of course, it’s new for him, because he doesn’t do a lot of things as himself. It just shows, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been going, if you’re out of your comfort zone, you still get nervous.

How did you get on with Alex and Greg in the studio?

They’re just brilliant, they really know what they're doing now, they've eased into it and have so much fun. The audience are so in love with them both, and Greg and Alex give so much back: it's a proper experience for everyone. We have Mark, the best warm-up in the business, then they come out and genuinely put on a big show for everyone and spend a lot of time chatting. 

Are you prepared for how huge Taskmaster is? You may start to get recognised a lot more.

Well, that actually is the one thing I'm worried about. I don't covet fame in any sense; that's probably why I've never made it! I don't get recognised outside of Manchester, really. I don’t much like it, I like being normal and walking around, but the people who are really into this show and get really excited by it, that’ll be really nice.

A friend of mine came to the record the other day and he’s obsessed with the show. He was walking around with eyes on stalks and when he saw Greg walking around he nearly had a fit. And I got another friend a ticket for a record without telling him I’m actually in it! So he won’t know until I walk on stage.

So, yeah, I think the fans are really invested and that’s really brilliant. 

Interview supplied by publicists

picture: C4/Avalon