Is Taskmaster the best show on Dave? It certainly seems to be the most talked about among my comedy-fan friends. And perhaps that’s not surprising given the calibre of guests it attracts. This fifth series boasts Bob Mortimer, Sally Phillips, Mark Watson, Aisling Bea and Nish Kumar.
And the second episode has a wonderfully messy moment with competitors getting splatted upon from on high. But before that they have to compete in various cleaner tasks, showing off their ingenuity, lateral thinking and also their fiercely competitive streak. In a move that could be deemed foolish or genius, Mark Watson spends £400 of his own money to be top dog.
First up there is some generic coconut-lobbing with the quintet having to fashion rudimentary chucking machines - though there is some debate over what constitutes a machine. Is a hat a machine? That’s up to Taskmaster Greg Davies to decide, who seemed to have ramped up the brutality of his scoring system this time round.
There is more fun to be had when the rivals have to paint a rainbow scene. In the dark. I thought artistic Sally Phillips might be good at this. How wrong I was. There is another challenge where they have to find unlikely things to use to slice a loaf of bread. In the case of one of the five comics it might have helped if they had understood the rules. We are not saying Aisling Bea got confused, but poor old Taskmaster assistant Alex Horne had a long wait in the lab where she was supposed to perform her task.
The scene then is set for a couple of final showdowns. A team task where a highlight involves Mark Watson and a lot of yoghurt and then more painting. I wonder if Nish Kumar has managed to get the orange pigment out of his hair.
Taskmaster, Wednesdays from Sept 13 at 9pm on Dave. The first two episodes are on UKTV Play now. The one reviewed above airs on Sept 20.
