Channel 4’s Taskmaster has been named both Best TV Entertainment Show and Comedy Of The Year at the Comedy.co.uk Awards 2021.

In addition, the comedy staple’s co-host, Greg Davies, picked up Best New TV Sitcom for BBC One series The Cleaner, which he wrote and starred in based on a German original.

Family favourite Ghosts picked up the gong for Best Returning TV Sitcom in the annual television and radio comedy awards, voted upon entirely by the viewing public.

Voting was conducted via the British Comedy Guide website over two rounds between 11th and 30th January 2022. The initial week-long longlist round saw every comedy to have debuted during the 2021 calendar year (371 in total) nominated in one of ten genre-based categories.

The most popular six titles in each category then moved forward to a final shortlist round of voting, which occurred between Monday 17th and Sunday 30th January. Voters were also able to make an eleventh choice of their overall Comedy Of The Year from the 60 shortlisted productions.

Other winning comedies were: Michael Spicer: Before Next Door (Best Radio Sitcom), Horrible Histories (Best TV Sketch Show), Dead Ringers (Best Radio Sketch Show), Would I Lie To You? (Best TV Panel Show), The Unbelievable Truth (Best Radio Panel Show), Inside No. 9 (Best TV Comedy Drama), and You’re Dead To Me (Best Radio Entertainment Show).

The awards’ sixteenth year, almost 400,000 votes were cast. Voting for the best of 2022’s comedy programmes will open in early January 2023.

See Comedy.co.uk for the full shortlists for each category.

Best New TV Sitcom

The Cleaner (BBC One, Studio Hamburg UK) 

Writer/star Greg Davies says: “I’m absolutely delighted. The Cleaner’s been a labour of love for me. Thank you so much to all who voted, and thank you to the team who make The Cleaner with me. I’m delighted, really am genuinely delighted to get this - thanks a lot!”

Best Returning TV Sitcom

Ghosts (BBC One, Monumental Pictures) 

The Ghosts creators and stars - Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond - say: “We’re thrilled to have won the Comedy.co.uk Award for best returning sitcom. Thanks to everyone who voted. We shall be returning again later this year so don’t go anywhere!”

Best Radio Sitcom

Michael Spicer: Before Next Door (BBC Radio 4, Starstruck Media/Tillervision) 

Michael Spicer jokes: “I’d like to thank British Comedy Guide for this wonderful award - but it was you who voted for me, so if you did vote for me thank you so much, because it means a great deal. Quite frankly I’m thrilled to have got this. I’ve been doing this a long time, writing and sending scripts to the BBC, since I was about 17, so it’s amazing to get this now. If you’d have told me then I’d need to wait 26 years before it happened then … I’d’ve been mad. I’d’ve been furious. Really upset actually. Really crying. Really sobbing. Twenty-six years! That’s a long time.”

Best TV Sketch Show

Horrible Histories (CBBC, Lion Television) 

Jessica Ransom, contributing writer and one of the core cast members, says: “It means ever so much that people have taken the time to vote for us at all, to win is the icing on the cake. It's a joy and a privilege to make the show as part of a massive team effort. The mine of horrible historical stories seems pretty bottomless, so we're delighted to keep on digging for more. Thank you!”

Lead writer Ben Ward adds: “Thanks to everyone who voted. Horrible Histories is such a pleasure to write it doesn’t seem right that we get an award for it as well. But we’re not giving it back.”

Simon Welton, executive producer: “The writers, production team, cast and crew all worked incredibly hard to make this series in the trickiest of times, so this is a lovely testimony to all of their magnificent effort - particularly as it's voted for by the public, which means everything to us. Thanks so much to everyone who voted for us, and onwards (or possibly backwards, given the subject matter) to more historical silliness in the future!”

Best Radio Sketch Show

Dead Ringers (BBC Radio 4, BBC Studios) 

Creator and producer Bill Dare quips: “What a thrill to receive this award. I’d like to thank the fantastic cast, the writers, and the BBC for backing Dead Ringers for twenty years - and also for paying us so much! The writers, especially, are all millionaires; they’re mostly in LA, sat by the pool, just firing off the sketches…”

Best TV Panel Show

Would I Lie To You? (BBC One, Zeppotron) 

Host Rob Brydon, and team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell, say: “We are extremely touched and grateful for this award and would like to thank each and every one of the people who voted for us – though by ‘each and every one’ we don’t mean to imply that we’re planning to thank people individually as that simply wouldn’t be workable. But thank you very much. This award genuinely means just as much to us as any of the ones where you also get a free dinner.”

Best Radio Panel Show

The Unbelievable Truth (BBC Radio 4, Random Entertainment) 

David Mitchell, the programme’s host, said: “I’m delighted and honoured that The Unbelievable Truth has been voted best radio panel show in the Comedy.co.uk Awards. A huge thanks to everyone who voted for the show but also a small thanks to everyone who didn’t vote for one of our rivals.”

Best TV Entertainment Show & Comedy Of The Year

Taskmaster (Channel 4, Avalon) 

Co-host and eponymous Taskmaster, Greg Davies says: “I’m away at the moment. I didn’t get notice that the beautiful glass trophies had been delivered to my home though.”

Alex, creator, writer and co-host said: “Sometimes some of your mail gets redirected to my house. I’ve got the trophies. I got the trophy last year … you made me smash it.”

Greg adds: “On behalf of everyone at Avalon, who make Taskmaster, thank you for the awards.”

Best Radio Entertainment Show

You’re Dead To Me (BBC Radio 4/BBC Sounds, Muddy Knees Media)

Host and popular historian Greg Jenner says: “This is clearly cheating, isn’t it? We’re a podcast, let’s be honest - but it goes out on Radio 4 so technically it counts. It feels like chicanery but I don’t care! Hugely grateful, thank you very much to readers of British Comedy Guide and everyone who voted. We’ve never won anything before and we’ve done four series!”

Best TV Comedy Drama

Inside No. 9 (BBC Two, BBC Studios) 

Writers and stars, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith said: “We are humbled to win the Comedy.co.uk Award for Comedy Drama once again in the face of such stiff competition. Either we are truly the best at this trumped up genre or we have the most tireless and supportive fans. Either way it’s a very nice feeling so thank you to everyone who watched and voted and we hope you’ll join us Inside No. 9 again soon."

The Comedy.co.uk Awards have been running annually since 2006.

Recognising the best comic programming across both television and radio, the Comedy.co.uk Awards are unique in being decided upon solely by a public vote. The 371 British comedy programmes to start a new series or air a single special during the 2021 calendar year were automatically included in an initial round of voting at the start of January.

The top six programmes in each category were then subject to a second and final round, with thousands of members of the public casting their votes for the very best broadcast and streamed comedies of the previous 12 months.

The Comedy Of The Year winners in previous years have been Green Wing (2006), The IT Crowd (2007), Peep Show (2008), The Thick Of It (2009), Miranda (2010), Horrible Histories (2011), Miranda (2012), Would I Lie To You? (2013), Cabin Pressure (2014), Peter Kay’s Car Share (2015), Red Dwarf (2016), Inside No. 9 (2017 & 2018), Good Omens (2019) and After Life (2020).

Watch Greg Davies talking to Alex Horne about The Cleaner’s win (plus Taskmaster)

Ghosts picture: Guido Mandozzi.