Alex Horne & Greg Davies

What are the key differences between a Champion of Champions show and a full series of Taskmaster, other than the obvious?

Greg: It’s definitely a different atmosphere because Champion of Champions largely involves all the people who wanted to win their series, apart from Bob Mortimer, who was just having fun then ended up winning. So there's a competitive frisson that we don't have elsewhere. But I thought on this one they were largely, very well-behaved, and it was fun.

Alex: I really love Champion of Champions so I don’t want this to sound negative, but it’s different to the normal show because it’s the only time people return, and they do return with a different energy. They've been wound up by doing it before, they know the deal now, so they know they can talk back, and they've got grievances, so it just sets them off from the get-go. 

In the normal show, they end up being a team over the ten episodes, but in this they’re never a team. I think it’s hopefully still really great TV but it's less easy to make than the normal one because you’ve got five separate people who’ve all won, which means they all come in with something to lose. 

And this one was particularly hard to make, thanks to Sam Campbell.

Haha! We’ll come back to Sam in a minute but before we do, Alex, can you expand a bit on what makes it so hard to make from a production point of view?

Alex: It’s just more intense because we only have one day to film the tasks, so we’ve really only got one hit at getting it right. Then the tasks have to be ramped up a bit to reflect that it’s Champion of Champions. Not that we’re suddenly paying for loads of equipment or fancy tasks, but we pick tasks that really allow the contestants to shine. The tasks are also probably a bit more subjective. There aren’t any that are straightforward “fastest wins”, for example. We want them to prove themselves. We want Greg to have to be the Taskmaster and not just sort of watch it unfold. It's all heightened, and I’d say it’s more competitive.

Okays, so let’s talk about the contestants. Shall we start with Sam?

Greg: Campbell was absolutely out of his mind. His prize task was remarkable. I thought he was on blistering form, and his prize task was really funny and good.

How do you feel about Maisie being the only woman in the line-up, Alex?

Alex: It’s not how we would have planned it in an ideal world, but we don’t have any casting for the Champion of Champions. It’s just whoever won the last five series, so it is what it is. I think it’s important to point out that Dara was the only man in the last Champion of Champions, although Kiell Smith-Bynoe was there for Mae Martin who couldn’t be there.

I think it’s also important to say that if it was only going to be one woman, what a woman to have! Maisie was brilliant, and I think and hope she enjoyed making the most of the situation. 

Can you explain what happened?

Greg: For her prize task, Maisie’s idea was really clever, and addressed the imbalance in a lovely way that made a point while also being very funny.

Alex: This is one of those rare episodes where the prize tasks were as good as any of the other tasks. One of them involved a massive billboard, and John did a clever thing about me, and they were all at a certain level.

Greg: I think they've learned, haven't they, by this stage? It's a mistake that regularly gets made on the show, that people think the prize task is just a bit of fun. There's always someone who walks out of their kitchen and grabs a colander and then tries to bulls**t their way through it. Now they're all seasoned Taskmaster professionals, so they know there's five points up for grabs if they make a bit of effort. I thought it was a great round.

I’m also not sure I’ve ever seen five such strong costumes. What do you think?

Greg: They were really good! Although it took me half the episode to realise that Maisie was fully dressed as a proper nun. I suppose you just get used to people choosing a silly outfit, but when she came out of a bush with a green face – I won’t spoil why – I went, “Oh yeah, she’s a nun.”

I also thought it was one of the strongest final tasks I’ve seen.

Alex: We picked that task because we knew we had people who would be up to it and, again, they did all make a big effort. In other people’s hands it might not have been as funny, but that’s one of the good things about Champion of Champions too. Like I was saying before, it’s about heightening it all.

This show also saw a return of Mathew Baynton.

Greg: One of the things that made me laugh the hardest in the final was Mathew claiming that he hasn't had any active work since his series of Taskmaster. If it’s a joke, by the time this show comes out, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Alex: He’s a classy contestant who just does his own thing. He’s not a stand-up but he’s a funny writer and performer and he easily holds up to the others, there’s no difference whatsoever in quality between Mathew and the comedians.

How did John get on in this show?

Greg: I mind competitiveness less if people are totally open about it and John is wantonly competitive. He said to me personally, off camera, “I want this”, and I think he might have said it on camera too. It’s not as grating if someone is blatantly and unashamedly wanting to win.

What about Andy?

Greg: He reminds me of one of those artisan specialists on The Repair Shop. A lot of people are very performative and they flap around on Taskmaster, but Zaltzman always seems to have a plan, and then he goes away and works away at it and comes back with this incredibly elaborate response, just like someone on The Repair Shop weedling away with their little knife or their screwdriver or their sewing machine.

Alex: He’s definitely quite different from the others. He’s got a bit of a nutty professor thing going on. He has a funny little twinkle in his eye when he's done a pun, which I love. He doesn’t really care that much about winning, or even doing particularly well, compared to the others. He flew to Australia for the cricket a few days later which is his happy place, that’s his main concern.

There are still so many comedians that haven’t done the regular series, that it’s not like you need to come up with different formats, is it?

Alex: Exactly. Lots of interesting, new acts are coming through, it’s not like we're moving faster than the development of talent! We’re not going to run out. 

Greg: There is definitely plenty of new talent but the only tragedy of this is that the contestants will get increasingly young, and Alex and I will continue to fade grotesquely before your eyes. Look up some clips from the first series if you don’t believe me, it’s heartbreaking. We’re maturing well, but we’re maturing quickly. 

Andy Zaltzman

What was the response like to your full series?

Oh very good, there were a lot of people saying nice things. When people come to my gigs or just see me randomly in the street, it seems to have gone down well. There are definitely a few Taskmaster fans that have come to my tours who might not have known my stuff before, which is nice.

Was there a particularly defining moment that you found they all wanted to talk to you about, or any memes going viral that you were surprised by?

I'm not really up with memes, I’m afraid!  A couple of people definitely wanted to talk to me about my psychotic puppet, Pigeor, who presented the children’s TV show.  That seemed to appeal to people. 

Taskmaster fans are nice, right?

Yeah, and that’s one of the lovely things about the show. It’s complete escapism, a joyous show that has a great mixture of creativity and lunacy and nonsense. What people really love that about the show, whoever's on it, is that it does provide a complete escape from everything, which I think is one of the secrets of its success, along with the fact it’s different all the time because they have different minds coming at it. There’s a continuity with it but also five different people every series, so it’s a great thing to be a part of. 

Was it nice to get to the end of your series and know that you’d have another stab at it?

It was, and it was a lot of fun to do, and not all TV shows are, to be honest. The fact that Champion of Champions is a one-off is quite freeing because you're not thinking, how can I impress people so they give me another go at it? That's not part of the show. You can just do it without the burden of needing to try and get rebooked or recommissioned, that burden that comes with a lot of other stuff in the comedy industry. 

It was lovely to just go back and have another day in the house doing stupid things, and another day in the studio arguing with people.

Did you go into Champion of Champions feeling more confident, having done a full series?

To a degree, yes, although I was actually really busy in the weeks leading up to the recording so I hadn't actually had time to think about it and get in the right mindset. It also took a couple of tasks just to get back in the rhythm of it, using your mind to react to the prompts in the task. I found when I did a full series I got better at it over the days of recording, so I should probably have warmed myself up for Champion of Champions by playing the board game or something! But it was good fun.

And does being up against four other champions add any kind of competitive frisson?

Not particularly! It’s funny because some people are competitive, and it is a game where you're trying to win, but it’s also a game that doesn't necessarily reward being competitive because it’s so random. The prime idea is just to make people laugh, rather than to win. 

When I did my series, I wasn't really fussed about winning until it got to about two shows from the end, and I thought I could actually win, and then something kicked in!

But, no, I didn’t feel it with this. I probably should have come up with a ruthless game plan to destroy the other four champions but I wasn’t that organised!

What did you think about your fellow competitors – did you know any of them beforehand?

Well, Maisie’s done The News Quiz a couple of times when I've been hosting it. We first met long before that, doing a stand-up show in an abbey where there were bats flying around during filming which was odd but atmospheric. That was a bizarre gig.

I've known John for probably twenty years, he started on the stand-up circuit a little bit after me. 

I'd met Sam a couple of times. I hadn't really done any sort of comedy with him, and so that was quite an experience. He has a fairly unique and distinctive comic mind. So that was a lot of fun, actually, to see that close up. He's a very interesting comedian. His whole way of looking at the world is comedic, I think. What comes out of his mind, on and off stage, is fairly extraordinary. 

The prize task is quite a good opportunity to be creative on your own terms, when you've got time to think about it and prepare it, and he went very off-piste with his, as you'd expect from him. It was quite extraordinary.

I'd not met Mathew before. He was great. I’ve watched a lot of him over the years as my kids were really into Horrible Histories and Ghosts, so I've spent a lot of time with him, just not actually in person! So it was nice to meet him.

You mentioned that you knew Maisie and John beforehand, but what did you think of them on the show?

Maisie's very funny. She has a really strong comic aura and persona, which I think really helps in a show like Taskmaster; it gives you free rein to explore your comic identity because you’re trying lots of different things in different ways. She was tremendous.

When people are being competitive on Taskmaster, it’s hard to tell if they actually mean it or not, so I'm not entirely sure with John. But certainly he gave that impression. The only thing about doing one episode is it’s not like the full series where you get the chance to build up a rapport with the other people you're on with. It would have been nice to do a few more shows with them because it felt, for one recording, that we connected quite well.

Can you talk me through your costume for the tasks?

Because I did my main series in cricket whites, as you would wear in a test match, I thought I'd wear a one day cricket kit for this because it was a one day recording. So I had a special Taskmaster one day kit made with my name and then the number 18 –  my series number – on the back, and ‘Justice for Pidgeor’ or on the sleeve, because I think Pidgeor was underscored in in his task.

Then for the studio recording, I had an old velvet jacket that I'd been contemplating throwing out, because it was falling to pieces. My wife appliqued ‘Zaltzman 18’ in massive letters on the back of this jacket that we bought when we were on holiday in Italy together about twenty five years ago.

There was one task where the cricket outfit didn’t quite work to your favour, wasn’t there?

Well, yes, I wasn't allowed to use the bat, and the pads were something of a hindrance. They're quite slippery, it turns out. So when you see the task, it will become apparent why it didn't work particularly well. But you know, that's the risk I took and there was certainly a task in my full series where my kit came in handy because I used my helmet to carry a load of tennis balls. So, you know, swings and roundabouts. It's a cruel world, but I didn't let it affect me too much.

Overall, how do you feel that you did in this one-off episode? Are you pleased with yourself? 

Well, there's always some tasks that you look back at and realise there were some obvious things that you should have done differently. But overall yeah, I was happy, and it’s a comedy and hopefully people will find enough of it funny. 

What advice would you give to anybody else taking part?

I think the key is to be true to your comic self, if that makes sense. Trust your comic instincts, because there's an improvisational element in having to come up with ideas quickly or reacting to the puzzle element, while doing it in your own way.

The great thing about the show is that obviously they want you to be good on it. There's times when they try to sort of trip you up but, essentially, they want people to show who they are as a comedian and as a performer.

I think what I’ve found is it’s best to embrace the humiliation of it. Accept that you're going to make yourself look like an idiot, and lean into that.

Who else do you think should do a future series?

I think Alistair Beckett King, who I do The News Quiz with, would be great. Ian Smith also, and Felicity Ward, who’s a superbly funny person. And if you’re talking about non-comedians, then Ronnie O'Sullivan, the snooker player. I find him completely fascinating and it would be interesting to see what he did. 

Click here for interviews with John Robins, Mathew Baynton, Maisie Adam and Sam Campbell