Taskmaster series 20: The 30 best contestants – ever!

It’s The Krypton Factor but played for laughs. It’s Challenge Anneka but with five contestants and fewer helicopters. It’s a bunch of silly people doing silly things. It’s not easy to sum up the appeal of Taskmaster in a few words, but over the past 10 years it’s consistently been the funniest and most entertaining show on TV. And this week you can celebrate good times – come on! – because the premiere of the 20th series is upon us.

That’s right – Greg Davies and his assistant Alex Horne have persuaded five more people to submit themselves to the Taskmaster and tackle a series of challenges ranging from the whimsical to the outright fiendish! Series 20 begins at 9pm on Channel 4 HD (CH 104) on Thursday 11 September.

As is traditional, the line-up was revealed at the end of the previous series, so since then we’ve been eagerly waiting to see stand-ups Maisie Adam, Phil Ellis and Ania Magliano join League Of Gentlemen and Inside No.9 co-creator and star Reece Shearsmith and writer/actor Sanjeev Bhaskar (Goodness Gracious Me, Unforgotten) in the house, the studio and wherever the location tasks take them.

Here’s how the new cast are looking…

Part of Taskmaster’s brilliance is that even if you’re not familiar with a contestant’s work, or aren’t sure they’re suited to the show at first, after a few episodes they’ll have made you laugh so hard that you can’t believe you ever doubted them. It’s partly the way they approach the tasks – and indifferent, perplexed or downright hostile can be even more entertaining than wholehearted – and partly the tasks themselves, which challenge minds, wits, hearts and bottoms in ways that continue to entertain and amaze us, even after more than 180 episodes (including specials and Champion of Champions shows).

It’s 10 years and 20 series, so we’ve done a sum in our heads and picked out the 30 greatest Taskmaster victims, err, contestants (in no particular order) who have made us howl with laughter. The last series was an all-time great, and we’re sad we couldn’t fit in Stevie Martin and her invisible jump rope or Fatiha El-Ghorri and her total disdain for everything except Greg’s affections – not to mention series 7’s Jessica Knappett, whose name the stage extension still bears. But you can’t go wrong with these…

Daisy went from the cult star of the brilliant This Country to the leader of the cult of Daisy May Cooper after her epic performance here. And it was a cult we all wanted to join. Pregnant, dressed as superhero “Achievement Woman” and, by the end of it, ready to end Richard Herring. Just don’t ask her to pronounce “phenomenon”.
Best moment: Either the frankly graphic eating of watermelon alongside Richard Herring or being tasked with shouting “I LOVE THIS” while trying to silently make a cocktail. Honestly, you’ll cry watching it.

He was always going to be brilliant on this, wasn’t he? Whether it was giving Alex a cuddle in a car boot, producing a graph IN SAND of the total amount of urine produced across the country or filming a video of himself discovering his own head in a box of Wotsits, Bob was gold-plated goodness. A Taskmaster contestant for your soul.
Best moment: Making a coconut look like a businessman by simply drawing a face on a coconut while shouting over a close-up, “I’M A [BLEEPIN’] BUSINESSMAN”.

Another figure to prompt a cult-like internet following after his glorious showing on Taskmaster. Part geography teacher, part giraffe, part Enid Blyton character made real, Manic Mike was a revelation who threw himself into everything, including a drastic hair choice for the final, and was the only contestant to leave the studio with a medical need for a cushion.
Best moment: Accidentally passing a haemorrhoid during a farting task. It’s as funny and disgusting as it sounds. The noise will haunt you till the end times.

She was just very good. Like when she was tasked to make something manly with a cardboard box, so she put it in front of a TV where it “fell asleep” as she delivered it a cup of tea, or when she beat Very Good Darts Player Tim Vine at darts. Her sadistic side was also a joy to behold. Speaking of which…
Best moment: She made Alex sit on a cake bare-bottomed. “I’m in” was more than any of us needed to know from Alex. Our definition of “best” is quite loose here.

If you’ve ever wondered what a gangsta rap children’s song in ode to the Mayor of Chesham with a chorus that goes “That’s Peter Hudson, you know that you can trust him” would sound like, then step forward Katherine Ryan. Consistently excellent at tasks, and a very deserved series 2 champion.
Best moment: Definitely the Mayor of Chesham task – one of the all-time great tasks, full stop. But the great lengths she went to conceal a pineapple on her person was deeply impressive, too.

Some say series 5 was the one where Taskmaster went from a show well-loved by a few to the mega-hit we have today. Sally Phillips played a vital role in that. The eat, throw, balance task involving a Twiglet, Weetabix and jelly where she instantly balanced (the Twiglet), ate (the ’bix) and threw (the jelly) without saying a word was pure poetry.
Best moment: She had many, but she had to record the most incredible footage with a headcam, and so she filmed a quite epic and vivid movie of Alex being birthed. Equal parts insane and wonderful.

Another belting contestant, and we knew we were in for a treat when he refused to acknowledge Alex during tasks. Alex would say, “Hi James,” and James would look straight through him. Highlights included filling a Christmas cracker with gravy, and trying to pass off a Matrix DVD as the most confusing thing in a prize task.
Best moment: The task was simple: hula hoop for as long as you can, and then try to improve that time months later in the studio. And James did, but he fluffed his one attempt, before showing us how good he’d actually become in that time. Too late. The Taskmaster didn’t care. Two points.

An honourable loser. He was not good, but fantastically so. When he had to increase Alex’s heart rate by exciting him, his calming mix of near-miss internet videos and sensual karate kicks managed to decrease his heart rate, while his picture of the Taskmaster using items from a bin somehow looked worse than when it was just a bin.
Best moment: Can we just say his entire outfit choice? It was skin-tight to such a degree that, years later, we can still describe – in detail – what we saw. It’s a memory we really wish we didn’t have…

She turned up for the tasks dressed as a goth cowboy and things only got more bonkers from there. Whether she was recreating Laika the dog’s fateful trip to outer space or impatiently demanding which shoes Alex was thinking of (“Is it these? Sigh. Is it these? Sigh”), her wildly inconsistent commitment kept us guessing – and howling with laughter. And she physically moved like no human ever has before.
Best moment: “Record the highest number on this pedometer” sounds like a straightforward task. Unless you’re Bridget, who promptly broke out a series of the silliest walks ever seen, then literally got onto the pedometer while saying a high number into her phone. A made-up high number.

Some people quake in fear at the Taskmaster’s roar. Then there’s Rhod Gilbert, who spent most of the series winding up his friend Greg by constantly resurfacing an old photo of him in his pants or – in the creepiest things task – revealing he had hidden inside Greg’s wardrobe and filmed him while he was asleep. Beautiful.
Best moment: When tasked with not blinking for the longest time, he went to extraordinary lengths, including gaffer tape and tipping the tears out of his eyes. Not one to watch if you’re squeamish.

A contestant whose enthusiasm fluctuated depending on how much effort a task required, Judi’s memorable moments included sculpting the ultra-sugary “Tower of Love” and the House Queens hype track. But she saved her best performances for the prize tasks, where she was able to sweet-talk her way into extra points despite bringing such mundane items as a duvet, a bowl of custard and a fan (as, yes, “the best thing to hold over your head”).
Best moment: Judi managed to break Taskmaster during a task to find all the ducks hidden around the lab, finding one that Alex and his team hadn’t even hidden there.

Oh, the pathos! Greeting most tasks with a bemused smile and a prolonged head-scratch, poor John often seemed to be confused by (a) the rules and (b) his own presence on the show. This approach clashed hilariously with the, ah, somewhat more proactive Fern Brady and Dara Ó Briain during team tasks, often relegating him to a hapless third wheel. Still, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
Best moment: His secret mission to deliberately sabotage the team task of putting as much sand as possible in a shopping trolley. John did this superbly – perhaps not surprisingly, as he’d had plenty of practice at inadvertently sabotaging the team tasks.

If you can find someone that looks at you like Joe Lycett looked directly into the camera and smiled during the task to paint the best picture of the Taskmaster from a distance, then you’d be a lucky person. A very laudable second place for the man who destroyed a cake by exploding it with fireworks.
Best moment: In a Taskmaster first, Joe performed a task – opening a jar of mayonnaise covered in Vaseline – before even reading the task. Fastest wins, and his time of 0.00sec has yet to be beaten.

A benchmark-setter in series 1, Romesh’s dry, sardonic wit was made for moments like filling an egg cup with tears (it involved chilli sauce, urgh). He has the honour of being the first contestant to win a recorded task, and a less special kind of honour by never winning a single episode, despite finishing second overall.
Best moment: When he had to film something that would look impressive in reverse, he met that brief with extraordinary results, and “tree wizard” was born.

Taskmaster’s first imported star – it had had American, Irish, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand contestants, but they were all UK-based – brought a whole new sensibility to the show. As he summed it up: “Destroy, dismantle, engulf in flames.” It could have been irritating but his childlike delight made it charming, and he formed a chaotic but dynamic partnership with Stevie Martin (Team Javie Martzoukas 4EVA!).
Best moment: Despite his brash methodology, Jason produced two moments of real heartbreak: taking more than 100 minutes to work out what Alex had on his head, and Javie Martzoukas’ last-second failure at the ball/spoon/fence task.

While so many contestants are methodical, considered and thoughtful in their approach, Kerry adopted the bish-bash-bosh method of completing a task, often being midway through a task before she had come up with an idea. But it worked. The series 7 champion, ladies and gentlemen. Wallop!
Best moment: “BECAUSE HE’S YOUR SON,” ended the team task where she had to write and perform the most suspenseful soap opera cliff-hanger. It was something.

Second in series 2, Jon’s analytical mind was often very good. That was until that mind let him down – such as when he sang “Desperado” to the Mayor of Chesham to impress him. It was a moment that Jon had to leave the stage because he couldn’t watch. Worse still, it didn’t even impress the Mayor.
Best moment: In yet another “moment from Taskmaster that haunts our dreams”, his modern-day version of “Three Blind Mice” was disturbing on a Hitchcock level.

Another series 5 comic, and Aisling was brilliant. Not always at the tasks, sadly for her, but she certainly brought chaos and the unexpected. She had many, many highlights including her rainbow scene of a leprechaun painted in the dark or her parody film of Taken called Took starring Spoony Neeson, a wooden spoon.
Best moment: In a classic It Was Over Before It Even Started, in the task to build a tower of cans while shaking Alex’s hand and naming different countries between whistle blows, Aisling missed the first whistle. So, despite saying 62 countries and building a tower 10 cans high, she only received one point. We bet she still isn’t happy.

As anyone who’s seen his stand-up knows, Sam Campbell doesn’t think like normal humans. That makes him perfect for Taskmaster. From explaining his prize task choice of cobalt with a strange and, as it turned out, entirely unrelated story about living under a flight path to claiming a teddy and a leaf blower weighed the same, you never knew what was coming next. Although he did prove that he could get vexed with Alex just like anyone else during the traffic signals tasks.
Best moment: It wasn’t even part of a task, but he completely cracked Greg up by innocently asking him, “Are you a child of divorce?”

Putting Lucy Beaumont in the same line-up as Sam Campbell was a bold move – both follow a form of logic that does not resemble our Earth logic – but it paid off in spades, producing one of the show’s most joyful and epic series. Their combined lunacy in team tasks nearly sent Julian Clary’s head spinning into orbit. And they even ended up making a podcast together, Lucy And Sam’s Perfect Brains.
Best moment: The mistakes that led to various foods’ names, of course. “Quiche, Lorraine? Steak, Diane? Rogan, Josh?”

The nicest contestant in Taskmaster history? Perhaps. One of the greatest contestants at the prize task? Definitely. She got top marks for four out of eight prize tasks, and equal numbers of fours and threes in the remaining shows. Her most surprising photo of her as Princess Diana offers a very different interpretation of The Crown.
Best moment: In a game of hide-and-seek, she was so good, she kept phoning Alex to taunt him. She’d probably still be in her hiding place if she wasn’t off doing Ghosts and other shows, because Alex wasn’t even close to finding her.

It’s unclear whether Katherine had ever watched Taskmaster. She certainly didn’t get why Alex was there, often utilising him as something between a butler and her husband. She was very, very bad at the tasks, but endearingly so. One of the best bad contestants in the show’s run
Best moment: “Am I the spider?” is a question that will haunt Katherine for life (watch the video above). She might win an Oscar one day, but if nobody in the post-ceremony press conference asks her if she’s the spider, we will have failed as a people.

It takes a bold person to wear an outfit with the words “Taskmaster Winner Series 8”. But Lou was that bold person, and also slightly psychic as she did eventually win it. She brought a manic energy to all the tasks and did remarkably well not to commit a crime against the very bossy Iain Stirling during all the team tasks.
Best moment: Either the moment she made Alex eat from a dustpan or her very grim insect moustache.

Two things we know: 1. Nish Kumar is a very intelligent man. 2. Nish Kumar was hopeless on Taskmaster, to the point Greg took him aside to give him a mid-series pep talk. “You’re not a bad guy, Nish!” His Weetabix crumbling as he grasped it was basically a metaphor for his appearance on the show.
Best moment: The final episode. The final task. Alongside Mark Watson, he wrote and performed a song for a stranger. That stranger was Rosalind. And it was so joyous and lovely. Certainly kinder than Bob, Sally and Aisling’s one about Rosalind being “a nightmare”. (And yes, we have cleaned that up considerably.)

Fabulous. That’s how we’d sum up the shocking-pink-fur-clad Alma’s Not Normal creator and star’s time on Taskmaster. In the grand tradition of agents of chaos on the show, she threw herself into every task – quite literally when she twerked in the studio – and was a master of spinning disaster into laughter and five unexpected points. In her words: “I’ve absolutely smashed the sh*t out of this.”
Best moment: Either the beatboxing puppet wolf woman (“Have you ever seen anything more alive?”) or her secret task when she had to say the word “umbrella” five times in a group task without the others noticing. In the end, she said it 15 times.

Fern was a real wild card, capable of moments of inspiration (fitting the words dilapidated, imbecile, obsequious, serendipitous and sycophant into a diss track about the other contestants, set to Mozart) and utter fiasco (repeatedly failing to throw a taxidermied robin over the caravan). Has she met these potatoes before? Truly a question for the ages.
Best moment: Amid all the shouty antics, she performed Sarah Millican’s one-woman, one-minute play with genuine poise and poignancy.

The best review of Joe Wilkinson’s performance on Taskmaster is that he behaved exactly as you’d expect Joe Wilkinson to act on Taskmaster. In the Mayor of Chesham task, to impress him, Joe bought the Mayor 42 Calippos and eight cans of lager and bunged him £15. He came fifth in the series. Robbed!
Best moment: Just as heartbreaking as Aisling’s can tower. In the task to get a potato into a golf hole from a distance, Joe just flung it in on his first attempt and scored a potato in one. It was amazing… except the rules said that you couldn’t touch the red mat surrounding the hole, and Joe’s toe had nudged it. Disqualified.

So good was eventual winner Ed Gamble that he now does the official Taskmaster podcast. He had many highlights, from the task to do the most preposterous thing with a chickpea (it involved a date, a dinner, a car accident and a rattling caravan) to the moment he dressed as a baby to sing lyrics to the Taskmaster theme tune.
Best moment: Hard to top the chickpea – and later hummus – incident. But when he was turned into a BSDM buckaroo in the task to make the best real-life board game, it was an entire mood.

The enduring image of Ivo Graham was him sitting, head in hands, in the caravan as he waited three minutes to complete a task. Which didn’t even count because the task had told him to go to the shed. Alternately overthinking and underthinking tasks, the stand-up was constantly second-guessing himself and managed to be disqualified an impressive seven times.
Best moment: He and Frankie Boyle formed a pseudo-father/son partnership in which Graham played the junior partner – except when Frankie went wrong trying to free them from handcuffs using jelly babies and the periodic table. Ivo’s look to camera was exquisite.

The Wonka and Ghosts star took an intelligent and creative approach to tasks that brought him an impressive four episode wins as well as the series 19 title. However, his choice of very short shorts as a task outfit meant the nethers-blurring department were working overtime. And there was an emotional moment when his heartfelt 100-word campfire song turned out to contain… 101 words.
Best moment: If you were asked to eat a yogurt with the most or least dignity, what would you do? Few would emulate Mat, who stripped to his pants, wrote TWIT all over his body and licked the dairy delicacy off Alex’s shoes while saying “Please forgive me, Daddy, I’ve got your shoes all mucky." The hardest-earned five points in the show’s history.

Taskmaster begins on Channel 4 HD (CH 104) on Thursday 11 September at 9pm. The series continues every Thursday until the grand final on Thursday 13 November. You can catch up on episodes you’ve missed in Apps > Channel 4, where you’ll find the previous 19 series as well as the Champion of Champions episodes and the New Year specials.