With 1.4 Billion Views, Greg Davies & Alex Horne Aren’t Changing ‘Taskmaster’

For more than a decade, Taskmaster has made a sport out of asking comedians to solve increasingly ridiculous scenarios, and hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne never quite know what they are going to get. Season 22 sees Matt Lucas, Nina Conti, Isy Suttie, Richard Ayoade, and Chloe Petts take on the series’ tasks, including making a face appear on toast, putting together a bed, and trying to “gleek” on command.

Now the Taskmaster himself, Davies, and “Little Alex Horne” join Collider to explain how they put together the perfect lineup, why comedians still fail to spot the most obvious loopholes, and why sometimes the funniest moments come when a carefully planned approach goes completely wrong. They also discuss the show's growing audience in North America and the possibility of hosting the latest UK/US crossover, Saturday Night Live UK, and share some of the chaotic moments behind the scenes of Season 22.

Greg Davies and Alex Horne's Secret Ingredient To Casting the ‘Taskmaster’ Lineup

The key element that makes each season of Taskmaster feel so fresh is the intrigue around how each cast member will approach the tasks. All five must consider whether it is more important to be competitive and go for the overall win or whether, as comedians, it is better to make their attempts funny. Davies and Horne have worked out the perfect balance. Davies’ favorites are people who “enter into the spirit of it in a full-throated manner” but aren’t “crestfallen if they don’t win a task.” He says that, despite appearances on the Taskmaster throne, he doesn’t actually enjoy arguing with people, so the confrontational Davies is “a persona of sorts.” He hopes the cast just take his awarded points at face value. Horne agrees that it isn’t “one or the other.” If contestants only try to be funny or only try to win, “you’re not going to make any friends.” They want people to really try to do the tasks well while naturally being funny at the same time.

It can be a hard balance to strike, and it relies on having cast members who are keen individually, collaborate on team tasks, and interact as a group. Horne says there is definitely “some thought behind” finding the perfect five, “and then a bit of fingers crossed.” Once they have someone like the awkward and almost reluctant Ayoade, the team must look for someone with “slightly more high energy” and try to build a group of people who will “juxtapose nicely.” Davies adds that, regardless of how carefully they think about the cast, the contestants “always confound [their] expectations.” They “always reveal parts of themselves” and can “surprise” by revealing things they “didn’t know existed.”

With five cast members per season across 22 seasons, alongside holiday specials and Champion of Champions battles, many of Britain's most famous comedians have already taken part in Taskmaster. But Davies and Horne have some ideas for an alternative fictional lineup. “I would enjoy pushing that character … at last to his final breaking point,” says Davies gleefully as he names Seinfeld's George Costanza (Jason Alexander) as his ultimate contestant. Horne’s picks may be emblematic of the variety they strive for each season — Bamm-Bamm from The Flintstones and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Surely Poirot would be the ultimate winner? Davies’ final pick lands on “plonker” Rodney Trotter (Nicholas Lyndhurst) from Only Fools and Horses, who, by the laws of sitcoms, would spectacularly fail at each task.

So, with the cast in place, how do you guarantee there will be enough chaotic moments to amuse the live audience and surprise each other? Horne explains that they deliberately film “three or four tasks more than we need to” so that they can choose the best material. Some comedians get frustrated on the final studio day when they discover that their favorite task hasn't made the episode! Davies shares that Season 22 wasn’t particularly chaotic in comparison to previous series. There was “lots of fun,” but “there was no anarchy.” Horne agrees, describing how Ayoade “got on his bicycle and cycled home” at the end of every show. “That’s how rock and roll he is.”

Davies and Horne on How ‘Taskmaster’ Contestants Try To Beat the Game

The longevity of Taskmaster means that contestants have gotten better at spotting the team’s “tricks,” leading Horne to “annoyingly” change the way he prepares tasks. Davies finds this amusing as he particularly enjoys seeing Horne predict the ways contestants might try to break the show’s logic. He reveals there have been times when Horne has clearly thought through what might “ruin things,” with increasingly specific restrictions written on the famous Taskmaster envelopes, such as not being allowed to move something or “stand on one leg.” Even with the caveats, Horne is still amazed by how little contestants prepare. They could “do so much,” but they still don’t “look under the table,” “turn over the task,” or bring “a pen knife.” Horne concludes jokingly that “comedians are lazy,” with Davies adding, “They’re pretty sort of basic people, these comedians. They’re like ants."

If “lazy” is a generalization, the format itself naturally stops most loopholes. Horne believes that when the contestants are suddenly asked to do something “completely out of [their] comfort zone” that “everything else goes out the window. Just all logic.” As the process of coordinating the tasks and filming the episodes is a lengthy commitment, the comedians almost end up forgetting that they are “on a TV show.” Davies says this is “endlessly fascinating” to him. During the studio week, everyone enters “the Taskmaster universe” and it “becomes your life for a period.” They effectively “exist within the rules and the world of Taskmaster.”

Nothing exemplifies this more than how some contestants dive headfirst into the competition. Josh Widdicombe from Season 1 is still walking around with Davies’ name tattooed on his foot. Similarly, Joel Dommett from Season 21 has a tattoo on his scalp reading “QUITE BIG” for a prize task asking for the most surprising big thing to be concealed from your person. Another standout approach for Davies was Season 19’s Jason Mantzoukas. The actor was a fan of Taskmaster before joining, and Davies believes he wanted to “stand out” rather than necessarily “do well in terms of points.” He came into the show as an “incredible destructive whirlwind of energy,” which was great for us watching at home! The duo particularly enjoy situations where contestants have a good idea, but the idea fails.

Horne remembers Tim Key, who finished in fourth place in Season 1, being asked to make a block of ice disappear. Key came up with the idea of throwing it into a river, but the ice simply floated back to the surface. Davies points out that he didn’t realize that ice “doesn't melt for ages, especially in cold water in a cold river.” Horne likes the moment when contestants are confounded; “It’s funnier when they fail,” he says.

However, there have been situations where contestants have decided a particular task goes too far. Horne remembers Katherine Ryan in Season 2 being asked to “eat [an] egg as fast as possible.” She assumed they meant eating it raw and refused. Joe Wilkinson, by contrast, cooked his egg and served it “with a nice plate of meat and bread.” Horne is quite happy if a contestant says no. There is “no need” to pressure people into doing something they genuinely don't want to do. It’s important to let the cast know that “we’re not going to embarrass you. So, it’s only you that's going to embarrass yourself.” Davies jokes that contestants aren't being asked to “eat live animals” or “take their clothes off,” but he does then consider whether this angle could form the basis of the franchise’s next spin-off.

Taskmaster Has Gone Global, but Greg Davies and Alex Horne Aren’t Changing a Thing

From an idea that began at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010, Taskmaster's success on British channels Dave and Channel 4 has led to multiple international iterations. Taskmaster series exist in Australia, Iceland, Portugal, Canada, and many more countries, but according to a recent press release by Channel 4, views on the official worldwide YouTube channel showing the original have hit 1.4 billion. There has also been a significant increase in North American audiences watching the series online, with views up 70% to 243 million and subscribers up by 82%. This may be one of the reasons that this new season of Taskmaster is being released in its entirety, week by week, on YouTube.

The growing American audience hasn’t changed how Davies and Horne make Taskmaster. They don't try to alter the show for American viewers. Davies points out that when the program moved from UKTV’s Dave to Channel 4, Horne had said they weren't going to do anything different, and the same principle applies internationally. Davies compares it to British audiences watching an American sitcom: You don't stop and ask, “What's a sidewalk?” You understand it and “join the dots pretty quickly.” The main difference is that they have now had American comedians on the show, including Mantzoukas and Kumail Nanjiani, the latter in Season 21. But once everyone enters the “Taskmaster universe,” the cultural divide becomes “normalized pretty quickly.”

The United Kingdom and United States have a history of successful television crossovers, and the latest format to be imported to Britain is Saturday Night Live. Davies and Horne reveal that they share a studio with the SNL UK team, with Davies describing walking through the “gang” as a “hive of youthful energy” that is good for “two old men to limp through” and see everyone “fired up.” The pair shouldn’t write themselves off yet, as SNL famously has celebrity guest hosts that change week by week.

“When they ask me [to host], I’ll let you know,” says Davies. Horne is less certain about hosting. One thing he loves about Taskmaster is that he knows “what [he’s] doing” and how it works with him and Davies. He says that jumping “in the deep end” and not knowing whether something is a good fit isn't necessarily for him. Although SNL “looks like a fun thing to do,” he would be “very scared.” Perhaps The Horne Section could be the musical guest during the week hosted by Davies instead. Horne thinks that is a better idea, but Davies insists that if Horne were involved, he would have to be “in a papoose around [his] neck during the monologue.”

New episodes of Taskmaster Season 22 are released every Thursday at 5 p.m. ET on the official Taskmaster YouTube channel.