Taskmaster, and other British panel shows: the omnibus thread

Cafe Society
1

Series 15 of Taskmaster (U.K.) starts in March, with Frankie Boyle, Ivo Graham, Jenny Eclair, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, and Mae Martin as contestants. The “Your Insomniac-Bored-Anxious YouTube Videos” thread over in MPSIMS flushed out a couple of fans of the show; this thread is for discussion of the new series, past seasons, and other British comedy panel shows such as Would I Lie To You, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, I Literally Just Told You, and Mock The Week. Who’s your favorite contestant? Best moment? Most hopeless incompetent (looking at you, Nish Kumar and John Kearns)? Favorite sociopath (looking at you, Rhod Gilbert)?

Of the next cast, I’ve only ever heard of Frankie Boyle, but finding out about unfamiliar comedians and actors is part of the pleasure of the show. I’m currently working my way, not in any particular order, through the previous 14 series, and getting exposed to a bunch of comedians and actors I’d never before heard of, like Guz Khan, Munya Chawawa, Sally Phillips, and Fern Brady. I’m curious to see Frankie, because I can’t really square his acerbic, transgressive black comedy with the surreality of, say, herding ping-pong balls or cooking a pancake while wearing as many kitchen utensils as you can cram into a headband. But I wouldn’t have thought Romesh Ranganathan’s comedy would work, either, so I’m prepared to be surprised.

Anyone else?

2

My daughter introduced me to Taskmaster, and I’ve just started watching them on YouTube, season 3 at the moment, but I’m watching whatever comes up. Is there a better place to watch?
In 2019 I got here a Taskmaster game, which we all played. Great fun. You do tasks.

3

I like Taskmaster, The Big Fat Quiz (particularly the plays featuring children from the Mitchell Brook Primary School) and 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown, though I’ve seen only a couple of episodes of 8 Out Of Ten Cats and even fewer of Countdown itself. Rachel Riley and Suzy Dent are both geniuses.

4

I confess I cannot stand Jimmy Carr and don’t understand 8outof10cats. I can watch WILTY endlessly especially if Bob Mortimer is on. Fingerprints on an abandoned handrail never fails to crack me up, along with sniper’s dream. Other excellent panel members are Greg Davies (of Taskmaster) and James Acaster.

5

I love Taskmaster, I’ve watched almost every episode available in the US. It’s format is great and allows it to be fresh nearly every single time.

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Ivo Graham is a quiet self-deprecating posh “public schoolboy” type (not dissimilar to Ed Gamble or Rhys James). Jenny Eclair is an effusive and sometimes grating personality. Kiell Smith-Bynoe is from Ghosts, and on that he has a low key dry wit, but that’s scripted. Mae Martin is actually a Canadian who has lived in the UK for a while.

7

I’m fairly literate, and I can always at least take a crack at the anagrams; if there are an “e” and a “d”, you can make a past tense verb, a “g” can be blended with “h”, “l”, “n”, or “r”; that sort of thing.

But I truly have no idea how Rachel can blindly pick five small numbers, and combine them to add up to a randomly chosen three-digit number, in just thirty seconds. I mean, I literally wouldn’t know where to begin. Just blows me away.

8

I read somewhere that one bit of advice she offers to help solve the numbers rounds is to memorize the 75 times table (i.e., 75, 150, 225, 300, 375, 450, etc.). Usually there’s four small numbers and two large ones and often one of the large ones is 75, or two of them are 25 and either 50 or 100.

BTW, I tried to find an iPhone app to practice the numbers round but couldn’t find one.

9

She’s also working backwards. She’s not looking at the factors and trying to reach the number (which is what I do), she’s looking at the number and subtracting and dividing back to zero. Coupled with tricks and techniques like going larger then back to smaller, or knowing the tricky times tables as @Dewey_Finn mentioned, she also likely has help in her earpiece on rare occasions (I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt).

10

(My emphasis)

I’m sorry, Ed Gamble is self-deprecating and quiet? Ed Gamble? This guy?

11

No, Ed Gamble is a posh public schoolboy type.

12

I didn’t realize they were all on YouTube. We’ve been watching on PlatoTV the free tier version of Paramount+. It’s truly awful, clear designed to be as irritating as possible to use to make you upgrade to the paid version.

13

As Jimmy Carr said over and over again, it’s her only job!

14

At least Rhys James does self-deprecation well. One of my favorite lines of his from Mock the Week - “Rhys James: when Ed Gamble isn’t available.”

15

I guess that’s a nuance of British class culture I just hadn’t picked up on. I associate “posh public schoolboy” more with people like David Mitchell, Robert Webb, or Stephen Fry. It would never have occurred to me to think of Ed Gamble as an Old Etonian or Wykehamist or something.

16

I distinctly remember Rachel Riley saying once, “This was a difficult one,” followed by, “I could only think of three ways to solve it.” Not sure if she was kidding. And a couple of times, she’s admitted not to having a solution immediately, saying, “Leave it with me.” But then a few minutes later, she will present a solution. Only very rarely have I seen her say that it’s not possible.

17

I’m sure she has some mental tricks, as @GuanoLad mentioned above. Nevertheless, they’re pretty damned impressive tricks. I’m sure she can do much more than play games with arithmetical processes, too; the woman earned a first-class honors degree in mathematics from Oxford University, for all love. They didn’t give that to her for having a pretty face.

18

You all should try to track down Richard Osman’s House Of Games. I think many of you would like it very much.

It’s a very gentle quiz show with very simple questions and games, but only celebs (i.e. comedians, TV presenters, sportspeople) compete. You will be introduced to a lot of UK culture and personalities via this show, and it’s also just loads of fun.

It’s been running for six years, and they just celebrated their 500th episode, so lots to catch up on.

19

I’ve been playing this a few times each day for about 3 months, and I’m proud to say I’d be willing to take on Roisin Conaty. But I am improving.

20

Thank you. Now I know what I’m going to be doing at work instead of, you know, actually working.