A new series of Taskmaster is always an event worth celebrating, but series 19 is a special occasion for the rapidly growing American fan base of the British comedy panel game show: American comedian and nexus of chaos Jason Mantzoukas is officially joining the action.
The show has had North American contestants before (Desiree Burch, Katherine Ryan, Mae Martin), but Mantzoukas is the first contestant to be based professionally in the U.S. Mantzoukas, a big fan of Taskmaster, directly reached out to be on the show, series creator Alex Horne told Polygon, and the Channel 4 program was more than happy to add the Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The League star.
The first episode of series 19 was screened to a private audience in New York January 21, marking the second straight year Taskmaster has visited the Big Apple ahead of a series drop, as the show’s American audience continues to grow. Shortly after the event, Polygon caught up with Horne and the Taskmaster himself, Greg Davies, about dealing with “more intense” American fans, how Mantzoukas could “power a city,” getting a second wind of motivation 19 series in, and what they’ve learned from the franchise’s expansion.
Taskmaster series 19 debuts May 1 on Channel 4 and May 2 on YouTube, with new episodes each week through early July.
This interview is edited for clarity and length.
Polygon: Are you still in the U.S. or are you back home?
Alex Horne: We are still in the U.S. We’re doing a show tonight at the New York Town Hall.
Greg Davies: We’re in NYC, baby. [to Alex, demandingly] Say it.
Horne: We’re in NYC, baby Pete.
What’s been your highlight of this U.S. tour?
Horne: We had our portraits done in Central Park.
Davies: Tick. [pantoming checking a box] They were terrible. Tick. [pantoming checking another box] We’ve met lots of nice people.
Horne: That’s probably the highlight.
Davies: We’ve been confounded by being recognized by people in this incredible city. We went on Seth Meyers, we had a lovely old time.
Horne: And we went to the Harry Met Sally restaurant, Katz[’s Deli].
Davies: And Alex faked an orgasm.
Davies: We’ve done a lot in the time we’ve been here. We’ve done a lot. There’s lots more to go.
Horne: But we’re mainly just two tourists having a lovely time.
Image: Channel 4
Now that you’re on your second promotional visit to the U.S., what differences have you noticed in terms of the fan reaction in the U.K. versus here?
Horne: Well, I think people here discovered it themselves — you have to go looking for it on YouTube, rather than it being on your terrestrial telly. So the people who know it here seem to know it really well. It’s their thing, and they’re quite proud of telling us. We always meet people and they say, “Oh, I’ve told my sister and she’s told her kids.” So that’s a really lovely thing. And we met people last night who showed us pictures of their family playing it at Christmas and all that.
Davies: Yeah, which is wonderful.
Horne: They’re slightly more intense.
Davies: I think that there’s an interesting dynamic at play. If fans of the show were to meet us in the street in the U.K., they would be sort of slightly thrown and not quite know what to say. And I think it’s the other way round here. People come up and go, “Hey!” but they expected to see us, and Alex and I go, “Whoa, you know us!” It’s a strange reversal of excitement.
Last time we spoke, Alex, I asked you who you wanted to add to the show as a contestant, and you said you wanted to get an American comedian on the show. Now you’ve gone and done it. What drew you to Jason Mantzoukas, and what did you see and like him in before?
Image: Channel 4
Horne: Well, it’s interesting. For one of the first times, we didn’t ask him, he asked us. He got in touch and I knew him from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place and also every other program, because he’s in everything. But yeah, Brooklyn Nine-Nine I liked, and that same intenseness of that character, he brought that to the show in spades. So yeah, I just wanted to see the energy of a fully full-blooded American. He didn’t disappoint. He knew the show inside and out.
Davies: He hit the ground running. You may not know this about Jason, but he has a bag, and in that bag are tools, tools I think would mean that he would survive any global event. That’s very useful for a series of Taskmaster.
Was it the same for you, Greg?
Davies: Yeah, yeah. I’ve worked with Andy Samberg before [on the comedy show Cuckoo], so I watched [Brooklyn Nine-Nine] obsessively, and I think Jason’s fabulous. We couldn’t believe that he asked us to be on.
When you’re thinking of the right mix of contestants for a Taskmaster series, they all have to bring a different element to the table. Where were you thinking Jason would slot in? What did that leave on the table that you needed to supplement that with?
Horne: We don’t really plan it too carefully. It is kind of done on gut instinct, really. But he was very much the unknown. We didn’t know how that would fit in and how the people would react to him. But I was a bit worried he might be all Hollywood. I didn’t know him personally at all, but he wasn’t that at all. He was very gentlemanly, but also chaotic.
Davies: And also a lot of energy. I think if we’d known Jason before he arrived, I think probably we could have just had four sleepy people. He could power a city.
Last time, we did a quick word association game, and I’d like to do that again with you two. I’m going to run through the contestants from the series as well as a few other words. And I’d like each of you to just say the first word that comes to mind, or a short phrase. We can start with Rosie Ramsey.
Image: Channel 4
Horne: I’m going to say “motherly.” And that’s not necessarily in a caring way, sometimes in a strict way.
Davies: I’m going to use two words and I’m going to say “deceptively strong.” And I don’t mean necessarily physically. Gravity, gravitas, something…
Horne: How’s this one-word association game going?
Davies: I should be doing this internally. She just seems like a lovely mom on the surface, but there’s more going on.
Image: Channel 4
Horne: Scatty. I’m sticking to the rules, by the way.
Image: Channel 4
Horne: Lithe [somehow pronounced as a three-syllable word]. Lovely body, hasn’t he?
Davies: But does that relate to the show, “lithe”?
Horne: Lithe of mind as well, I think.
Davies: It sounds more like you’re designing a calendar with him on, “lithe.”
Davies: [incredulously] You think he’s got a thin mind.
Horne: I think he’s got a trim mind.
Davies: Mathew Baynton, for me: Unsettling.
Image: Channel 4
Horne: I’d quite like to steal “unsettling” for her.
Davies: I’m going to use two words. I’m going to say “terrifyingly warm.”
Image: Channel 4
Horne: I’ll go for “explosive,” please.
Davies: Yeah. Deceptively explosive. I sort of want to add “deceptively.” He just seems in control, but there is a real danger there I think. Like you find an old World War II bomb and then you go, Oh God, it’s still live!
How about the whole of Taskmaster series 19?
Horne: Well actually Ed Gamble does a podcast about the show and he gets to see it first and he just sent me one word, which was “chaotic,” which I really liked. It’s a chaotic series, and I think it is a lot down to Jason, but all five of them add to that.
Davies: Oh, definitely. Chaos all round. It was real cat wrangling.
Now we’re going to turn it on the two of you and I’m going to ask you each for word association for the other. So Alex, going to start with you: Greg Davies.
Horne: Wow. Well, I’m not going with “lithe.” Well, I think this is a good one. I’m going to go for “masterful” because you’ve got the Taskmaster bit in that word. And I think he is very masterful in terms of he’s very funny and he’s very good at his job. So I’m going to go with “masterful.” There’s no one better.
Image: Channel 4
Now Greg, Alex Horne, what comes to mind?
Davies: Egomaniacal dweeb.
And Alex, how does that make you feel?
That fits the bill, then. So, I’m curious. Between doing these U.S. tours, you’re doing U.S. events, you have the VR game — there’s been lots of Taskmaster expansion recently. What have you learned from these expansions of the Taskmaster banner, and has anything surprised you?
Horne: It constantly surprises us, nothing more than this trip to America. We do have to pinch ourselves a lot when we see a picture of us — our manager took a picture of us on the sofa with Seth — and you do go, This is ridiculous, the places that you can go. But I think we have an attitude of, well, we’ll just see what happens, take each thing as it comes.
Davies: I think it’s pretty refreshing, because Alex and I have been doing comedy in the U.K. for a long time, and our road to the things that we’ve ended up doing has been long. And I can’t speak for Alex, but I think there’s a childish excitement that’s been rekindled in me for sure. Being in the dressing room at Seth Meyers, we were pretty giddy. I’m a 56-year-old man and I’m looking at Alex going [very excited eyes], so it’s quite refreshing
I imagine that must be nice, 19 series in on a program, to have that second wind.
Horne: We had that conversation yesterday. We were walking through the snow in Central Park going, “It is really cool that we are still excited.”
Davies: We’re still excited by this city and the chance to come over here and people just coming up to you and knowing you in this faraway land is so exciting, honestly.
Horne: And we’re quite shallow.
With the international expansions like New Zealand, Australia, Norway, etc. around the world, has there been anything that either of you have learned, watching or discovering that they do, that you then try to take in, either Alex when constructing the show, or Greg in your performance as the Taskmaster?
Davies: Well, no, I don’t really watch much of them. I’ve had a look for novelty, and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of the other assistants and Taskmasters, but I don’t watch it. When I’m writing comedy, I don’t watch other comedy. I have a sponge-like brain and I’ll just start talking in a New Zealand accent if I watch it.
Horne: I feel the same. I don’t really watch them either, because once the first episode’s up and running. I let ’em go on with it. But I would say the only thing it’s taught me is that it makes you remember that it’s a really funny, silly show, and not to take it too seriously. When you see people in Norway doing these stupid things, I just find it refreshing. Oh yeah, I remember why we do this show. If I look at the English one, I’m mainly looking at myself, because that’s only natural. It’s just reminded me that the process of setting these five people up with the same thing and seeing what happens, that’s the bit.
Something I’ve always wondered about with the show is how you construct an episode with the tasks. You obviously don’t air them in the order that the tasks were filmed. So what factors play into your decision of which tasks go into which episode?
Horne: That’s a good question. There’s a spreadsheet which me and the director and the producer constantly play with as we’re recording ’em, thinking, OK, that could be an opener for the series, that could be a closer for the series. And then you sort of slot them in thinking, Well, we’ve got one in the garden, so we should have one inside next. So it is boring location stuff and then thinking, Well, this is really high-energy, good to have a low-energy one next, or This one’s artistic, it should be followed by something physical. It’s no more than that. It’s sort of putting a jigsaw into place, but they pick themselves after a bit.
What I was wondering is, if there are people who are struggling, do you ever try and give them an episode where they win?
Horne: No. It’s never based on points or even if somebody is dominating each of the tasks. Sometimes there’s a clear sort of the funniest person in a task, but if that happens three times in a row in an episode, then that’s just how it falls.
Davies: And the tasks are genuinely judged in-studio. We don’t have an idea of how we’re going to score. So it’s almost impossible to plan in those terms, I would imagine.
Horne: We could probably try to make it so it’s a thrilling finale in terms of points, but that has never come near the thought process. And sometimes it’s all over by the last episode, and that’s just what it is. Which is the same in the Premier League, as well. It doesn’t always come down to the last weekend.
Is there a question that you’re tired of being asked in these press days?
PR representative: Hey, sorry, we actually have to wrap.
Davies: I have one: “What’s your favorite task?”
Taskmaster series 19 will be premiering in early 2025 on YouTube. Previous seasons are available to watch on YouTube.
