Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 10. *Series 10 Champion*

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

On the podcast this week Ed chats with the Taskmaster Series 10 Champion! The pair reflect through the series and discuss all the highs and lows along the way. Sit back and enjoy while Ed tentatively hands over the crown...   Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail]  Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster  For all your Taskmaster goodies visit www.taskmasterstore.com  Sales, advertising and general enquiries:[e-mail] Taskmaster is on Channel 4 Thursdays at 9pm and you can catch the family friendly version Sundays on E4 at 6pm. Taskmaster the podcast is produced by Daisy Knight for Avalon Television Ltd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hello and welcome to episode 10 of the Taskmaster podcast. They said it couldn't happen. They didn't actually, they said it could happen. Very much commissioned for a 10 episode series, so this is me fulfilling my contract. But it's been so much more than a contract. I've loved doing this podcast so much, but there is still one episode to go yes we are covering the final episode of Taskmaster

Series 10 which more than ever means that if you have not seen that episode go and watch it before listening to this because my guest this week is the winner of Taskmaster Series 10 that's right the person taking my crown from me. This is more of a ceremonial handover than a podcast, although it is also a podcast. We are following the strict Taskmaster podcast format of going through the episode task by task, discussing, dissecting, breaking down

all of the things that happened, our favourite moments, the scoring, who we thought should have got more, who we thought should have got less. So my special guest today, turn it off if you've turned this right off now, if you've not seen the episode, you don't know who the winner is. My special guest today is the winner of Taskmaster Series 10, Richard Herring. That's right, Richard Herring is the champion. It came down to the wire it was very close between him and Daisy I'm not going to say who I would prefer to be interviewing right now but nah look either of them it was a really good lineup a really good cast very happy to be

interviewing anyone from it a cracking series I think we'll all agree and i'm looking forward to chatting about the series as a whole with richard and this specific episode and finding out how he feels now that he has finally got his dream and one taskmaster many in many ways this might be the last thing richard herring ever does i feel like he put his all into this i feel like he might just pass away in the night um obviously if that happens uh we'll take this podcast down um because I don't want to be implicated uh in the death of Richard Herring um he's not gonna die I hope he's not gonna die god I feel so bad if he did anyway let's crack on let's have a chat with Richard Herring I'll catch up with you afterwards briefly as well but for now enjoy episode 10 of the taskmaster podcast

welcome richard herring champion of taskmaster series 10 to the taskmaster podcast your reign of terror is over ed gamble yeah i'm no longer you're no longer the reigning champion well no look although it is sad that i'm no longer the reigning champion it means i can you know let go of a lot of my responsibilities i don't have to tour around schools anymore i don't have to go and open fates that sort of thing i don't think you realize quite how many responsibilities you've taken on now richard has the reigning champion of taskmaster damn i wish i'd lost now. I wish I hadn't built that spaghetti bridge so well now.

Yeah, I mean, we'll come to that, because we're going to go through the episode. It was quite the dramatic end to the series. It really was. But congratulations. How are you feeling? Well, it's sort of weird. I felt... You know, I watched it again, obviously, and I was just as nervous.

It was very nerve wracking. I was sure that I'd blown it, especially when there was a team task, you know, in the middle. And I thought, oh, God, I'm not. I can't even pick up any points either way here. However, we've done and I was absolutely sure we'd blown it. But I actually was because that happened a couple of times in the series. I got so far behind. I'd kind of accepted it uh and then almost well I'll say this now when we were going up for the final task I said I said to Daisy I said look this I've had so much fun I'm going to try and win obviously but if you win I'm still going to be really happy which I didn't think would be possible but i kind of and she said well i won't and she wasn't no she wasn't so um i kind of had come around to i was quite i don't know it sort of felt you know watching it

again everyone's so good and i loved everyone and i kind of wanted everyone to win i feel like um i sort of feel winning the competition isn't probably, I know you and I love to win, but I think Daisy sort of won people's hearts, I think, on the whole. So I think, you know, it's sort of the winning and the losing is not necessarily all that important, oddly. And also in that task where I'd had the tarot cards read to me and the woman had said,

I don't think you're going to win, but you'll be happy. And I thought, well, that's not possible. And then as I was waiting to go up, I thought, no, maybe, so that's it. I'm going to come second and I will be happy. And she was right. The tarot lady was right, but then she turned out to be wrong. We had a lot of emails about that, about whether you are going to be requesting your money back

from the tarot card lady. But she also, when they cut out this, she also said I was having trouble in my relationship. And I said, don't tell my wife. I really thought they'd leave that in, but they cut that out of the show. So, you know, I think it's going OK with my wife, even through lockdown, so that's OK.

I think it's going OK with my wife, even through lockdown, so that's OK. How was your Taskmaster experience in general? Did it live up to all your expectations? Because I know you've wanted to do it for a long time. You were very vocally keen about doing Taskmaster. Did it live up to everything? It did. It was the best job I've ever had, I think, in terms of it's not really a job. You know, it was kind of crazy.

I'd love to be able to go into that house every day and Alex sent me some tasks and then get paid at the end of the day. That was sort of incredible. And, yeah, even the stuff where it's humiliating and even the things where you really go wrong, and obviously there's times where you're upset, I was sort of surprised at, you know, I think I was a right plodder through i

thought i would be real i was just more surprised about myself um and i think it sort of comes down to what greg sort of realized quite early on is that i'm just i want to please daddy basically and in this case greg is daddy and just everything i just bolded you know i came up with what i was going to do and sort of went route one on nearly everything. And I really thought I'd be much more imaginative. But it's quite a good way to do OK, because I think Mawaan, who was very inventive, half the time that worked for him

and half the time it didn't work for him. So, like, in a way, just kind of going and trying your best to get the thing done is probably the best way to win but i was sort of surprised at myself at everything you know i think like even the prize tasks i think just like the part of my brain when we did it they came in and i just wanted to get them done as quickly as possible to make everyone happy right i sent them in really quickly and i think some of those thinking oh well people have done really inventive things so things, so a cornetto in the middle of that will be funny

and might win because someone will have gone to... But of course, everybody went. No-one thought inventively at all. Everyone went route one. But I think that was to the series' credit a lot of the time. It was very funny. But, you know, I think it was interesting. I'd reached some kind of zen level midway through,

even to the point where I don't think it would have made any difference to the scores, but I was actually defending Catherine because, you know, I was always, all the way through, I didn't really, I was more concerned about fairness than about myself. So even when I argued against, sometimes when I lost people points, it was because I didn't think they'd done it to the correct letter of the law.

But Catherine in the final task with the dummy, she hadn't stepped over the line. So I said she hasn't stepped over the line and I sort of defended her for that match. I made a note about that, Richard. I made a note saying it was very nice to see you use your pernickety competitive nature to help someone else. But see, right at that point where, you know,

that lost me a point. I don't think it would have made a difference because she would have been disqualified I guess but it would still have been the same point differential but there was a zenness there that I kind of thought okay this is fine I've had I really had enjoyed it so much and yeah you know I did winning didn't make me feel great because I sort of felt so bad for Daisy I knew Daisy was I mean as we saw all the way through, the kind of relationship with Daisy was extraordinary. I mean, I love her.

I don't think she loves me all the time. One of my first questions I've written down here, Richard, is does Daisy hate you? I mean, it seemed like it, didn't it, at times? But then she was so lovely as well. And what I love about her is her self-confidence is off the scale. And I think, especially in a woman, it's rare to see that kind of confidence,

and that's a terrible thing, and women should be confident. But, you know, that hippo, she genuinely believed that hippo was brilliant and I was being stupid. Yeah. That was a high point of the entire series, I think. But I thought i was worried for your safety i was i was and i had to go home that night and then sleep overnight

thinking is this it is this the end of the relationship but if you know there's lots of that cut to and she seems very generous in applause and you know she when i did stuff well she was very nice but i think you know there was a between her and katherine there were a few comments wishing she katherine was her partner and Catherine there were a few comments wishing Catherine was her partner and then Catherine at the end saying, I want you to win! Which I thought was, like, a bit much. But so I felt like we were... What I really loved about it, I felt we were a really good team of people

and all brought something different to it. Definitely. And that's why they're so... They're such geniuses on this show, to put together the right right i don't know if they could have predicted everyone it would react in exactly the way they did but you sort of need each of those elements yeah uh to make it really really sing i think and and um i think she's just so passionate and so i mean i i would argue that her hippo was much worse than me saying red pillow backwards or whatever it was I said backwards. I think that was possible to get the red pillow.

But, you know, she was so confident in herself. And, like, you know, it's amazing. When she was challenged about anything, she would be... You know, I love it. I just wish I was like that, that she was challenged by anything and she just genuinely believed she was the best at everything. Especially when Greg challenges you because when greg challenges me or i guess you feel the same on something like a prize task i immediately go to pieces so it's like well i'm this is awful obviously he's asked that question so it's terrible i'm gonna get one point but she is so

solid in all of her choices yeah so i well i really loved her i don't know i think she was you know that bit where she said i hate you as much as my husband or more than my husband or something like that. I mean, that was the most... I don't think I've ever seen Taskmaster get to the heart of someone's soul quite as much as that, because that's an amazing revelation. And also, look, she was like eight months pregnant. Yeah. So, like, I think we can allow her a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

But I genuinely... I love her. I think she's awesome. I'm slightly scared of her. I really would have been happy if she'd won. No, I'm not. Right, that's it. I've got to talk for the rest of the series. For the rest of the series? You don't appreciate that.

You won't appreciate anything else I've done, because that, for me, was my peak. So let's move forward with... No, in fact, I'm going to ask you first. What do you think your high point was in the series and what do you think your low point was? I think probably... What was lovely about the series is everyone got, like,

one place to completely shine, I think probably that what was lovely about the series, everyone got like one place to completely shine, I think. And I think, I think, I think that's, I think it might be the first time that that's definitely happened because they're always very good at putting together casts and there's always a good sort of spread of people and it's always good chemistry. But I think this might, this is particularly strong group in that everyone had a proper genius moment. Yeah, I think so so i think i

mean i think the acting thing was right up my street and but also uh you know was was very funny so i think i mean that that there's i mean a lot of things with daisies or the watermelon thing in which i was almost the straight man in that was amazing but i think the i think probably the i mean i did the wolf drawing the wolf on the teapot i was amazed to beat johnny vegas at a a task that involved art and a potter's wheel both of those things so um and so and and i did actually think a little bit outside the box so i used my my sort of general knowledge skills and you know not my great artistic skills but thought had a time to think i think anything that i had a bit of time to think I did better at.

So I think, like, both the disappearing task and the upside-down task, I think I did better than Greg gave me credit for, certainly on the upside-down task. Yeah, look, we had your back here on the Taskmaster podcast. One of the few times on a Taskmaster podcast we've had your back was the upside down task. So when I actually had time to stop and think,

I think I did better. And obviously, I think learning all those lines, sort of doing stupid accents, wanking in a bush, they were playing to all of my strengths. So I think that's the one that people are kind of... As soon as they said there was a Scottish character, I was like, oh, Herring's in his element here. He's going to do his famous Scottish accent.

And what about low point-wise? I know we've discussed the backwards talking task. Would you consider that a low point? I mean, it was, but also just because I, you know, I don't really mind because I over-thunk it, I suppose, and I should have just done the back... I should have just talked backwards. I was trying to think of a way to do it

where it would actually come out perfectly, and I wondered, is that by doing letters, or do I have to say the letters backwards in order for it to come out perfectly? So I overthought it, and the bits where I just, you know, spelt it backwards and read it out might have worked. I would say the real low point was the words one, just the four-letter words, five-letter words,

which is absolutely in my wheelhouse. Absolutely. I had loads of time to think of six, four-letter words. Yeah. I think I thought I only need to do five. I thought that was the problem. But when I said acre, I really sort of surprised myself. I could have just said, you know,

I could have just said everyone's name, basically. I could have said Rick, Alex, Greg, Days. I could have said cats. I could have just done that and, you know, got through. I had lots of time to think, days. I could have said cats. I could have just done that and I would, you know, got there. I had lots of time to think of it. I had it all prepared. And then, I mean, I don't think, I was pretty unlucky on a lot of tasks I lost by frames, right?

Like they went to the timer and I always lost. So that one I lost by half a second. The three frames with the blinking. But I was so angry about, I was so cross with myself for screwing up words, which was my, you know, to not be able to come up with a four letter word in two seconds was.

It's such an awful feeling when you're angry about something on Taskmaster as well, because I would come out of a couple of episodes being like, kicking myself, being like, oh, I'm so angry, I missed out on that, or that went wrong. And then your brain kicks in and goes, you're angry about the most ridiculous

pathetic thing anyone could ever be angry about and then you go oh god i'm the worst person ever that's what makes me angry there's people who've got genuine problems and i'm angry about a rubber egg bouncing you know but i think it's you know i think what's important about this and why it works is you've got to take it seriously i think you know joe brand's about the only person i think it was worked where she's been kind of flippant, but it works for Jo Brand. But if everyone was like that, it would be terrible. You've got to take it seriously.

And I don't think you can really, if you play it for laughs, it's not going to be as funny as if you just literally try to do the best you can do. And that will be funnier than you going, what can I do that will be funny?

You know, and I think if you're not, you know, Johnny's natural funniness, you know, his poetic ability comes out in all these things he says as he's failing. It just... I mean, Johnny sort of had an amazing ability to say something just before everything went wrong.

Literally would say the thing and then the thing would go, you know, his thing would collapse. This is definitely supporting walls. Everything he said would then be immediately followed perfectly comedically by something happening. So he is comedic, but also, you know, gravity was his. Yes. Well, I mean, literally, I mean, he falling over because of nothing was a particular highlight of the series. And also, I don't think we talked about it last week just while we're here. The quote from Johnny about the balls on the floor

saying that they were a map of his pathetic DNA is up there with my best Taskmaster quotes ever, I think. So sad. It's sort of perfect. And so it played out perfectly. And, you know, again, that bit with Greg where he says, you know, my 17-year-old son is watching this and won't ever talk to me again.

So big. Well, let's move on to the prize task in this episode, Best Collection. Catherine's clay faces sort of became a bit of a running joke for the whole episode. She looked genuinely quite taken aback that Greg was mean about the clay faces. Yeah, and that's where Greg is at his best and his worst. And I think he almost pushed it too far with this one.

But he still did. But what I love about him is he couldn't resist it. He knew she was actually like a little bit upset yeah but that made it absolutely irresistible for him to keep so funny to but then i think there was a moment you know and he gave her that bonus point and they kind of forgave each other but there was obviously more of it than there is in the show as well and it was just one of them they did i think they did quite a good job of editing it to look like on the right side of the line yeah yeah but you can tell maybe it felt a little bit dodgy in the studio because at the end of the whole episode when you're looking at the prizes you

look at the clay faces and go they're beautiful but that's what is brilliant because he walks that line and however rude he is to you uh you know and again nearly everything where he's having to go at me, there was much more of it than you see in this. Yeah, but you're having a lovely time. Whenever he's having a go at you, you can't believe your luck. Well, it was so funny. And I think also why the show has worked as well as it has, I think,

in this year is that we'd all just come out first lockdown. This was our first time out of the house in first lockdown. And that first two shows we the house in first lockdown. And that first two shows we recorded on the first day, I cried with laughter all the way through. And I came out and I just felt so happy and so high from this day of laughing. And it was just the catharsis of having left lockdown behind and had this fun.

And I think it was this series of Taskmaster, I think was exactly what everyone needed at the end of this year, was just this silliness. And Greg and Alex, they're both just absolutely fantastic. So, Catherine's clay faces, Johnny's pub signs, which I thought that was a pretty solid collection. Yeah, that's good. One of the pub signs, this is just something I noted,

was for the Brown Edge pub which he tweeted the other day was where he learnt how to do his beer mat building skills so it all links up also the Brown Edge is a really weird name for a pub Mawaan's Emojars which were lovely. I thought he did a lovely job and really appealing to...

We've found out properly this series that if you put a nice picture of Greg on something, you get five points. Yeah. I mean, maybe he'll be wise to that now. Maybe he himself has spotted his character flaw of just watching himself on things. But, yeah, yeah.

Your collection of worthless things. Yeah. You didn't even have anything to back it up with. You were just like, well, that's what it is. I'm sorry. Well, I think, again, with all these things, a lot of them they cut them to make it look like I didn't put up any kind of resistance.

You've got to be able to just sum it up epithelially and funnily, and I think I had too much to say about a lot of the things. And, you know, I got them to value and it was worth something like £4. I just felt the tragedy of me having collected a collection that was that bad. And that was my attempt. I've got a stamp collection, which is pretty good. I think I do regret not working a bit harder on some of them. But, yeah, that was it was a shame for this last one. But that could have worked.

And I think probably against other days, it might have been up there, but they were very good. I've saved Daisy's to discuss until last, the collection of electronic voice phenomenons. There you go, first time. Or ghost recordings.

Let's call them ghost recordings. She's mentioned the ghost recordings in the past during the backwards talking task with you. And it was lovely to hear them. What I found astonishing was, I think anyone else bringing those in would be like laughing about them or thinking they're funny

or being like, I've got these ghost recordings. Because she believes in it so passionately, she presented them as if they're as normal as when she just brought in like a kebab skewer or whatever. And again, it was really, if you took the piss, she was going to almost walk off the stage, right? So it was... Well, she did threaten to do one of the episodes,

she said, I'm going to quit the series if you keep laughing. And it felt like that. It felt like, if you took the piss, which I think happened a bit, but, you know, it was a moment where everything could have exploded. Yeah, you're right. No-one took the piss as much as they should have done for electronic voice recordings of ghosts.

I mean, if they're real, they were pretty good. Yeah. But they're not, are they? Phenomenons. Nope. Electronic voice phenomenons. No. Phenomens. Nope. Electronic voice phenomenons. No.

Electronic...voice phenomenons. Nope. Closest, though, I think. Yeah, that was the best. Electronic voice phenomenons. No! Electronic voice phenomenons. Yes! Let's crack on with task one. A lot of people have been saying that Taskmaster's tasks have been getting weirder and more specific, but I think he's managed to disprove it with this one.

Put these wellies on a spider's feet. You must carry a wellie at all times, but you must never carry more than three wellies. You must not cut or untie the twine. Fastest wins. Your time starts now. So there we go. That's a pretty simple, straightforward, normal, regular task right yeah well it's Catherine again just I mean Catherine is so Catherine I mean for Catherine not uh but she won't leave the room where she never thinks to leave the room

it's incredible the fact that she's genuinely yeah and at no point did anyone take her to one side and say you know you, you can leave the room. And I get it because, you know, in the ball one later, that was the first one and I didn't think to go out and get anything to put the balls in or whatever, you know. So, but, yeah, so that was, yeah, it was, again, I was a bit frustrated with that one and I guess I knew the legs came off and, again, I didn't think, why don't I just take all the legs into the room? Yeah, you even, I think you vocalised

how you should have done it as you were doing it wrong. So I think you said some of the spider's legs have come off and then you put them all back on again. Yeah. It's just, yeah, I know what you mean. It's just that making that leap sometimes is very difficult. Well, I think you weren't, you know, but I think when you take the risk as well,

there's always the chance they go, oh, no, the legs had to be on the spider. Well, it wasn't in the tussle. Oh, no, that's, you've broken the rules. And they were very pernickety about the rules, and I, annoyingly, because my mind got stuck on it, but I did do it, you know, I did it fairly quickly and did it accurately and just felt the spider

had to be together. But I don't know, maybe taking the legs into the room, it would have, there were big legs. It was unwieldy, even with the boots. So it might have been trickier to take them into the actual room. I suppose you could have put them in the, laid them out in the corridor and done it a bit more quickly. It's amazing how much this sort of stuff plays on your mind though.

Yeah. But no one did, no one, I mean, Mawaan did that, but then put them back on the spider, didn't he? Yeah, even he then put them back on the spider. But you didn't need to. You just needed to put them on the spider's legs. It didn't say they needed to be attached. But it's very easy to sit at home and say all of this.

Johnny disqualified again, which it breaks my heart more and more every time it happens because they cut to him this week and he was making a face that he was sort of putting on, but there was so much pain in those eyes. He really argued about this one, I think. I think there was a couple that he really argued. There was one, the, what was it?

The one with, oh, it was the coconut. Were they getting the coconut? Right, so he, like, we were going to come first and second in that one because we did it fastest. And Johnny, and we were very lucky i think to get away with the fact that we opened the coconut in the same way and yeah together so like shut up johnny johnny argued for about five minutes and got us both a point taken off and you know katherine put in first place which i think was was again a fair result but but

he would he often sort of pleaded his case for a long time. Yeah. And just made it worse. And that's why he gets that, you know, I'm begging you, no. He was going to get a bonus point. And I'm begging you, no. That's it. Yeah. Well, he was a pretty clear disqualification.

Yeah, yeah. Because he broke the twine and said out loud, I've broken the twine. Yes. So it's very difficult to work your way around that one. So it was five points for Daisy on the spider, four points for Mawaan, three points for you, Richard,

one point for Catherine, got a bonus point for putting some wellies on the table legs, which I don't feel like we've discussed enough. And Johnny was disqualified. I think that sums up the Taskmaster experience, that table thing of going, they're trying to trick me. I don't know how.

It must, maybe they think tables are spiders. Maybe they mean, yeah, bizarre. I don't know. But then, you know, so Johnny got away with it with the hats on, drawing the animal with a hat on. That obviously wasn't what the task was. He got away with that.

So Catherine didn't get it. Well, almost got away with it to an extent I suppose by getting a point but she got a point because Greg had made fun of her masks yes yeah that's why am I the spider do you think you're the spider no but I could be if that's what you want me to be I'll be anything you want me to be if it means reads I win. Well it's all up to you, all the information's on the task. Well it's not though is it? Put these wellies on the spider's feet, what fucking spider? Okay task two, it's a song performance task, always popular on Taskmaster. Perform this song, you have 20 minutes to prepare for your performance. Best all-round performance wins. It was an original

piece by will collier who i i believe is in uh in the horn section that's right yeah yeah yeah it's a good tune really good it's i've still got it rolling around in my head actually all this time so we we had to learn it pretty quickly um obviously the words were coming up so that was fine but yeah the tune's still in there so uh It seemed like you were working quite well with Daisy. Yeah, I think we did. I think we actually were a good team, but she gets frustrated. The minute anything goes wrong, she's frustrated

and won't blame herself, so the other person gets to play. So I think in the tape recorder task, I would say, yes, I was bad. I think we both went a bit crazy in the treasure hunt task, but still managed to get there. But, yeah, in this one, it clicked straight away. She was, you know, I said, I can't really dance. She came up with this dance.

And, you know, we bothered to rehearse it and learn the song. And we did it. Yeah, I think we did a rehearsal before we did it, and the rehearsal was maybe even better than the final thing. There was sort of no mistakes in it. But, yeah, it did... I think compared to the others who didn't seem to bother working... I mean, they individually...

They just did their own thing, right? They did their own thing, yeah. I do want to talk about your dance, Richard. Yeah. And your little open mouth that you had. It was the surprise of the open mouth. Yeah, but it was more like a sex doll. I was surprised

we didn't get more from Greg about that. It was your raised eyebrows and the little open mouth and it's going to haunt me. It really is. But I liked it because you were both

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which, again, I didn't necessarily came across on the TV quite as well as it did live, but we had to dance back and forth. We did the truss thing. And, you know, we sang it... Well, I sang it very well, and Daisy sang it very high. So I think it was... You know, we did that in the time. It was 20 minutes. It's quite impressive, I think, was, you know, but we did that in the time.

It was 20 minutes. It was quite impressive, I think, from the time. Well, you got rewarded with the five points. Absolutely. A useless five points because you got five points as well. It would be remiss of me to not mention, I think, well, it's one of my quites of the series again, just to see you panic when you picked up the reins and said,

I could ride you like a horse. And then there's a really long pause and then you go, or vice versa. Really panicked. Suddenly panicked. Me too kicked in. But no, she's I'm the smaller one of the two

as we've established. She's half an inch taller than me. I could ride you like a horse. Or vice versa. I think I was trying to make her laugh. It was, well, you know, right from that beginning. But I knew it was going to be a team task because I'd worked that out, obviously.

I knew that day was going to be a team task and she obviously had no idea that that was going to happen. So I think whoever walked through that door on that first task would have got the same reaction. But there was, like, I don't feel she knew who I was. Right. So I was just an old man who'd walked into the room. Oh, it was great.

Yeah, let's briefly talk about katherine johnny and mawan uh i thought i thought it was quite good i thought they needed more than two points each to be honest just because i know they were doing individual things and they hadn't really practiced it properly but mawan was adding some lovely flourishes sort of he was good yeah some like fuji style flourishes like one time like that sort of style uh just like talking over the top of it love that uh and katherine's quite a specific reference um do you know the song uh um the song about crumble everybody's good at cooking something oh yes i'm gonna cook and crumble she was just doing it exactly like that lady just so high I'm going to cook and crumble.

She was just doing it exactly like that lady. Just so high, so posh, like warbling. And again, I think she cuts to it and she goes, I thought it was better than that, didn't she? She's really surprised by herself, which is great. Find somebody, somebody you trust. Because they're the person who makes you feel good. Find somebody, somebody you trust. Because they're the person who makes you feel good. Find somebody, somebody you trust, because they're the person who makes you feel good.

Again, that was socially distanced, and we weren't socially distanced. So I guess we had that advantage again, which we did. We did our team task, I think, about three days before lockdown. It was really close to lockdown. Daisy had a weird mysterious cold and the last thing we did was eat melon off each other's hands so it was it was that pre-covid

yeah pre-lockdown days where people like yeah this is we're all like still slightly joking about touching elbows and stuff at that point um and uh yeah so it was you know you just will there ever be a world where we can eat melon off each other's hands and you might have been you might have been the last person to uh voraciously eat melon out the hand of someone you've just met it wasn't really clear who i was in a room in a room full of plastic, like a serial killer would have. Yeah, at that point, she must have realised who you were.

She wasn't just going, why is this member of the crew eating watermelon? I think she'd worked it out by then. Yeah. So, task three, the final pre-recorded task of the series. Neatly hang all of Bernard's clothes on the coat rail. You must stay behind the line at all times. Interesting.

I wonder why they picked this as the final task. It was very funny. And the image of Bernard being smashed about all over the room, it was quite haunting. I suppose, again, it showed everyone's different approaches. And it was an unusual one where Daisy didn't kind of take control of it and screwed it up really she always usually does quite well at least getting close to those kind of things and this one she got in a mess didn't she and

yeah yeah it was a bit closer everywhere which nearly happened to me you know the shoes coming off me doing it that way around the show and I said the shoes might come off and do it this way and then the shoes come off you kind of go yeah so i was very lucky to get that shoe back again did anybody else i was i put everything on the hangar some some other people used the hangers didn't they but most a lot of them didn't even find that use the hangers or find that catherine and johnny both missed the presence of the hangers completely yeah um but catherine has but i i imagine catherine's quite a neat person anyway sure uh so she seems quite together so not you know not emotionally during the tasks but i mean like at home i'd imagine she's quite neat um so she didn't use the hangers

but it was still pretty neat and she was the fastest so i think she deserved the uh she deserved the five points yeah i think so my initial. My initial thought, and I think I would have tried this, I would have had the thought, was just to throw the entirety of Bernard over the rail to try and get him hanging on the rail so his clothes would have been hanging over the rail. And just because it's the final episode, I texted Alex to check to see how that would have gone down on a Sunday.

I mean, he took a while to answer. It did make me feel like a madman. I said, my instinct would have been to throw Burnham with his clothes still on and to try and get him hanging on the rail, hence clothes on the rail. Would this have been acceptable? And also, was this something you hoped people might do?

Okay, bye. I think I take my research for this podcast far too seriously. Bye. He said, yes, yes, and yes, you do. So he was hoping someone would do that it would have been acceptable and i do take this too seriously but if you'd done that and missed then that's game over right exactly but sometimes sometimes richard you've got you've got to take these risks see i

think that's too much of a risk because you had to test text and ask you couldn't ask i suppose you could have said will it count would he have told you he wouldn't know because he's not the taskmaster yeah i think there's every chance. Is it neatly? Did it say, didn't say take off the clothes and hang them neatly? No, I don't think it did. It just said neatly hang all of Bernard's clothes on the coat rail. Okay.

But I see, I think if he did that, his shoe would have fallen off or something. And then what are you going to do? I suppose you could have. You're playing it too safe, Richard. You've got to be more rock and roll. Although you do have the trophy. And now it's time to hear from our BFF bonus fact finder,

Alex Horne. Ooh, it's me, Alex Horne, your BFF bonus fact finder. And today's final bonus fact is about my favourite task of the series, the one in which they had to hang the clothes of the mannequin on the clothes rail. And it wasn't meant to be my favourite task of the series. It was quite an ordinary task, but it became the funniest for me. In the room, in the weird nightclub sticky floor room. I laughed so much watching each of those contestants. It got funnier and funnier as

the head of the mannequin exploded more than once. And your fact about the task is that the mannequin has a name, and his name is Bernard. He's called Bernard Mannequin. And I wanted to tell you that fact because it wasn't me who came up with the name. As so often in this show, I get a lot of credit for things undeservedly. I didn't come up with that. Vicky came up with that, our production manager and chief of all things. And I wanted to share that fact with you. In fact, I wanted to share many facts. And the facts are these, that the team are wonderful. And it is a pleasure and a joy to work with you. In fact, I wanted to share many facts and the facts are these,

that the team are wonderful and it is a pleasure and a joy to work with them. They all come up with so many inspired ideas from top to bottom. The Andes, of course, producer and director, but everyone along the line. There's Amy, there's Andrew, there's Gabby, there's, of course, Sophie, There's Andrew, there's Gabby, there's, of course, Sophie, who's in there with Vicky. There's Sam and Gary on cameras, but so much more. Neil and Ariel and Shirley on sound. There's also James and Alex sometimes on cameras. And everyone plays an integral part to this. And it's so stupid and so much fun. So the fact is that I am very grateful to all of them.

All right. Can't wait to show you the next series. And of course, the New Year special, which is ridiculous. Goodbye, everyone. Happy Christmas. The studio task was wearing mittens at all times. Balance either all the mints or all the biscuits on a spaghetti bridge. The mints or biscuits must only touch spaghetti. spaghetti must be balanced on the coconut of course the

coconuts must remain on their stands fastest wins now greg commented on how tense this was it was it was insanely tense you and daisy so silent as you were going about just really i've never seen anyone look so intensely at some polos yeah but you know i think it was i think that's a little bit of pre-show badinage probably had spurred us on a little bit either way she really wanted to win i did want to win obviously so i was taking it seriously yeah um but you know there's it's such a leap i guess you know, it's such a leap. I guess, you know, what happened was so dramatic and if I'd lost, I wouldn't have kicked everything over and eaten a grapefruit. Now, yeah, so Daisy had a meltdown.

It went wrong. Did she... I mean, I guess at that point it probably wasn't salvageable. It wasn't. Once it had gone, I think all the biscuits fell on the floor. I think she sort of started thinking about putting the polos on instead. But also, I think by then, Moana had come second anyway. So it was sort of over.

But, you know, even in the moment, I was thinking, what if I've done something wrong? What if they come back? You know, even almost up to where you're lifting the trophy, you're thinking they're going to come. You know, that's how Taskmaster fucks with you, you think. Yeah. They're going to come in and say, oh, no, actually,

because you did this, that you've lost a point or something. Yeah. So I even, it was, I was sort of stunned afterwards and it didn't, I'm still like a little bit stunned by it. It didn't feel that real. But yeah, it was, Greg said, you know, I thought he thought I'd fucked it because he thought there was no way that two bits i think i don't know if he thought i had one bit of spaghetti

or he didn't think two bits of spaghetti would hold that many polos yeah i thought i thought you've got to go for a handful but you know but you wouldn't be able to get the polos on as i kind of you know the biscuit was you're doing the biscuits yeah it had to be a handful but then i kind of i don't know i just sort of felt that they would be you know again you just have to make a decision that you make a decision and then you have to go with it and you know so I felt two bits of polo was all you could maybe I did a little test you've got the mittens on which makes it harder as well and I think if you drop a biscuit then the biscuits that's the end isn't it you break a biscuit you can't get you can't well you'd have to do something else to get the broken bits of biscuit onto the yeah and I think I think I would have possibly reacted the same way Daisy did.

I mean, it was a shame. Do you think that affected how you felt about your victory, that it ended with Daisy having a full meltdown and essentially sabotaging herself? No, but I was, you know, I wanted... The real victory was the friends we made along the way. And I wanted everyone to be happy. So, you know, I think it felt like a bit like,

oh, this is a shame that someone's unhappy about this. Everyone else seemed to take it on the chin. I mean, I guess everyone else knew they weren't going to win. So it wasn't that big a deal. I genuinely feel it was the other way around. I would have been very gracious about it because I was happy about the idea of her winning it. What's great is we both know that's not true,

but you'll never have to prove it. But, you know, when you look at the footage, she's still very smiling and happy. Oh, no, for sure. She wasn't heartbroken about it. And I think she can take some solace in the fact that she has a burgeoning, fantastic career at. Whereas this is the high point of my entire life.

so uh you and moan were the only ones to complete the studio task five points for you four points for moan which means the episode and the series ended on a tie break which is the same thing happened in series nine which is uh an absolute anti-climax i felt um so it was guess the green eggs and you guessed it closer yeah i mean that was so seems a show i mean like i would have happily um handed the prices but uh yeah so it was yeah it was sort of odd to do it and it was an odd challenge to do it it would i don't know why they didn't go to a one of the pre-recorded ones yeah i when yeah when do they decide i guess um because we yeah we went to a pre-recorded one and i do agree with you in that sense i think i knew i'd already won the series and it was me and rose tie-breaking for the episode uh and then i won the tie break and it did feel a bit petty winning the episode and the series. I was like, maybe Rose should win the episode and then let me win the series.

Even though there's nothing I could have done about it, I really felt competitive in that moment. I was like, I probably look like an absolute dick now. Yes, but there we go. I mean, again, it brings home the arbitrary nature of it that the victory is decided by by that's literally getting two apart if it had been seven six eggs or seven eggs or whatever it was yeah it would have been uh would have been we'd have had to do another tiebreaker you win the episode with 17 points

and win the series with 162 points there we are it's cemented in taskmaster history comfortable comfortable victory in the end that must have been like three points ahead or in the end or something, was it? Four points, I believe. Four points comfortable. Four points ahead. Very comfortable. Comfortable all the way.

Always knew you were going to win. So that's the series scores. Very exciting. Richard Herring wins. Potential champion of champions as well. Greg refers to Daisy during the episode as the people's champion. Now, did that jab hurt? I think it's true. I absolutely agree.

I think the worry I have is that people will want her to win and then she hasn't won and they'll be angry. But I feel she's, I think, out of everyone and out of a very strong line-up of people to capture people's hearts, I think Daisy was the one, you know, like, I think, you know, I think she has, she's the Princess Diana of this episode. Yes.

Of this series. You're the queen. And so therefore, I think, I'm the queen. You're the queen. So, yeah, but, yeah, I'm the Camilla Parker-'m the camilla parker yeah yeah i'll take it i've won prince charles but uh what at what cost oh actually you know the other question yeah it was the worst cost as well um let's let's let's have some emails from Obviously, a lot of these emails are to a potential winner because we didn't know you'd won before we asked for the emails.

But there are some specific questions for you as well. Hello, my name is Julia and I live in NYC and I love Taskmaster. This question applies to any contestant who wins. Why is everyone so mean to Richard Herring? Is this a British customer I'm unaware of? A toilet is a loo and we're all mean to Richard Herring is this a British customer I'm unaware of a toilet is a loo and we're all mean to Richard Herring Richard if you're reading this I don't think you're an old

tryhard you're doing great to any of the other contestants is it because he's kind of a tryhard please let me know I think you're all wonderful including Ed thanks Julia I think I take it quite well, don't I? I think that's the only reason you kind of know

that I will take it and enjoy it. I did really... I mean, I can't tell you, I enjoyed Greg laying into me more than almost anything. Again, it was absolutely the most visceral thrill to be on the end of that. It almost had an S&M vibe to it. It did. But,&M vibe to it. It did.

But, yeah, I think it's because I seem to be... I mean, I think if you're competitive, then that's the natural response to someone who's competitive, isn't it? You must have had that on your... Yeah, of course. People love making fun of me and chipping away at my competitive

nature. It's fine, it makes sense. Yeah, but I think it's because I'll take it, but I don't know. It is weird, but I guess that's why the relationship with Daisy works, because even I'm not sure to the extent. I'll find out when I ask her to be on my podcast. And if she comes on, we could talk about it, but

yeah. This is from Hayley and Jack. If the winner is Richard, do you think that being such a big fan of the show beforehand helped or hindered your performance and how? Yeah, I don't know if it did really help. I didn't really learn any lessons from watching the show because I would have done things differently. I think, yeah, I mean, I think, if anything,

it probably made things a bit worse because I sort, yeah, I mean, I think if anything, it probably made things a bit worse because I sort of thought, just because my idea of how I would be during it was different than what happened. And then, you know, you step out and go, oh, it's immediately like the balls thing, you know, even halfway through, you go, why don't I take them out and count them?

You're sort of regretting your instantaneity, which I think was probably, was actually the right decision because I don't think you could have got all those balls back in. Yeah. It was interesting with that task. I was convinced there was there was a basket massive basketball in the middle of there yes i saw you had a look and you saw something big in there didn't you yeah so that's what i took i went down not i was still would have been low i think but i took my estimation down um and that's interesting how you can hallucinate things like that but uh yeah i mean I mean, I think thinking I'd seen loads,

I thought, oh, I'll be right. You know, I know that they write things on the back of the cards. I know that. But every time I checked the back of the card, there was nothing on it. And the one times I didn't, there was something on the back. Yeah. So it actually almost hinders you.

And then the expectation you put into yourself was, I think, I imagine Katherine Parkinson wasn't really aware of what the show was. Yeah. She agreed to go on it and had never seen it. I think Moana had never seen it. And I think by never seeing it, you'd throw yourself into stuff much more than you would do by going,

oh, my God, I'm going to be judged by that. I'm going to, oh, what if Alex says this or Greg says this? And what if there's a track, you know? So I think you can actually stifle your limits. So, yeah, I think it was... That's interesting if Moana had never seen it, because I think some of the thinking outside the box things were like classic Taskmaster, really.

Yeah. I might be wrong about that, but I have a feeling he hadn't. I have a feeling he sort of agreed to do it and didn't know. Maybe he'd seen some after he'd agreed to do it. Yeah. Catherine, I totally buy that because she never left the room. Yeah, she would know you didn't leave the room. Yeah.

But it's sort of so overwhelming to be there and being amongst it all and it's sort of you know you have so much time to sit and wait for the thing and you sort of get nervous before it goes there and then you're thrown in it's so fast and you've got to act so fast that actually there's no there's nothing really could prepare you for it because you can't go right i'm ready if this is this kind of time you're thrown into something and you have to go, how do I make this? Or what's the best way to do this? Or, you know, you've got to be immediately thinking about how to do something.

So, you know, yeah, I didn't, like, with putting things through the Christmas tree machine, it was just like, okay, what's the heaviest thing I can do and the furthest that I can throw the furthest? That was all of my, didn't even think about travelling outside of the building or, you know... Getting a cyclist. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, so that's... But again, I think that was my role and that's why they wanted me to do it, I guess.

I don't think they necessarily thought I would be super inventive and as the older guy, you're meant to be sort of a bit of a duffer. So I think I sort of was a duffer enough with a little bit of on the contrary richard i think they wanted you to do it so you would stop asking to do it okay hello ed the winner and the production team member reading this i had a question for the winner of taskmaster whoever it may be when they got to the studio before seeing any of the clips who did they think was their biggest competition and did anyone surprise them?

I hope you have a Merry Christmas from Jake. That's a good question. I didn't really know. I wouldn't, I don't think I'd have thought, I didn't think Daisy would be the main competition, I have to say. And A, I'd been on Team Taskmaster. I knew she was, like, focused when she wanted to be.

But I kind of, I don't know, I imagine maybe, I think that Catherine probably surprised me the most and I thought Catherine might be quite clinical and, you know, find clever ways to do things. And I didn't know Moanne at all. So maybe those were the two that I thought were the biggest competition. And maybe, you know, I think Moan was a bit unlucky.

And I think some of the things he should have been scored a bit higher on, certainly just for inventiveness. And, you know, he might have been a bit closer than he was. But, yeah, I don't think I thought... I thought Johnny would actually be more of a disaster. Yeah. I mean, more of a meltdown disaster than he was. In fact, he was much more competent and less Johnny Vegas

than I imagined, actually. Certainly in the studio. He really wanted to do well, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. But I know him best out of everyone, and he's such a sweet-hearted man, you know, and he's exactly what you see, and he's a great guy. So I knew in reality he's exactly what you see and he's a great guy so i knew in

in reality he's not he's not the johnny vegas character exactly but um yeah so i think they all surprised me a little bit and probably all in slightly different directions but maybe catherine and daisy i would have put the other i'd have thought oh i'll be up against catherine if it is me but i but i honestly didn't know and i didn't feel like I'd done great in the task. You know, a lot of the tasks I felt I'd done mediocre to bad in, and a lot of the tasks I did do mediocre to bad in. I can't quite work out how I've managed to swing it in the end. We'll have this one last question from Emma.

Dear Ed, if Richard is the winner, please ask him the following. I get the impression you're a big Taskmaster fan. If you could have done any task from a previous series, what would it be and why? Ooh, what did I like from the previous series? I think, I mean, we sort of did do one, didn't we? We did the sort of watermelon one, which was sort of a previous task.

I like the ones where where you have to to do stuff i like the um i think it'd be interesting to try and impress a mayor i think that was always that was one of the first ones i saw and i think that was the i think that was one of the ones that you think what would i do with that because it's so open ended and you've got a bit of time to think about it and i kind of those were actually even though in the first instance, they weren't my favourite because you think, oh God, how do I make something disappear? Or how do I make something upside down?

I loved having some time to think about it. So anything where you had to come up with a song or do a bit of a challenge that way were my sort of favourites. So I think those creating, the ones where you're creating songs and doing things I would have preferred to do.

But also, there wasn't more enough throwing tasks. You know, the throwing... I've got quite good at throwing because of my stone. So I don't think I hit that coconut first time, but I hit it pretty early. So I'd have liked more kind of lobbing things from a distance, which I suppose is the potato being thrown into the hole. A man in his 50s saying,

I've got quite good at throwing, is somehow the saddest thing I've ever heard. Because I'm trying to clear a field of stones. Yeah, I've really been working on my throwing, actually. Well, that feels like the perfect place to end it, Richard. Just news that you've been working on your throwing. I hope we get to face off and meet because you've been very rude to me on this podcast.

I have. I want my revenge. Could you, despite the fact I've been rude to you on the podcast, not so while you're face-to-face with me. No, you're a bit more scared, aren't you? It's like when I went on Tipping Point and wasn't rude to Ben Shepard to his face and tried really hard.

I'm still going to ask you to rate your experience on the Taskmaster podcast between one and five points, please. OK, well, if it was over the series and I've listened to the entire series, nearly always directly after the episode has aired, sometimes on my dog walk the next day, it would be two. But if we're talking about...

If we're talking about... If we're talking about today... I've had a lovely time today and I think it would be churlish to give you four. So I'm going to give you five because I don't want you to end the series on a duff note. Exactly. Thank you very much, Richard Herring.

And congratulations. I will now officially pass the crown to you. I've already got it, mate. No, metaphorical crown. It was here at the beginning. I had it at the beginning. You don't think you were the past world champion all the way through this podcast.

I was. This is the only time I'm passing it over. I've been the champ. I've been the champ, man. And no, I'm not passing the podcast to you. You've got enough of those. Yeah, I've got to do that now. No, that's not how it works. It's not winner stays on. I'm going to keep passing the podcast to you. You've got enough of those. Yeah, I've got to do that now. No, that's not how it works.

It's not winner stays on. I'm going to keep doing it. Thank you. Cheers, Richard. That was great. Great, thank you. The winner got 162 points. The Taskmaster Series Champion is Richard Herring.

Please collect your tasks. So there we have it. A wonderful chat with Richard Herring please so there we have it a wonderful chat with Richard Herring there champion of Taskmaster Series 10 what a lovely time I've had doing this podcast hopefully we'll be back with you soon and I say soon it's sooner

than you think because yes there may only be 10 episodes in Taskmaster Series 10 but when it comes to the Taskmaster podcast, there will be 11 episodes. That's right, we're breaking the mould because very soon we'll be back with a special episode, a special bonus episode with the Taskmaster himself,

Greg Davis. Yes, we'll be going through the series with Greg. We'll be picking out his favourite moments. We'll be chatting to him. We'll be working out his favourite moments. We'll be chatting to him. We'll be working out whether he's annoyed with me about anything I might have said on the podcast. You know, he might want to settle some scores. I might want to settle some scores,

but it'll be lovely to have him on regardless. So make sure you keep an eye on your podcast feed for episode 11 of the Taskmaster podcast. And who knows beyond that, will we be back for more? Fingers crossed. thank you very much for listening thank you so much for all of your emails and questions if you would like to email with a question for greg please email taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com and i will endeavor

to ask him those questions but for now stay safe have a merry christmas and we'll see you again soon bye Stay safe, have a Merry Christmas And we'll see you again soon Bye Bye Bye Ooh Ooh Yeah Yeah

Yeah Yeah Yeah If you find that you trust someone When they give you advice If you believe in the truth Don't need to tell you twice Tell the person

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