Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 104. Sarah Kendall - S14 Ep.7

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

She's back! Comedian, writer, actor and TM champ, the fabulous Sarah Kendall joins Ed once again to talk through another brilliant episode of S14! Sarah explains why she sees herself in Fern and reveals who she thinks will be her biggest competitor in the next Champion of Champions. She gives her insights in to how the contestants approached the tasks and her and Ed bond over a very important question - why the flat pan method? Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster Visit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com Visit the Taskmaster YouTube Channelyoutube.com/taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Read something online that really hits a nerve. It could be disinformation, specifically targeted for that exact reason. Stop and question the source before you share. Learn more at canada.ca slash disinformation. A message from the Government of Canada. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble. I'm the host of it. Today we'll be talking about Series 14, Episode 7. That's the episode that's just been on TV. We are in the thick of Series 7 now.

More than halfway through, getting down to crunch time. Not quite at crunch time. The crunch hasn't happened yet. It's just, you know, if you're thinking of it like biting into something crunchy, a crisp, it's just as maybe the crisp's on the tongue. It's tongue time. And we'll be moving on to crunch time pretty soon uh getting very exciting some brilliant tasks um i'd say an all-time tm team task classic in this episode yes the feather task uh we will be chatting about that with our special guest this week the wonderful sarah kendall sarah kendall of course a taskmaster champion we'll be seeing her on a champion of champions in the future uh she's absolutely brilliant a formidable taskmaster contestant very very funny comedian can't wait to speak to sarah

and of course if you're a taskmaster fan you should be watching the horn section sitcom absolutely brilliant it's all available on all four alex of course is in it uh the brilliant horn section are in it uh greg is in it greg davis the taskmaster himself um john oliver camille lu chan and desiree birch another taskmaster alumni is doing some wonderful acting in it as well it's very very funny go and get that now from all four but now let's crack on we're talking about taskmaster series 14 episode 7 with the wonderful sarah kendall welcome back sarah to the taskmaster podcast thanks for having me on the Taskmaster podcast very exciting to have another champ on of course we love to have a champ I love having a champ yeah yeah it's good it's good are you still are you still reeling from uh from winning

Taskmaster is it still a huge part of your life uh I still get recognized uh primarily for that I think of all the things that I've done in the span of my illustrious show business career that's the thing that um Taskmaster fans are also just great they're really great they come over they get in they compliment you and they get out again they're fucking perfect so that's it well you say you're still recognized for that primarily is that is that a good thing would you say is that yeah yeah comfortable with being recognized for that yeah yeah i mean it's better than being recognized for bombing at the edinburgh festival in 2012 imagine if that's the thing that you most got known for i saw that show that you

did where it just like it's like a tuesday it It's a rainy Tuesday night and you couldn't budge them. That was it just for the rest of my life. How many of you people saw it? Shit. I'm glad that you're talking about one specific day at the Edinburgh Festival that clearly still haunts you rather than a whole month at the Edinburgh Festival. I've had those as well, Ed. I've had those as well.

I was talking to someone about that recently, about bad reviews. We got slightly off piste here. Please. And it was my second Edinburgh and I was like 25, I think. And I got a two-star review and it was back in the days before social media. So like the reviews on paper were everything you know there's like scotsman metro evening standard and then the london broadsheets and i can't remember i don't think it was a london broadsheet i think it was like scotsman or metro or evening standard but it was a two-star review and the opening of the review is sarah kend show is terrible. That was like the first, that was, I mean it's a two star, but it read like a one star.

Yeah, that really sounds like a one star review if you're opening with that. Yeah, and then the accompanying picture was a PR shot and you know your PR shots, you're always upbeat, with like thumbs up, with a mic pointing at a microphone. And so my face looked utterly delighted by this golden shower I was receiving. It was absolute.

I thought of that the other day and it was fresh, a fresh horror. Yeah. Sarah Kendall's show is terrible. Opening sentence on a two-star. Wow. Oh, it was brutal. That's almost worth going on a poster really, isn't it? Oh, yeah.

I mean, I wouldn't know. I don't know how to find it. I mean, I've looked it up and I've tried to find it. No, unfortunately I think that this hasn't been committed to our digital history. Yeah, oh, blimey. That gives me shudders, the idea of being so excited, like, my review's out, going to the newsagent, buying the paper, straight away outside the news agent on the bench, flicking through going, here I am. There's a big picture of me looking happy. Surely it's a great review. Yeah, no, no, no. And I sent something was up cause I passed a few comics on the street and they

were being very careful with me. You know, like when other comics are like, Hey, how are you? It's like something's happened. You're keeping your spirits up. Yes, why? It's a long month, isn't it, Sarah? It's a long month. Yeah, I know. Why are you saying this?

Oh, I love it. Well, look at you now, though. It didn't stop you. You're the Taskmaster Champion. Nothing stops Sarah Kendall. You're now in a position to judge other people because we're going to be talking about Series 14, Episode 7. What are your thoughts on the lineup as a whole?

Are you enjoying this new crew? I love it. And it's such a lovely mix. I think they've got a really great dynamic with this group. Fern makes me laugh so much I'm constantly watching her going into tasks going I'm not sure I've understand a hundred percent what's being asked of me but I better just start yes so I really um yeah and just the sort of um she I have a very similar impulse where I would go, I don't quite understand what I'm meant to be doing.

So I'm just going to throw the thing in front of me. I'm just going to wang it. And, you know. Yeah, there's definitely, I can see that comparison that you both sort of attack the tasks, even though, you know, maybe there's a couple of points that you might have missed. You read it once and then just go all in. The difference being, I think, Sarah, you know, not being unfair to Fern, I hope, you did rather better than Fern seems to be doing. I think she's throwing herself into things and occasionally is throwing quite badly. I mean, I was impressed, for example, with the 99 balloons, which I know we'll get to. But I'd already forgotten that it was 99.

I didn't understand why people were stopping. And that's me in the comfort of my home with my air, like there's no performance pressure. Yeah. Even in a sensory deprivation tank, I don't understand the tasks. So you immediately forgot that 99 was the rule. You just thought it's pop all the balloons. Yeah.

I was somewhere back with John in the garage thinking that there was a murder or something like or an assault you're gonna have to be assaulted by something yeah yeah well we'll we're gonna talk about that task in a little bit but yeah it was it was a fun one for sure so we already know sarah that when it comes to champion of champions three yeah that that you uh will be joined by morgana robinson and sophie duca so i'm already excited for that lineup if that if it was just you three i'd be absolutely over the moon because what a what a trio someone's gonna die i think that's what i'm worried about i think there might be some sort of insurance waiver

that has to be signed it's three very very intense women very power very powerful figures oh yeah and powerful all in different ways yes and also i feel feel like the more I get stymied, the more mad with power I become. So it could be a real... I think something terrible could happen, but look, it's... Do you have any sense now from this line-up, who do you think would be your biggest threat and who would you most like to be added to the champion of champions lineup?

Do you know they all make me laugh so much but I suppose I feel the simpatico thing with Fern. John definitely for, it's John. Sarah I love, I love all of them. Daru would be the one who would get under my skin the most. Because he's competitive. And he's so clever and I get so tired of clever people. They're so clever. He's so clever. He's a smart guy.

And he looks like everyone's really clever teacher who hated them because they were dumb. You know, like... And I think because he's clever and he's not afraid to wear it on his sleeve and he really wants to win and he's not trying to conceal that in any way no um he's someone i'd love to see in the the morgana uh sarah and sophie champion of champions i feel like fern added to that lineup would be like chucking a stick of dynamite onto a massive bonfire i couldn't agree with you more but there needs to be one, please, who

I don't want to be the stick of dynamite. I want Fern to take that bullet and be the stick of dynamite. The other thing about Dara is that he's very, very clever. He absolutely wants to win, but he also doesn't unravel. He's not an unraveler, which is another thing

that gets under my skin. I don't trust people who don't unravel. Well, the same with the same with sarah i guess uh in this series yeah unflappable absolutely unflappable completely unflappable i'd say even even more so than dara because dara had a couple of moments in last week's episode uh where he didn't get he didn't get uh unraveled but he certainly got befuddled a word that i used to him on this podcast and he really took exception to the world oh he would have raged against that word you're you're kind of insinuating premature senility yeah i mean yeah but he's look him and sarah there is what you know we like to call sort of heritage act yes and they are look god knows i'm

the same age as sar as maybe she's younger she she i think she might actually be younger than me um but yeah i mean they are the safe set of hands yes exactly yeah and you need yes you do need the safe set of hands for the um for the ferns and the sarahs and the monias and the johns of this world but then but then quite often the sort of older contestants aren't the safe set of hands. They are in a sort of professional context, like in the panel show context,

but certainly not with the tasks. Of course, sorry to hark back to the series I was on, but David Baddiel, he was one of the heritage acts on there and he was the opposite of a safe pair of hands. Well, with the heritage set of hands, you know that the live studio recordings are safe yeah like they've the studio recordings will be fine yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah which is which is really well but yeah i i know what you mean um i'm also loving manya's um unpredictability

he's definitely yeah he's i see i see a lot of me in him as well like when he went and got a bunch of pipes I was like yeah I can see myself getting a bunch of pipes that was so great I really felt very yeah that's yeah I get that the panic would you well look I get we'll talk about that because I'm intrigued to hear your angle on the pipes being a good thing because it was complete chaos. Let's talk about the prize task in this episode. The thing you would most like to have with you on a car journey. Now, I've been sent some Sarah Kendall factsah kendall facts actually uh and one of them relates to price tasks um you only won one prize task sarah yeah i didn't do well on it in fact i

felt like i was really aggravating greg towards the end there was like a sort of he had a he was going into my task like the oh fuck here we go well like he does with john's now even though john's actually had a couple of good price tasks, but he started off with some outlandish price tasks, or not outlandish enough, I should say. But it feels like we're back in first three episodes territory with John on this price task. Because Greg's now setting him up,

like you say that Greg was doing to you, like, right, John, can you pull this around? Let's see what you've brought in. And it's a sailor's hat. And as soon as Greg starts hearing your prize task and then going, yep, you know you're onto a loser. Oh, yeah, yeah, completely. Well, he's trying to bang through it

because it's the weakest part of the show. It's like the stand-up comedian's instinct of, I just have to get through this bit to get to the next good bit. Yeah, sure. But certainly, I mean, but a sailor's hat. I loved, look, I mean, and also it's very John. Yes, exactly.

It's one of those things that you just, like, for me, that was an absolute, I thought that's a winner. Yeah. Although Sarah's also appealed to me, me with my sort of apocalypse backpack. Yeah, very grim price. Yeah, but I thought, actually, I should go and buy one of those. I did.

My first thought was, why don't I have one of those in my car? I actually had a similar reaction. I was like, well, we all need an escape hammer. We all need something to cut the seatbelt. I mean, we all need a sailor's hat as well, I think. Well, if you do plummet off a bridge into water a sailor's hat to be wearing as you emerge from the vehicle would be ideal i mean that's the perfect union of prizes isn't it what i love about john is when he's obviously on the back foot immediately with

the sailor's hat and he just takes his time over whatever he says and but obviously greg just loves playing with john so it's just asking more and more questions and john backed into a corner ends up saying um oh they're thinking is he late for his ship oh i know but but if you've seen john's live act that's that's it you know you do have to sort of get to that place you got to travel a little bit to get to that place totally and when you get there it's the you know the most enjoyable hilarious thing in the but yeah i mean john wasn't going to turn up with a functional piece of equipment i was a little perplexed by manya's

i didn't understand the coordination game i don't know what happened there i think he's read the prize task categories yeah he's got that coordination game. It's a thing he likes in general. And he thought, I'm going to bring it in for one of them. And I don't think he's really read that it's something you'd most like to have with you on a car journey. Even when he's given the choice in the role play of whether he's a passenger or a driver,

and he's a driver, like in the role play straight away, he's like, well, I'm driving and I've got this thing. And John, you're the passenger. It's so funny to watch, though. I don't know what he was thinking bringing that in. Because it's not even that good a game. No, but God knows. I would put that in the category of a Sarah Kendall-style move

where you go, I just don't know what to bring in for this. I'll bring that thing. So, yeah, I got that. Either that or I wouldn't have put it past Munya to just be an agent of chaos. He's just decided this week he's going to bring in something completely inappropriate and it'll be a funny discussion about him driving, doing that.

So why not just mess things up? Because in the last couple of episodes, Munya has just thrown everything out. I mean, you've seen the episode if you're listening to this money gets eight points in this episode amazing dara um dara brought in something that i guess is objectively quite cool but it's quite a specific prize you do have to really like computer games to enjoy dara's portable console case and i don don't enjoy or play computer games, so I looked at it and it looked like when a DIY person opens up a very bespoke John Deere kit

of spanners and handles and stuff. I didn't even know what I was looking at. And there was a picture of a guy. I was like, ah, my brain's gone on this one I don't know what you're talking about mate I guess it is useful on on a tour if you do like computer games to have that with you at all times but I just think it doesn't seem to appeal to Greg and I think that's the key if that was something that Greg enjoyed doing one of Greg's hobbies in a little case I think it would have been five points but yeah it's not you know it's just not good

enough although Dara loves it and you can't take that away from him. You can't take that away from him. I'm impressed though. I'm impressed that Greg isn't into gaming. I always find it refreshing when I meet someone who is like similar age to me who is just gone. It's just, it's not, it's, you know, I'm too old. I'm not doing it.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not much of a gamer. I mean, that's the sort of idea that I'd like to take one of those things around. Right. And then be like, I'm going to play a game. And then my patience is so terrible with stuff like that. I'll get like an hour in and go, well, I'm not very good at this. I guess I'll just pop that down forever.

Oh, I loved Fern's Sheewee. I loved her Sheewee. That's fucking great. Really great. It's a very funny thing to take with you on a car journey. I love the insight and the reveal that Greg didn't realise that she was driving and she just didn't want to stop for a wee. How did he not catch that? I don't know.

I'm not sure. In my head, I think she was a passenger maybe. But the driving and, I mean, she's never used it, which I feel like it deserved maybe less points with the reveal that she's never used it which I feel like it deserved maybe less points with the reveal that she's never used it because it didn't look sound with her on a car journey she's never used it you know it didn't look to me like it would create an airtight seal against the necessary female parts yeah in order for it not to all run into your pants. That was the sense. Just looking at it. Also, I think if you were driving, you'd have to be pissing upstream

at the angle of where the urine... I'm going to keep going. The angle of where it's in your vagina. It's not in your vagina, is it? It's not in it. It's above the vagina. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's up your bum.

You know how we all wee out of our anus? Well, you have to get the pipe right up your bum. Up the bum. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's up your bum. You know how we all wee out of our anus? Well, you have to get the pipe right up your bum. Up the bum. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And into the bladder, right? And into the bladder sack that is mounted near your tummy, up your bum. Anyway, it just didn't look right to me. Biology is fascinating.

Isn't it? Isn't it? I feel like Fern trying to use a shiwi while driving she'd also need an escape hammer because she's definitely just immediately driving into a river dead, dead, her life tragically cut short, yeah

I'd want to see it though, I'd want to see the whole thing happen oh yeah, and wearing a sailor's hat as well, definitely it was four points though it was good it was a good solid four points but um sarah took the five points uh for the escape hammer oh i love the bit on i love the bit on the escape hammer that's for slashing the seat belt yeah it's cool that is all right i was thinking as well if if you got carjacked, you could just gently attack someone with that as well. It'd be hard, though,

because you'd have to get a fold of skin inside the hooky bit. So you'd be going for... Can you lean in a bit more? No, you're looking at ear. You're basically looking at an ear or nose-related injury. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It just makes you feel safer, doesn't it? It was five points for the escape hammer. Three. Well, it's nice. It just makes you feel safe, isn't it? Um, it was five points for the escape hammer. Um, three points for Dara's console case, two points for John's sailor hat that said ahoy on it. Oh, so great.

And one point for Munya's coordination game. Fern, can you beat a massively impractical games console holder? yes, mine is very practical. Um, if you're a comedian, one of the things you need other than resilience and being emotionally dead inside is the skill of holding in your piss

for long amounts of time on car journeys. So I've brought a Sheewee. I think there's other brands available. I think there's one called a Go Girl. I asked for a bottle that was about two litres so I can keep driving. Oh, I don't think I fully understood the scenario here. You're driving and wanting not to stop.

Yes. Why? Task one, part one. Choose a room and a weapon and then await further instructions. Part two is, of course, pop 99 red balloons. You must use your weapon to pop 99 red balloons. Shout stop it when you think you've popped precisely 99 red balloons.

Fastest wins. Your time starts now. I love this because we've had choose your own adventure tasks before, but it's normally a choice of two like lengths or something like that yeah or um you know far away or close or some or something like that but this is the first time the location changes based on the shoes you're an adventure so it just creates a different image for all of them yeah i mean it's almost quite disappointing that so many people choose frying pan in the living room i was fascinated by that

i was so and then they kept on saying that's the only warm room which if they're filming in that so they were filming like during the winter like obviously yeah during the winter like that sort of makes sense that they all went for living room but frying pan and living room, the likelihood of that many contestants choosing that combination, that feels statistically really unlikely. It does. And I guess it depends where their brains went as to what they thought the task was going to be, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the frying pan itself, I guess maybe if they thought it was hitting something. I thought it was hiding. I assumed it was hide that item in that room and everyone else has to go and find it. So frying pan would have been an awful choice in that case. Yeah, that's how my brain works. So even when my brain knows,

like thinks it knows what the task is, it still chooses the worst possible object. Frying pan in the living room. And Fern i'm in the living room um and fern went cactus in the kitchen uh and john went belt in the caravan um always out on his own john um also do you see on on the on the cluedo board loo was an op the loo was an option oh that's um i don't know how that would have happened. Oh, yeah. But how? That's a small loo, isn't it?

It's a small loo. Oh, that would have been incredible. Oh, that would have been so great. A hundred, 99 red balloons in the toilet. In the toilet. Yeah. Oh, God. The caravan was pretty snug. That was a pretty snug space.

The caravan was snug. But I guess it's snug in a way that almost suits the task because. Yeah. but i suppose they're all piled up and you want to be able to count them i mean let's let's talk let's just talk about john's performance in this task because this is this might be his crowning moment you know he's had a lot of he's had a lot of crowning moments in terms of humor but in terms of actually nailing a task this was yeah sexy yeah oh okay um i feel like if you wanted to give like if if i was going to leave one thing to be an expression of what it's like to be a human on earth and live the life of a human John attacking balloons in a caravan with a belt is one of the greatest visual templates of yeah what I consider living life to feel like that's

that's like the human experience for me it's uh yeah and the frustration and the yeah and screaming stop it oh he him fern shouting stop it at the end was just it was so great stop it but i guess yeah john was in that mood um sorry i'm just gonna read out what the task was because i'll have to yeah um part two is pop 99 red balloons you must use your weapon to pop your 99 red balloons shout stop it when you think you have popped precisely 99 red balloons. Fastest wins. Your time starts now. And yeah, the way John attacked it,

I think that's the energy you needed in this task, right? Yeah. I couldn't tell. The only one who didn't look like Sarah, as they said, Sarah sat down on the couch. It looked very, very casual. But everybody else looked pretty frantic to me. Yeah, I think that is why I think Sarah is brilliant on this show.

Oh, completely. Because she does everything on her own terms. Yeah. It's always funny, but she's always just doing things at her own pace, on her own terms, and takes absolutely no shit whatsoever. Oh, it's amazing and it's so amazing to see because she's the person who doesn't go into a panic you know like i i feel like you know i you oh dara doesn't either but you never see a a flitter of panic across her face no um i thought fern's thing of um leaving the cactus in place and then putting the balloons on it i was like yes yes yes yes yes i thought that was that it felt like it could have been a

bit of a game changer you know if i if i'd i'd be so excited if i'd figured that out during the task yeah you bring the bring the balloons to the thing don't try to handle right don't handle the cactus yeah bring bring the mountain to muham't handle the cactus. Bring the mountain to Muhammad. No, Muhammad to the mountain. Whichever way around that is. I don't know which way it's meant to. To the cactus, as we say. As we say.

But that felt for me like a kind of, oh yeah. I thought she was in the fight at that moment. Yeah, I mean, and also one of my favourite Fern quotes of the whole series. I'm going to count them by counting their little bums. I meant you. Their little bums.

Their little anus bit. In fact, there's two brilliant Fern quotes. I think she's so funny. The little bums of the cactus. And then, of course, later on, we get her referring to the mannequin as a pretend man yes yes yes that pretend man just a brilliant a brilliant uh just a brilliant twist on the way she looks at the world is fantastic oh it's wonderful it's so funny um dara i think you say

dara doesn't get into panic he really throws himself into this in a way that feels semi-panicky to me. Yes, when he could feel it slipping away. Yeah, the first time he hit the balloon with the frying pan and it just bounced. Yeah. And then you could see, as soon as his plan doesn't go as he was expecting, then he just has to attack it with even more fervour.

Yeah, it's unpleasant to watch, isn't it? You see the hunger, has to attack it with even more fervour. Yeah, it's unpleasant to watch, isn't it? You see the hunger, the lust for victory shines through. We're seeing the competitive dad come out again. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he went for it. I felt like that's what he'd look like on a stabbing frenzy. That's exactly what he'd look like. To be fair, it's what we would all look like on a stabbing frenzy.

Yeah, the word frenzy. Humans generally look the same when they're frenzied, I think. I'm trying to think of all the frenzies I've been in. If you were to film me from behind, I think, yeah, it's probably what it'd look like. Everyone would look like that, I think, yeah. Everyone seems to have the same technique with the frying pan. They all tried bashing the balloon with the flat of the frying pan. I would have done the same. I would have have the same technique with the with the frying pan they all tried

bashing the balloon with the flat of the frying pan i would have done the same i would have done the same you've got to try it right you've got to try it once because if it works the handle right but i mean if that worked you'd think i'm yeah stick with that but then poor mania had a fear about the sound of balloons and then wouldn't take the who wouldn't take the headphones because he's like i can't hear you he's he's the person who's had the most before they've started doing the task has always had an excuse yet has been very confident but then gone oh i hate the sound of balloons popping i can't eat sugar just has always got something going on but then you know he went for it but tell me why yes when you started with the flat pan went to the handle like everyone else and then seemed to at some point revert back to trying to use the flat pan again i think that's just the fog of war yeah i think you could ask the same thing about

why america stayed in vietnam yeah um i you just you lose sight of your end game yeah um and also munya decided to assume that there were 99 balloons in the room as if i would have done the same thing i totally would have done the same thing but surely surely if it says pop 99 red balloons wouldn't it just say pop all the balloons yeah yeah yeah i know i know i know all you're doing is pointing out the limitations of my intellect. Like, I know, I know. I just, I would have gone in and gone, ah, pop them!

Like, in a frenzy and just assumed. Getting more balloons, ordering balloons, and then popping those as well. Give me money, I've got to go to the shops and buy some more balloons. I would have assumed that it was called 99 Red Balloons after the song just for cuteness. I never thought that 99 was a key part of the the song just for cuteness and never thought that 99 was a key part of the task it's incredible that i won i mean it's unbelievable it is like a sort of chance the gardener like being there that's a movie who's watched that movie sarah

no one's watched that movie um i think in this particular in on this particular show I think on this particular show, I don't know. I think there's two... You need enough margins of error where the other competitors make stupid decisions in order... Like, I got lucky a number of times where the people who were closest to me in points made errors, whereas I don't think Dara opens up that margin of error often enough. Yeah, he does.

I mean, he had a bit of a nightmare episode last episode, but yeah, he seems to, he's pretty solid, which is why it's wonderful to see John do so well here and being efficient and accurate and funny as well. And he gets the exact right amount of balloons. He does it very quickly. Dara, of course, gets the right amount of balloons. He's not going to slip up.

Like you say, that's not a margin of error that he's going to allow for. Yes, yes. You're trying to find cracks where there are none with Dara. And everyone else is cracked. So Munya just pops all of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just so he doesn't think about it. Yeah, I get that.

Sarah popped 100 balloons because she miscounted. But I feel like she's so relaxed that that's definitely going to happen yeah and fern burst too many balloons as well yeah so that's when dara pounces and i'm very glad i'm very glad that john did not let that happen this time yeah well it's good to have uh you do want some competition but uh yeah i don't think i don't think dara's going to make enough... Is it unforced errors? Yes, unforced errors, exactly.

That's the term. That's the term. So it was nought points for Fern, Sarah and Munya, four points for Dara and five points for John Kearns. John, I feel like with you we changed genre from Dara's epic film about a Roman warrior to just a horror film of just an awful lunatic in a caravan. There was one where a balloon rolled to the window

and you came into shot and grabbed it. And I found myself wearing that poor balloon. What hope did it have? What a contrast in the two players as well, because they both said stop it at the end, but I think the two stop-its speak of the two individuals concerned. Here are the two stop-its. Stop it.

Stop it! Stop it! read something online that really hits a nerve it could be disinformation specifically targeted for that exact reason stop and question the source before you share learn more at canada.ca slash disinformation a message from the government of canada task two now i think this this might be one of my favourite tasks of the series so far. It's absolutely incredible. I could watch that task for a whole 44-minute episode. Get this feather into the bath.

You must not touch the feather, and the feather must not touch the ground. After the feather has left its cushion, it must not touch a single thing for more than five seconds in total. The cushion must not leave the lab. If you make any mistake at all, Alex will blow his whistle and you must start all over again fastest witness finally you must not say any words at any point from now on please mouth the last line your time starts now it was incredible it was like um i felt like i was watching something from the classic silent era it's like buster keaton or something, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, amazing. It was amazing. It was such an inspired task.

Yeah, it was fantastic. I mean, we've said this about John on the podcast before. It is like he's from another era of comedy and it has been 70s sitcom in the past and here it is. Here is very much the silent era, the golden age of Hollywood. Yeah.

Them as a team is funny anyway so everything must be contextualized from the task where john had to sabotage them and now dara thinks he's a complete moron but then even in this task you're like are you still trying to sabotage this he immediately picks up the cushion and tries to leave the lab and dara has to go no no no no no that's why the combination is so great because they've put dara with sort of the two loosest cannons oh for sure for sure and not and not loose not deliberately loose oh no no no it's not even machiavellian there's no design there's no design behind this so they've put uh they put school teacher with the least capable students yeah and then they've put what's great about Sarah and Mania is that I think

Sarah said it herself she saw his face light up with the pipe idea and she just didn't want to take it away from him yeah she's quite sanguine about the whole thing so she's like okay we'll do. We'll do your pipes. If that's the way. Yeah. So it's perfect. Perfect. Because normally you'd say that the, you know, you would put teams together of people who know each other and they have pre-established chemistry. The reason why Munya and Sarah is such a good team is because they do not know each other. They'd met for the first time that day. So she lets him get away with stuff that she wouldn't let other people get away with. Cause she's just, I think she's being polite and also he's just so giddy about yeah but you talk about giddiness

sarah getting that leaf blower oh yeah i mean we've all felt the joy of picking up any electronic device and giving it a whirl okay but that was like hers was like that next level yeah but obviously that's because obviously my first thought was leaf blower but then you go well that's not going to work i'm imagining a leaf blower being something other than what a leaf blower actually is i'm imagining it giving a steady stream of air and a feather just bobbing around on top of it just never going to happen look i have learned i've learned the hard way that leaf blowers i used a leaf blower in a challenge and I instantly regretted it. Even my brain went, nah, mate, not leaf blower.

There's too much velocity. You can't control a feather with that much velocity. But that's the thing about Taskmaster is in your head, you imagine things happening and going perfectly. Yeah, then physics gets in the way. is happening and going perfectly. Yeah, then physics. Physics gets in the way.

Physics. So Munya's idea was that he would be there with the leaf blower, perfectly controlling this feather, and occasionally, just to cover himself, if occasionally it just drifted two or three centimetres the wrong way, Sarah could gently waft with this guitar. With a guitar. Yeah. Sorry, you just said with the guitar like that was part

oh sorry that's in munya's head i'm doing an impression of munya's head yeah oh i see i see it's i mean for the for the directional control of the velocity to be a guitar is even by my standards i'm like yeah and he goes to get it while sarah's getting the leaf blower he just nips out first thing he sees guitar well that. While Sarah's getting the leaf blower, he just nips out. First thing he sees, guitar. Well, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. I've got this. There's an earlier episode where Munya decides that he can fit a tarpaulin

into a bread bin because he imagines that they've put a sewer below the bread bin as a trick. But he's so sure, he's so confident that that goes for even his own insane thoughts that he's like well this has got to be the truth and that goes for the guitar wafting the feather on the leaf blower as well i think it's again it's a great life lesson that you know the idea

that you have in your head about a success it's just rarely gonna life life is never gonna go the way you want it to go it's a really great zen kind of again if i was going to go the way you want it to go. It's a really great Zen kind of, again, if I was going to give a snapshot of what it's like to be alive, it's to try to put some directional force onto a feather with a leaf blower. Like that, again, you go, yes! Yes, Zen master, I understand. You say it's a life lesson,

but he immediately does not learn that lesson because his next thing is get loads of pipes, put put them together blow the feather all the way down the pipes round the little track and into the bath if that had taken like less time it would have been the most inspired moment of the series yeah it's unfortunate that the genius idea did take 24 minutes but again again it's a great idea I think to be fair that's a really good idea i personally think it is but then you're working with you know the power of the leaf but look i i as someone who has connected pipes together in taskmaster thinking something would work and it takes it

takes ages i know the pain of this yes and i also know the pain of having to pull out of an idea halfway through. It's so hard though, isn't it? When the clock's ticking, you're like, do I start from scratch with a new idea that I don't have? I'm just going to have to double down on the idea that isn't working. Yeah. And I'm glad they went with the pipes. It's so funny just trying to blow.

Because then you have to, because almost you want the idea to be you put the leaf blower at the end you blow and the feather goes and comes all the way out but you do have to disconnect you do have to disconnect and you have to keep moving pipes which almost makes it a less clean idea which is disappointing it is very disappointing but even then it's i still think it's very inspired i I actually thought that's, you know, it's just unfortunate that it took nearly four times the amount of time that the plate system. I mean, the plate system wasn't that great either.

They did lose the feather. It's a bit messy, but it is the most sensible way of doing it, I think. Yes, it is. Let's talk about the loss of the feather, because it's up there with my favourite moments of the series. When Dara comes back in and the feather's not there and they have to gesture at each other silently asking where the plate is.

We're just gesturing towards the pillow. The classic era of silent movie. Watching the three of them look at each other and you couldn't have staged it better if you had been directed by buster keaton this look on everyone's face what i thought you i thought you had the feather amazing it was so great and then yeah and then john going out and then coming back in holding a chicken oh with a look on his face as if to say feathers will this do yeah i haven't got one feather i've got a thousand

feathers what what's better than one feather a thousand feathers yeah it's so good and they fell for the bath being the boxes covered up with a picnic blanket just classic it's just really good yeah i that was my they didn't know where the bathtub was no they left but they weren't allowed to leave the room and go and find the bathtub first and come back is that right no i think they could have done that no i think they could have done that the cushion can't leave the lab but they can leave the lab so but i think you say it says put it in the bathtub you assume the bathtub's going to be where it always is right because that's an extra twist on the task it's difficult enough anyway um but it's so funny them going all the way around getting there realizing it's not there going around the corner finally finding it in the uh

in the um sitting room yeah oh the boxes when he saw it when he you know revealed the boxes it was just yeah i've got it oh yeah it was so and his expression and the oh yeah it was and again that you know in terms of the the production on this show you're sort of like god this is just it's just some of the best tv comedy it's just so good it really is and the fact that the two teams do something completely different and the dynamics are all different and yeah it's just funny all the way through i mean yeah one of the top tasks yeah yeah i love this love 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 everyone even like if like i just i could not stop laughing at all of them and then the extra the extra punch at the end of the times are revealed and they took 24 minutes 25 seconds and you just see dara crumble he just

laughed so much yeah i mean yeah i i if you recall the the task where i had to direct my teammates using only three words or two words another one of the great tasks i think we climbed up to about 31 minutes on that golf course i it just kept going and i knew i was doing it wrong and the worse it got the more I couldn't think of a better idea uh yeah so I felt for them I've you know I've been that person activate Jamali of course activate Jamali I still say that out into the out into the night air and just wait for something to happen just that image of Jamali just stood there by himself for so long doing nothing desperate for a cig. I mean, he just would have lit up a cig if he could have.

Activate Jamali. Activate Jamali. It was two points for Munya and Sarah, which I'm glad they got some points because they did put their back into it. They tried a lot of stuff. God knows they tried. And Dara, John and Fern, the three clams, five points for the endless plate system.

Let's talk about Feather Lost Gate and how you think you as a team coped with the loss of the feather. I think we coped really well. There was a lot of resilience. I don't know who lost it. It might have been me. What was it? It might have been me. Was it me?

It was one of ours, anyway. It's mad. You could feel Dara's anger radiating out of him. I could feel it through the screen. Task three. Make an exercise ball touch Bernard. Bernard can't move. You must launch an exercise ball from behind the line

and may not touch any balls after each launch. Most balls actively involved in a successful launch wins. Your task ends when a ball touches Bernard or 15 minutes have elapsed. Your time starts now. So even reading that task back, Sarah, as someone who is self-admitted, loses attention in a long task and misses the point.

Did you understand what the aim was here? Only by watching the contestants play the game. I was similar, to be honest. I wonder if they had any extra explanation after this because that didn't immediately scream to me, oh, it's a trick shot. No, no, no. And Fern, in her defence, just went,

I still wasn't entirely sure what I was meant. So I just, which was like, generally, you get to a point where you read the task again and again, you go, I don't even know what this means. I'm just gonna just chuck stuff. Alex would have said nothing. Yeah, I mean, stuff like that where you go, fuck, who's Bernard? I don't know what Bernard is. Is that an airport term? Is that an acronym that I don't know? Like the beryllium echo residue nascent.

So, yeah, this was one of those tasks that i felt the horror rising in me where i was just like like as you say if i knew what it was i could just knuckle down and do it but they there's a lot of obfuscation with these tasks yeah i i think and i i i like to think i would have you know done an amazing job of setting up a trick shot and rebounding things off other things chances are what i would have done is just try to find a way of pushing all the balls as hard as i could from behind that line and hoping one of them because then then they're all involved right i completely agree and that is the glory of this show is that the stupidest approach has just as much chance as the cleverest approach and that's why we watch it yeah i was thinking you know if there was a trolley nearby they've used airport trolleys quite a lot, get a trolley, put all the balls on a trolley if possible,

wang the trolley as fast as you can. Hopefully one of them will eventually get through. That's my system. I would have gone further. I would have torn the balls open. I would have sutured them into an outfit and then rolled myself like a sausage down the ramp until I hit anything. not knowing what Bernard...

Sarah, that's genius. Yeah, well, look, you know, I mean, it's a fine line. The cat can jump either way on this task. That's absolute genius. You cover yourself in all of the balls in some sort of weird exercise ball jumpsuit, roll all the way down there, roll down and touch Bernard.

And then touch Bernard. In fact, you don't even need to roll. You can just walk. Yeah, that's it. Look what I've done with my great idea. Look how I fucked it. You've made yourself look like an absolute prick and there was no need to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would have had a mild concussion because I would have hit something on the way and there'd be blood. So reading the task back, you must launch an exercise ball from behind the line and may not touch any balls after each launch. And may not touch any balls after. But are you then, if you're covered in the balls, are you not then touching all of the balls? But are you then, if you're covered in the balls, are you not then touching all of the balls? Not if you leave a, like with a leaf blower, create a air.

Okay. If you attach the leaf blower, you go back to that. You drive back to the house from the airport. You go into the shed, you get your leaf blower, get back in the Addison Lee car, go back out to the airport, attach that so that you are never touching any, nothing's touching your skin. Like the boy in the plastic bubble with the compromised immune system.

Like the boy in the plastic bubble, exactly. And the John Travolta television movie from 1974. And then you make your way down to Bernard. It's genius. But you've only got 15 minutes remember as well yeah well i mean traffic's got to be on your side i'm not i'm not saying it's

going to be easy and i think they did have to clear security even though the airport was wasn't functioning as an airport that would have done my nut in having to go that would be like you have to bring your passport like on the, there'd be like a text message. Don't forget your passport. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. Put all your liquids in a little bag. Socks.

Yeah. Swimmers in case it's nice weather. Yeah. So I probably would have ended up doing the Fern thing. I definitely would have done the Fern thing. Just chuck it. Just chuck it. I thought Manja, I doing the Fern thing. I definitely would have done the Fern thing. Just chuck it. Just chuck it. I thought Mania,

I know Mania cheated, but he really, I mean, that was a hand of God moment, but I did, I did admire his Alex, can you lie down and create a. That's good.

Create the little, it's almost like bowling with the little bumpers, right? It was, yeah. I think that's a great system, but I don't know why you wouldn't then think use Alex's one get someone else to do another one get one of the cameramen down there come on they've got

too many cameramen on this anyway and it would have been a nice shot lie down and get your camera hold the camera brilliant and then you're guaranteed to get one and then you just put all the other balls in front and you're fine right I reckon there's no way they'd let you use the crew. Do you not? Nah. Because it'd be a... It's like the precedent that you're creating for the rest of Taskmaster. Yeah, I suppose. I suppose. Yeah, just getting crew members to balance ice blocks on their head at the top of a ladder, you know, like people would...

Maybe people have used the crew before. They've got the crews... Frank Skinner got all the crew to sweat, I think. Or was it cry? I can't remember which one. Yeah, the using of a person, as you say, like a bowling alley. I thought that was, again... It was good and it's a shame he ruined it by cheating.

I feel like Munya's just got... He keeps on coming up with these ideas that in the middle of a bunch of terrible ideas, you go, that's the best idea of the task yeah yeah and i just think he went for entertainment here rather than i think he obviously knew that if he cheated they'd see it and he could be the villain of the piece for once and i think he's he's always got one eye on the entertainment money rather than the points whereas dara is obviously yeah which dara is always about the the points and is also very entertaining with it but just the screaming that he did it and he's just so into it yeah and i think i love it when i mean like with the balloon task twice in this

episode dara is good in task thinks he's done enough to win and then john john has just come swept in and absolutely nailed it yeah yeah the discipline it took to spend 14 minutes 40 seconds setting that up for one attempt it was amazing working was absolutely incredible and the way he walked off the way he walked off uh it sort of turned his back on the triumph and then just made his way yeah in the opposite direction. Brilliant. Yeah, it was sort of up there with the sort of explosion happening behind the superhero as they walk in slow motion.

Yeah, well done. He wasn't even hanging around for the pat on the back. He's a different man in this episode. Yeah, he's transforming. I don't know what's happened. Yeah, he's... That was really... But having said that,

and not to take away from his triumph, I think he also just got a bit lucky. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. There was a bit of luck. A little bit of luck. It would have been devastating

if he'd spent 14 minutes, 40 seconds setting it up and then it missed. But equally good Taskmaster content, I'd say. Oh, absolutely. devastating if he'd spent 14 minutes 40 seconds setting it up and then it missed but yeah equally good taskmaster um content i'd say oh absolutely and god knows i've never spent 14 minutes thinking about anything so i've never i've never i've never put myself in such a precarious position but i think sarah sarah and fern's way i think is the way i would have done it as well just oh yeah chuck it hope yeah just w it and hope Wang it, just Wang it That's what the viewers want

Come on It was nought points for Munya two points for Fern, three points for Sarah four points for Dara and a brilliant five points for John, another wonderful victory in the task for John but it is not

like John to hold on to victory and in the live task John. But it is not like John to hold on to victory. And in the live task, he absolutely throws it away. It's a good throw. That is a very good throw. Right, Alex, get ready. OK, release. Release. Release. Yes! What you don't know can't hurt you. The live task.

Blow an item the furthest on the nappet. If your item falls from the nappet, you are disqualified. The person who blows something the least far each round is eliminated unless someone is disqualified. You must all select your blowers and items for each round before any blowing commences and you must not use the same blower or item twice last player standing wins tricky i i felt everyone's frustration because i too uh have suffered from the fact that that nappet has a tilt yes and it is impossible

to calculate that in from task to task. Yeah. I got caught out with that on the fish where you had to throw the fish. Yes. The flopping fish. The flopping fish, yeah. The flopping fish. So, yeah, when Fern screamed, it has a tilt. Again, I thought, I've been you, Fern.

Yeah. And it's so difficult because I would be shouting, it's got a tilt, but no one cares. No, they don't. You've just got to go with it. You're not going to get them to stop the whole recording and stick a folded up beer mat under the nappet. It's just not going to happen. No.

Even though that's what you would do in the moment to give yourself a chance at winning. If they said, we're going to have to stop for 45 minutes to wedge and we've already been filming for three hours and 15 minutes and everybody wants to go home in that moment you go i don't care yeah wedge the stage and make i want the stage to be level like i would it feels so unfair in the moment yeah yeah but you know that's you've got to take your lex on Taskmaster. Yes, you do.

Yes, you do. And John takes them immediately because he picks a straw and a ping pong ball. The ping pong ball is such a bad choice. Really bad choice.

It's so light. Hard and light and bouncy. Yeah, and directionless. It's absolutely directionless. Completely directionless. You obviously should

start with the P as everyone else does. But, you know, I made very bad choices with a rubber egg in the first episode of Series 9, so I completely empathise with John. Yes, because you went for an ovoid shape that's going to bounce like a motherfucker. You can't control the directional bounce. I thought it was a real egg.

Even when I was holding it, I thought it was a real egg. Never touched an egg. And that's when we realised that Ed had never touched an egg. Never touched an egg. I don't touch my own eggs. Are you kidding me? No. Ooh, yuck.

Who does? I get the people to do that for me. Yeah, I get that. I loved watching Fern with a recorder and a pee. That was incredible. So funny. And then Sarah with the recorder trying to clamp her mouth over the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it not really making any difference as it turns out because there's a bunch of other holes there's like you know it put me in mind of just the awkwardness of her trying to clamp the whole thing with her mouth of the um come dine with me viral clip of the man trying to suck things off a whisk yeah yeah you can't do it uh i think uh the task that i had where we had to lick the objects or run our face over the objects yeah yeah yeah yeah you're like this isn't gonna look good no it just never looks good no this is oh god i felt her horror as she deep throated the recorder i thought yeah yeah you're gonna regret that but also i like this task because it sort of doesn't

work i like all the studio tasks where they've been played through and there is a way that they would work but it doesn't happen on the night and you just have to run with it and that's what's great about taskmaster is you know john's out first round three people are out second round so it's completely over but they're not going okay guys we need to work out a way where this is more tense or this feels like more of a game they're literally like okay all done everyone sit down again yeah it's incredible and if the and if one of the objects makes a funny noise as well yeah let's chuck that in yeah i love that in yeah right and of course it works but it works out perfectly tv wise because

dara makes a joke to munya about cheating by touching a ball. And then it turns out Dara touches the beach ball with the bellows and he's gutted. He can't conceal it, can he? Yeah, it was delicious television. Yeah, it really was. Yeah, when the ultimate rule abider gets caught out for an infraction, it is the sweetest of the low-hanging fruit. Yeah.

So, I mean, everyone gets five points apart from John. How do you feel about Dara getting five points when his last go, he broke the rule? Yeah, I would have spat the dummy if I was Mania. I think I would have, and maybe he did, maybe they cut that out. But I think I would have, and maybe he did, maybe they cut that out. But I think I would have had an absolute toddler fit about that if I was in the room when that happened.

Especially if I had done that badly in the episode. I just don't think Munya cares. I think he's so self-assured that he's like, yeah, eight points, but I was brilliant, So it doesn't matter. I just love what Greg said when he said, I was raised in the 70s when we were taught to not have self-esteem. I mean, it was beautiful. It is the most perfect generational difference.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. Don't be so happy with yourself. Don't be confident going into things. A bit of self-loathing. A bit of self-loathing is a good thing and even if you then do do well you've got to go well it wasn't me

it was just the winds of fortune Munya gets 8 points this episode and you know if he'd not done if he'd not got 5 points in that he should have been out he should have got 2 points for that really um yeah eight points is terrible uh sarah got 15 fern got 16

john got 18 and dara takes another episode with with 21 points and putting him he's you know he's his lead is stretching out now in the series got 133 Sarah is the closest to him with 124 and then it's a pretty major drop off to John with 107 Fern on 101 and Munya now bottom of the series with 97 points um yeah you know it's all to play for at the top and the bottom of the table so far I'd say yeah I think I I had created a very big lead that I whittled away down to a razor, like a tiny slither. You really, you shot out in the first few episodes and then it got pretty tense.

Can you see that happening? Do you think this is Dara's series or do you think Sarah might be able to take it from him? It's going to require Dara to make a big error at some point. And we've seen him make those errors. In the last episode, he did make the errors. And Sarah, I think, is consistent. She is.

She is. And that does... Yeah. I don't want to say it. I'm going to say Sarah to keep it spicy. I will say Sarah to keep it spicy. And I think it's possible as well. So it's,

it's certainly, it's certainly not going to be a Dara streaking ahead. I don't think. Sarah, thank you so much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm sorry that only seven minutes of what I said can actually be used. We always love having you on the podcast.

And of course, you'll know this. We get you to rate your experience on the podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster. Have you had a nice time again? And how would you rate it? I've had a wonderful time. And I'm going to give it five points, but you don't know what happened in the lead up to this. So I set the bar pretty low with the day that I have had.

I'm sorry to hear that. It's still a victory, but this is the nicest part of my day by a country mile. Well, I hope the day continues on five points. No, no, no. I have to get back to the shit bomb that is my day by a country mile. Well, I hope the day continues on five points. No, no, no. I have to get back to the shit bomb that is my day. As soon as I hang up, I'm back in it. I'm climbing back into the bin fire.

Well, we hope you managed to put the bin fire out, of course. We're glad we could be a little bit of respite from your big pile of shit in a bin fire. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Sarah. Thanks, guys. There we are. Thank you very much to Sarah for coming on the podcast again. She's absolutely brilliant. She's welcome back anytime. We can't wait to see her competing

in Champion of Champions. Keep watching Taskmaster. We'll be back next week to talk about episode 8 of series 14 thank you very much for listening goodbye Every veteran has a story. Whatever your next chapter, get support with health, education, finance, and more. At veterans.gc.ca slash services. A message from the Government of Canada.