Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 105. Richard Herring - S14 Ep.8

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

This week Ed is joined by comedian, writer, podcaster and Taskmaster Champion of Champions - Richard Herring! The pair discuss the highs and lows of Series 14 and Richard gives his predictions for the final few episodes! Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterYou can buy Richard's new book Can I have my ball back? at all good bookshops 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.

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. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble. You know that by now. We are talking about Taskmaster Series 14, Episode 8, which has just been on the television.

This normally comes out straight after the main Taskmaster show on Channel 4, which is 9pm on Thursdays. It's 9pm on Thursdays. So, welcome. I hope you've seen the episode. We're going to be talking about it in detail. With the special guest, and the special guest this week is Richard Herring, champion of Series 10. And then that's it.

And then he wasn't on Taskmaster again. Very much looking forward to chatting to Richard. Wonderful man, wonderful comic, brilliant podcaster and author. Do go and get his new book, Can I Have My Ball Back? I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit as well. But without further ado, this is us discussing Taskmaster Series 14, Episode 8. Welcome back, Richard Herring, to the Taskmaster podcast. podcast ah it's nice to be here thank you for having me always a pleasure to have you on rich well i say that um sometimes it's not a pleasure

like when we have to talk about champion of champions but um but mainly it's always a pleasure to speak to you no good thank you and you um now obviously we're talking about um taskmaster series 14 uh episode 8 specifically the one that bats do is the is the official title of the episode have you been have you been keeping up with the series so far i have yes i'm very much enjoying it um i think it's a good gang i love john kerns yes uh i did very very early on I think I tweeted or emailed him to say, you know, for the first time I don't know who's won this series because I've actually accidentally found

out the last three. But I'm sure it's not you. Poor old John. I mean, I think as soon as he was announced, I think everyone who knows him went, well, yeah, definitely not John. He's not winning.

There's no chance of him surprising people in that way. No, but as I think comics will feel this, I think about John and Mike Wozniak as well, it's kind of great to have a comedian that all comedians really like and respect come on this and then really shine as well. He's being extremely funny and I'm sure it's going to do him a world of good.

So that's... Yeah, I think you're right. And there's so many people out there, so many comics out there like that that are sort of completely appreciated by other comedians and there just hasn't been that thing to bump them up. And I love that Taskmaster's turned into the thing to do it.

So hopefully there'll be someone every year like that yeah yeah no very good value but everyone's i think everyone's good dar is surprisingly good at it and and much more competitive than anyone i've ever seen but i thought that i thought it would be um and uh fern is sort of bamboozled but good very very good value yeah i think yeah fern's one who i i mean i love fern she's such a brilliant comic uh and a great laugh but i think tossmaster has exposed her to be much weirder than even people that know her thought she was yes it feels like she doesn't know what she you know it feels like she's been sort of parachuted in there and doesn't quite understand what's going on she's tweeting that it's the best time she's ever had in her life and everything

which is good as it should be but she just often just looks so confused about what's going on but this when she came on the show she she was annoyed that they seemed to be running with a narrative that she couldn't be bothered or that she was tired but she did keep saying she was tired and then also she's angry in this episode because they went with the narrative that she was tired, but she did keep saying she was tired. And then also she's angry in this episode because they went with the narrative that she doesn't have a system, but she clearly doesn't have a system at any point. Yeah, well, she definitely didn't have a system for that particular one as well.

No. But yeah, but it's, you know, it's very exciting. I thought Dara was gonna kind of get too far ahead and it wouldn't be interesting anymore in terms of the series. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's at this stage, it seems like it's

between sarah and dara you never know i mean dara again had that 10 point lead and it's now down to something like one isn't it so yes and could easily have kind of disappeared this time so i mean sarah's doing great and munya i didn't really know very much about before but uh you know he's he's extremely i mean in this episode episode, he's really excellent and good. Yeah, but he's had some shocking episodes as well. He has, he has. He doesn't seem to mind either way, is what we can say about Munya. He's just ultimately...

In his head, he's won every episode, I think. I think that might be true. Have you had any highlights from the series series so far up until this point um i really liked um the task where john had to sabotage yeah i kind of liked that i like that as an idea and then he wasn't really very good at sabotaging it and And I also wondered if it occurred to him to not... I think if it had been me, I might have not sabotaged it. No, I think you would, Richard. I don't know. Because I think it depends what stage they're at

because I think you might actually, in gameplay, you might actually gain more by sticking with your team. It depends at what point and it seemed like it was quite early as well to i mean in this episode i kind of wondered oh is he big is he sabotaging this task as well i mean i didn't know he was sabotaging anything at the time that's sort of the genius the genius of it because it looked like he wasn't he was sabotaging he was obviously sabotaging when he had to sabotage. So you're thinking, God, you're making that too obvious, John.

But luckily, he's so incompetent for the rest of the team tasks that by the end, Dara's just like, you know, going, oh, John, messing it up again. He's absolutely useless. Like, we'll get to the bells situation soon, but it's just insane. Let's talk about the prize task of this episode, the best fancy dress.

Yeah. It's quite a tricky one because a couple of people here go for, you know, shop-bought things, as Greg says. You know, Munya especially, I think, it's either something he's worn for a party or he's just Googled funny fancy dress and that's what he's gone with.

Yeah. And that is one way to gone with yeah um and that is one way to go but i think fern is the only one who absolutely nails this yeah it is i think it was a very hard one i think i would struggle you know i'd have struggled with this one the only thing i might have thought of is i've got like a rod hull style jacket for when i do my ventriloquist dummy of my i have a ventriloquist dummy of my testicle that I lost to testicular cancer as I think most people do yeah and so I'm processing the grief of losing a testicle isn't it so I've got like a fake a really obviously fake arm

and a hole that I could put my hand through like Rod Hall would do so that I can yeah but the hand keeps on falling off and I think it's quite it's quite a funny item but yeah aside from that you sort of because fancy dress generally, unless you've got a, if you're an actor and you've kept a costume, I guess that might be interesting, or if I'd, I can't think of anything I've kept from the past.

I think this one was hard, and... It's hard for comics as well, isn't it? Because I can't think of many comics who, when it comes to Halloween or going to some sort of fancy dress event would throw themselves into it because that feels like almost sort of being trying to be creative and funny outside of work when they probably just want to go and get drunk that's true and i kind of hate like john and greg i kind of hate going to fancy dress parties and try to avoid them if i can you know or try to avoid doing anything uh

so i kind of yeah you might i guess if you just happened to do a kind of crazy halloween and you'd made something but i'm so bad at making things i think that would have been the way to win and i suppose that that's what fern did though i was quite confused by what first i yeah we need to we need to try and chat through this so when she said it's an alien dressed as a sc man, great. Top line of that, absolutely incredible. Massive laugh when the picture came up in the studio. Like really absolutely smashed it. But what is this thing about the cone collectors?

Was she in a production of this? She seemed to suggest that she was shot early on because she shouldn't have been collecting cones from the forest. Was she acting in something or they didn't make that clear? I mean i mean maybe she was abducted by an alien i don't know that would make sense of quite a lot of stuff so yeah i don't think it was very clear so i thought it was just sort of like a load of babbling nonsense i was kind of surprised she won she won really but it was i mean i think in terms of inventiveness, it certainly was... Yeah, it was a great costume.

The best one. Yeah, very well acquitted. I mean, it deserved the five points just for Dara's face. Dara's reaction to that, he has never been more baffled. And that guy's watching the skies every night. He better get his alien face ready. Because they're not going to want to come and visit Earth if they see that.

Very funny. But even if we had absolutely no idea what she was talking about but it's funny seeing her talk to because john was asking her questions about it and john seemed to completely understand what was going on which shows you the level he was nodding like oh yeah you shouldn't have been collecting cones in the forest yeah Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, bizarre. Yeah, I thought John's was... I didn't think John should have come last. I thought Sarah's was weak because it didn't really look like anything at all. Yeah, the story was nice from Sarah's that, you know, she went out dressed like that and nobody noticed the difference.

But I think that means it is bad fancy dress and the category was the best fancy dress. So I felt like that was the that should have been the one point at this point with john the inflatable walking stick is really funny he has a reason for it that you can do multiple costumes with it and greg says i don't like giving you one point but he clearly does and i think it's just a great idea to have something that you can see, you know, if you don't like fancy dress costumes, you can get that out as you go in and then deflate it and put it in your pocket

and you don't have to worry about it. And then if anyone really wants to know what you're dressed like, you can blow it back up again pretty easily because it's small. And, you know, I think his reasons, you know, the guy from Up was a great... Very funny. Was a great example of the person you could be. So I thought John was a little bit cheated he was done dirty again he's had some good prize tasks but quite often

I think Greg sees a weakness and absolutely decides to pounce on him because it's funny to see John react to that which is great, I wouldn't change it but I think he did deserve more Munya as we briefly talked about is a very funny costume and it's very funny funny costume but yeah he has just he's and

it's very funny introducing it as the most accurate um version of a space suit ever made and the way the legs wiggle around is fantastic but three points seems a little high for what is just the sort of shop bought funny fancy dress costume yeah i agree i mean i think if he'd made something like that if he'd sort of made something it's sort of bernie clifton's ostrich isn't it is the yes it's the sort of starting point of that uh and if he'd sort of made some sort of Bernie Clifton's ostrich isn't it is that yes it's the sort of starting point of that and if he'd sort of made something which I think he might have been able to do yeah I think Zimbabwe and he could have been riding on the back of some Zimbabwean creature yeah he could have brought a bath in and full of Vaseline that could be a good

fancy dress costume that was really good he got three points and that's probably as much as you you know something yeah yeah but it's it's not a bad score uh by the way this is the quickest we've ever mentioned rod hull and bernie clifton and myself with my tactical so we've got three the three main puppeteers have been mentioned um dara brought in a plague plague doctor's costume yeah it's scary him wearing that is if you bumped into him wearing that you'd be terrified wouldn't you yeah it is it's an interesting historical artifact i believe they used to stuff the nose with um with some kind of sweet smelling flowers partly to kind of protect... The idea was it would protect you from plague, I think, wasn't it? I don't think it worked.

No, because they thought it was about smell. Yeah, it probably got rid of the stink of common people, so it was probably worth having if you're a plague doctor. But, yeah, it was sort of... You can imagine a Doctor Who episode, if there hasn't been one already, where a load of those doctors are all chomping down the street coming at you. Oh, yeah.

And I think Dara would be a shoo-in to play the main plague doctor. But it does look like a hugely uncomfortable thing as well. It sort of looks, weirdly, a bit fetishy. It is a little bit. And maybe going full fetish might have been the answer if you were going to buy some kind of gimp mask. Yeah, I would have loved to. I mean, if this was in your series, Richard,

and you brought in a full gimp suit, I would have absolutely loved that. I think the key here might have been doing a sort of Mike Wozniak style thing and having the costume on underneath your clothes in the studio for a bigger reveal. I think that might have worked. Maybe you could have done that with the false arm thing, just be sat there for the first bit of the chat

with a clearly false arm sticking out. It drops off halfway through the intro. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought this was a tricky one, and that wasn't my favourite. It wasn't my favourite of the... You know, they're very impressive, the way they keep coming up with these,

and you kind of think... I mean, there are an infinite number of them, because you can obviously play on a theme, so they're not going to run out, but I didn't think this... I thought this was a bit tricky, I think. It was tricky. I mean, Fern was really the only one

with the impact of the picture of that costume who nailed it. So it was one point for John, two points for Sarah, three points for both Munya and Dara and as Greg rightly says there needs to be a gulf between second and first and it was five points for Fern alien dressed as a Scottish man who was

shot in the woods because he shouldn't have been collecting cones Fern I am dressed as an alien dressed as a scottish man yes this is fern's fancy dress have a look oh my god you know how you get these, like, educational films for children? This was a film where there's a Scottish book called The Cone Gatherers about two brothers,

and for some reason, I was an alien that inhabited the character of the book, but I'm not a...not what people would call a thespian, and I got shot dead in the end. Right. Why was the alien shot? I was shot because I wasn't meant to be gathering cones in the forest. I feel like possibly my drinks have been spiked.

Task one, part one. Come up with a secret language that doesn't use words. You have ten minutes after which one of you must go to the lab. Your time starts now. And part two. Secretly give this instruction to your teammates. You must not say or write any of the words in the instruction. Fastest wins.

Your time starts as soon as you walk through the door and stops when the instruction is carried out by your teammates. And the secret message is feed three giraffes and an elephant to the clown. Very tricky. your teammates and the secret messages feed three giraffes and an elephant to the clown um very tricky now i i feel i don't know i don't think there are more team tasks in this series but it feels like there are because i think they've all been very good yeah that's that's probably true yeah it does feel like a lot yeah they are they are quite memorable yeah so this is i mean i thought there was lots of things about this one because um could you not have just gone into the room picked up three giraffes and an elephant and pointed at the clown

and then because that's all that's almost i mean a that and also do they say on the paper that you can't show them the piece of paper with the instruction on it oh that's true i don't know if it was even in there was there seemed to be quite a lot of loopholes that weren't picked up in this episode i think yeah and my only thought with this i think is similar to what you said really is just getting a bell jingling it near the thing you want them to pick up and then just sort of jingling over to the bin and and pointing towards it so yeah i feel like they probably all went with the spirit of the task which is yeah yeah i think i think you're right but uh spirit of the task which is yeah yeah i think i think you're right but uh it would have been it would have been but but almost because munya

sort of almost just points at that he doesn't he just puts an arrow to him and does and in the end he doesn't make a language he just makes a picture of a giraffe and a picture and he uses symbols yeah it's sort of outside the it's outside outside the... In a way already, but it... Yeah, it was sort of odd that they picked up on their... The other team picked up the idea of basically using text language. Yes. Like how you would write a text message, which is quite a good way of doing it,

and then didn't just ring the bell the number of times that... I don't know why they brought the sticks into it. I think there were nine bells, so they could have an A, B, C, D, E,d you know like just like like we used to text in the old days yes to prep you'd have to press the button two or three times to make the you know to make c you'd press that the one button three times so you would just think you could just do this by ringing the bell three times to mean c or one time to me you know so each one so it seemed weird that they complicate complicated yeah the text system it's almost as if they they don't work well together as a team

but they said they seem to think of it because you look at it with abcdef and then the last one was rstp they had like waiting but they had the two bells at the side. Was it for yes and no? Yeah. You know, they could just nod. They didn't need to have a bell. The bells almost, and the sticks almost feel like a red herring here because they don't, they're not mentioned in the task. No. So they're all laid out in front of them.

And, you know, you're not using words. Even when John said the most popular word in the world is uh, I think he was sort of onto something. Couldn't they just do grunts and pointing? Couldn't they go caveman style? you're not using words even when john said the most popular word in the world is uh um i think he was sort of on onto something couldn't they just do grunts and pointing couldn't they go caveman style yeah well i think i think from from what happened definitely because it wasn't it was about completing the task not about translating the exact sentence so as long as as long as which way around is it three giraffes and an elephant is that the way you were yeah as long as they as long as they ended up in the clown's mouth,

you'd done it. Yeah. It's a tricky one because I think people have sort of overcomplicated it because of the presence of the bells. Now, occasionally, Richard, when I get through the sort of list of tasks and what they all are

so I can read them out on the podcast, our producer, Daisy, will make her own note, like a sort of prompt as to what she wants to talk about. There's just one note in red here. Can you imagine Daisy May Cooper and Richard doing this stuff? I don't know. We might have come up with something good. I think as long as it was clear, it might have been okay.

Richard, come on. If we got down to making the animals out of sticks, then yes, we would have taken a lot. One of us would be dead and I know which one it would be. All of those bells would end up in your arse, I think. I think it would have been taken down. It would have been very funny. I would have loved to have seen that.

Munya and Sarah, I think's established such a fun dynamic having not met before the team day they immediately sort of click in the right way like sarah just finds munya absolutely baffling a lot of the time he's just laughing in his face and he's doing his thing again where he's so confident and at one point when they're coming up with the system he says there's literally no fault in this method it's just and he just wants to have hard gently medium lick and punch what's he what does he think the task's gonna be i mean if those things came up it would have been if he's saying i know this is going to be gently lick my knob and then punch me in the tit

it's going to be fine yeah I mean they get there in the end because like you say he does little drawings and and I think you know that's the way to go he doesn't use words he uses symbols and they do get there what happened to

Dara Fern and John I've got no idea they take quite a while to get to the wrong the wrong decision and I What happened to Dara, Fern and John, I've got no idea. They take quite a while to get to the wrong decision. And I guess it is Dara's fault, as he says. He just, he misremembers it. Well, he misremembered it, but John didn't, you know, John clearly hadn't understood what the system was. So, you know, this is what I mean about it. He sabotaged this one much more effectively.

It is Dara's fault for getting the message wrong, but I think John absolutely not understanding which letter's which on the sort of thing that they've worked out probably through Dara a little bit, I imagine. Well, no, I think John was actually quite instrumental in, from what it seemed like, he was instrumental in helping come up with the system.

So he then basically completely forgets his own system. him come up with the system so he then basically forget completely forgets his own system he's such an interesting guy he really is so they end up feeding three elephants and one giraffe uh just a disaster all round yeah no points though they seem gutted about that they seem really angry about that but they didn't do it they did it completely wrong the only task is do this message yeah and i guess you know dara was complicit in it so it's kind of nice when when they blame john and then it's someone else's fault yeah though john did didn't john read out the actual answer though so i wonder if joe i still wonder if john the time john was the one who read it out and I wonder if he just wrote down the wrong thing as well. So I don't know.

It'll be John's fault somehow, I'm sure. It will be. So it was nought points to Dara, Fern and John, and five points to Munya and Sarah. My impression, Fawn, of the non-dingers, Ferlin was of more use to you on this occasion. Ferlin was a joy to work with, a pleasure to be around. She was to be around the same way, but I did work really, really well.

That's all I want to say about that chap. And if you wanted to go to a fancy dress with one of them, you'd go with her, right? I would. I would. It's like some prick with a blow-up walkie. LAUGHTER Sean, anything you want go with her, right? I would. I would. It's like some prick with a blow-up walkie-talkie. Sean, anything you want to say in your defence? My brain doesn't work like that. Your brain doesn't work? Yeah. 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. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from Indigenous voices. We can demand more from the Earth. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves.

At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Task two, pin an alluring tail on the alluring animal while blindfolded. You have 15 minutes to find the alluring animal, make an alluring tail, put your alluring tail on the tail station and prepare to pin your alluring tail on the alluring animal. Blindfolded starting from here. Fastest wins. wins now i mean look a lot of fun i think alex says he tries to limit it uh to one task per series where people have to have those goggles on that mean they can't see um because it is funny but you could i mean if you got carried away it'd be a whole series of that wouldn't it it's it's very funny um i mean the the alluring animal thing, I'm surprised that everyone eventually found the tiger and realised that that was the animal that was being referred to. We didn't have a Katherine Parkinson situation of the spider.

No, but it was very vague. So alluring is a very vague term. So, you know, anything. There was ducks right by the door. It could have been a duck. Yeah, or Alex. You could turn Alex into an alluring animal. I don't think they...

And there was no prizes for making the most alluring tale or discovering the most alluring animal. So I found that this... Again, there was a lot of wiggle room in this one, I felt, in terms of, you know, did you have was a lot of wiggle room in the in this one I felt in terms of um you know was there did you have to leave the tiger on the piano was that part of it I didn't see that I can't remember that being in the no you could you could move both the the tail station and the tiger to the room and just put them on the table couldn't you as long as the tail was on there so there was a there was a lot of again scope to just like be the person who doesn't enter the spirit of the

task but certainly certainly is moving the tiger somewhere more easy to find would be my would have been my first thought i don't know if i would have thought to move the the station but maybe once i thought about moving the tiger i would have thought about moving the station yeah if you're in that mindset i guess so but yeah i i guess there's so much information in it there's so many things that you have to think about that perhaps the sort of the fog just got the better of them um but um very funny to watch to watch people just struggle to get there especially i mean look munya on this occasion he previously said there's no fault in this method there was no fault in in his there was no fault in his method

he really thought about this he did a lot of forward planning he knew to have a Hansel and Gretel style trail and gets there absolutely perfectly and then takes a toilet brush and rams it so hard up that tiger's arse

I mean again there was no you didn't have to. Everyone was quite had a little connectors and things. There was nothing in there saying this has to stay on. I don't know if you know, I guess you're sort of second guessing that there might be another task after this where you have to swing the thing around by its tail or something. But yeah, it's Yeah, it was it was good. He was absolutely excellent. This he thought it

through, like it in exactly the way that Fern didn't. And in the way that... I mean, John tried to sort of thesis it, didn't he? In terms of the minor toy. If I've got a string leading from the thing to where I am. I don't know why the string only started outside. I don't know why he didn't bring it all the way inside. So he could negotiate his way through that and the fact that he then missed

yeah missed the tail and missed the pickup string as well it's incredible isn't it because he's done this before where even when john has a plan that seems like it's going to work it would work for anyone else but somehow he still manages to thwart himself because he's i think at some point he's been cursed uh and his life is just a 70s sitcom so just him bending over and then putting his hand exactly where the tail isn't and it's so close to him and this happens to be the next task as well he gets so close and then he's going oh you've moved it you've moved it john come on you should have learned by now you've done something wrong here but his was the most alluring tale i think okay you know we're not judging we we're not judging the uh if if you're using words like alluring i think there should have been some sort of um some sort of uh chat about whether it was an alluring tale because munya's toilet brush

i think would have been marked down yeah i agree with you i think it was an alluring tail because munya's toilet brush i think would have been marked down yeah i agree with you i think it was you know i don't understand the alluring thing is very confusing to me because it's sort of you know why was that tiger more alluring i mean it didn't have it if you said find that the animal without a tail that should have a tail and put a tail on it that that's the task but if it's and then maybe have a few more animals that do have tails or you know don't have tails but don't have shouldn't have tails i don't know but um but maybe it was left open-ended like that so every you'd hope everyone would pick different animals but they all they all went for the tiger so there you go they did yeah they all fancy tigers um so that was munya ramming

a toilet brush up um dara did a sort of good memory trick, really. It was very quick. He is so efficient, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. And again, for the older contestant, the middle-aged man contestant, who do veer between being useless and being okay, he's actually probably the most efficient and sort of logical and smart in terms of that.

So, yeah, it was quite, because it was, you know, he didn't use strings and stuff like that, but he had it all mapped out, didn't he? Yeah, he did have it all mapped out. And, I mean, Sarah had it all mapped out as well, to be fair to her, but her pace and her sort of, like, dedication to getting things done quickly is lower than Dara's i'd say she yeah she doesn't want to be seen to necessarily push herself i think she's just she's got her own pace and she's like i'm gonna do this this and this and she's very good at doing it but like

with the balloon popping she just sat on the sofa and refused to get off the sofa like i i do very much respect sarah because she gets loads of points but she does it without looking like she wants them whereas dara as we all know is a competitive dad and uh refuses it's just the most bare-faced competitive contestant i think taskmasters ever had and that's me and you talking to each other rich i know that is crazy i did uh he was on uh my podcast yeah just before it was announced that on my podcast going i live right next door the taskmaster house i should be on it but knowing full well he'd already done the job but he hadn't yet done the studio and he

was sort of and i said to him which is the best advice for everyone i think a lot of uh and i don't think i fully kind of appreciated it even when i went on that you know just spend a lot of time on the prize task and really think about the prize task, because that's sort of how you probably will... That gives you the edge, if you can sort of get four or five points most episodes. Didn't think to give that advice to John?

No, I didn't see John beforehand. I'm not sure he would have taken it on board. I think maybe he did put effort into it. That's the thing. Yeah, I think he maybe did. I mean not sure he would have taken it on board. I think maybe he did put effort into it. That's the thing. Yeah, I think he maybe did. I mean, you don't know what, you know, I think it's sort of getting that balance right, isn't it, between sucking up to Greg without going over the top.

It is quite a difficult balance but he is very flattered by any reference to himself. Of course. Those things. I did give him a few tips about that so I don't know if that helped him or not i mean i do you know i don't know i don't know if i i want him to win i don't know i mean i do like all of these contestants so it's it's very hard i do i think i would like sarah to win it because of i think you're right that she's yeah because you can't claim that you couldn't claim that victory then i can't

really you can say i gave sar Sarah some advice that, of course, carried her through to the end. Yeah, I suppose. All right, I'll go for Dara then. Let's talk about Fern, because this is absolutely outstanding. It's just when she reads it and then just goes back into the house, and Alex almost basically says, you need to plan what you're going to do.

He may as well tell her what to do. And she angrily says, yeah, I'm going back inside. Gets angry at him for even suggesting that she does any planning. And then I just, and even she says, I've got no special awareness when I'm not wearing goggles. So it's just waving her arm around. Keep saying, where is it?

What, I don't know, I don't understand what you thought that would help. Where is it? As if the tiger was going to go I'm over here I think you sometimes just think that's the time you know that the somebody say oh the task is something really impossible I've just got to throw myself into and I think I can I can appreciate that because I often just I threw myself into things without thinking I think with this one given you were giving given thinking 15 minutes yeah you would

think I better use the 15 minutes, even just to... 15 minutes is a great thing in any task, just to be able to sit down and go, okay, right, let's find the thing, work out what I'm going to do, and just then have a think about whether there's any lateral way to come into it.

Because I think when there isn't that little, when it's just do this as quick as you can, you're just thinking... Well, for me, I was just thinking the direct way to do it. But anything where I got a bit of a chance to sit down and think you were able to or i was able to come up with something a bit more inventive yeah for sure so if there's 15 minutes you've got to think wow i'm going to use this 15 minutes uh for something and not just go immediately back into the house and then stumble out when i mean it's kiss of death and she's literally going so

the house is here and then pointing down the garden you're like right well that's it that's over i mean she loses her bearings so fast it's quite impressive she didn't come outside and look outside so she shouldn't know vaguely where things are but yeah the idea that you're somehow going to walk your way to something on the ground i mean you'd have to crawl right you'd have to kind of go i'm gonna crawl i'm gonna feel with my hands and then at least i know what surface i'm on and i can sweep my hands around if you if that was really the way you were gonna go yeah but you know at least work out the angle you have to walk away from at one point at one point she puts her hands behind her and said the hedge is here

yeah and almost like mimes touching the hedge but seems sure the hedge is there so she seems to imagine the touching of the hedge i don't know how she does it yeah it's the fact that she managed to get there at all i think was quite impressive and it wasn't that long you know it wasn't that long it wasn't i thought i thought alex was gonna go it took her four hours yeah it took a long time she was running a marathon but she actually if she was just feeling her way yeah work out where anything was uh 12 or 13 minutes or whatever it was wasn't too bad yeah 13 minutes 53 uh fern got like you know like you say you know it's not that long for someone who had no system but in context uh sarah took nine minutes

40. john eight minutes twelve dara three minutes and munya took two minutes and six seconds because he he does with the paint one uh in a previous episode he really goes for it if it's like a physical getting from one place to another he just bounds over stuff yeah he's got this elastic body he just like bounces everywhere and this this was very very impressive yeah yeah well you know when he's when he's smart and when he gets it he really he really does get it and when he's yeah yeah so yeah yeah he had a good episode with this it's a very good episode for munya um but it was one point for fern two points for sarah three points for john four points for Dara and five points for Munya.

Very well deserved. Five points there. It is a very good episode for him so far. What animals do you find alluring? The Cadbury's bunny. It's out the front. Aha! Is it him? So that's the alluring animal.

Is it alluring? No, I'm not a parrot. So now we need an alluring tail. So the tail station is that circle in the middle of the lawn. What's in here that might be sexy? I mean, that's quite an alluring tail in itself. What about the flowers up its butt? It's actually lovely lovely I'll use this

what is it a toilet brush it looks kind of used no don't sniff it task three find the back of your hand fewest wrong guesses wins you have a maximum

of 20 minutes your time starts when Alex does a hand pun this is a great task i was excited by this task this is one where i thought i would have loved to have done this one because it looks so cool i think yeah really good and i think it's you know it's if you you couldn't predict this i think even when you had your hand taken i don't i don't think sarah was thinking ahead. I think she was just being silly. Yeah, she was just doing a wanking joke, right? She was, yeah. It worked out perfectly for her.

And the way they've edited this task, it's one of my favourite edit jobs of the series, I think, because they've made it feel like a Saw film. The quick flashbacks, and it just really feels like something from Saw, and even the task itself, I can imagine that in one of those films because

you have to pick your own hand how well do you know yourself and then they'll take a finger off every five minutes so you can it's harder and harder to recognise another perfect insight into John's brain John seems to listen to Radio 4 all day

and then go to bed. He's certainly not interacting with people. It's extraordinary to me. I think he is going for the comedy sometimes, but I don't know with this one whether he is. The idea that you've got your own hand in front of you and then you're trying to remember what your dad's hand was. I can look for that instead.

It's just like... There's a reason the phrase exists, that you know something like the back of your hand. There never is a father involved in that phrase. Yeah, so, you know, fantastic. And just gutting for John that he kind of spots the mechanism by which, you know, I think this is one you have to, if you had walked, if I'd walked into this, I'd have gone, right,

there's definitely some easy way to do this. As Dara says, even Dara says there's got to be an easier way of doing this and he doesn't spot it. But yeah, John taps it. They've given you the little, yeah, John touches it, don't touch that, and then thinks that's,. But yeah, John taps it. They've given you the little... John touches it, don't touch that. And then thinks that's... Oh, well, yeah.

I think he must imagine, oh, no, I've touched something to do with the filming of the show. So don't touch that. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's exactly what happened, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, dear. But this is like...

The laser pointer thing, I like to think I would have spotted that because that is classic escape room stuff. Like that is, that's a proper escape room technique. Right, yeah. And it must have been so satisfying to Munya when he got the laser system sorted. Yeah.

It's absolutely brilliant. I mean, as Greg said, it was ruined by the discussion of a camel toe but um can the men have camel toe i don't know men can have camel toes i believe i think the term might be moose knuckle i believe it's a different it's a different situation the sort of like a ball wedgie type thing yeah so yeah that's probably what he had moose knuckle um yeah it's so gutting that john got so close uh and almost just touches the touches his hand he's going around obviously i'm starting to think his father's hands look quite different to his

i think that might be an issue it can't be the problem i mean you know he's sort of you know that's the thing with john he's sort of clever. That's the thing with Johnny sort of clever within it He's going oh you're saying no too quickly. So I know it can't be around here So he kind of gets that I know it's a I know it's ready and he puts his hand on it as he's saying that To the one above it. It's It's I you know, he's I can't quite work out if he's a fool or if he's a genius who is yes I'm gonna do the I know I know the answer to all these but I'm going to pretend I don't and just do the funniest possible thing

I mean I'm starting to think what a terrible way to find out that your dad's not your dad right? It's completely different It's so weird because it's like Russell Watson's like a singer as well right? If it was a pianist that would sort of make sense but it's just like Russell Watson's like a singer as well, right? Yeah. If it was a pianist, that would sort of make sense, but it's just like Russell Watson's gone off.

I mean, I wouldn't know if my hands looked like my dad's. I wouldn't be able to remember what my dad's hands looked like anyway. So, yeah, I would definitely use my own. I think I'd recognise my own hands. I think I'd recognise yours as well, Richard. They're the same size as Emma Watson's, right? They are. Well, I was going to say,

they could have screwed me up by putting Hermione's hands up there. But my hand is exactly the same size as Hermione's. And that's what's interesting. You know, hands, when you see a load of hands, it is so freaky. Yeah. And like Fern says at that point, that's like the devil's hand there.

When you see them out of context and all just next to each other, they do vary so much and they do look really odd as well when you yeah when you actually take a chance to look at your hands they don't they they sort of look like an alien artifact yeah i love that they put the dogs paw in there as well yeah that's great it's great that john spotted it as well of course there must have probably a few things in there weren't they they hoped that someone would come across them yeah yeah I mean I suppose I want because that because as long as you didn't guess though you could take 20 minutes to really look at every picture so there was no price for doing was there a price was it if they did it quicker they got no it was it was just it was few number of few Yeah, yes. So Sarah's very good at that.

Again, Sarah just takes her time because obviously she knows that she displayed her hand differently. Yeah. And so all that is then is just take your time, go through all of them, one guess, five points. Yeah. Whereas Muni is obviously the more sort of exciting version

of that by finding the laser system. Dara just, Dara made a crucial error right at the beginning and it completely unfurled him yeah well that's yeah because he thought that he didn't have his ring on right yeah he thought it was the other hand yeah which is a rare that's a rare sort of basic error for Dara I think yeah I mean what would you have thought when they when they were taking the photos of the hand, which presumably was on a different, and it might have been on a different,

presumably it must have been a different day. Yeah. I'd imagine they did that day one for all of them. And then probably doing that task maybe even three months later. Do you think you would have thought, right, there's something. Because the danger is if you try and second guess, you end up doing something yeah that screws you up completely i would have done something i mean i would have i would have put my middle finger up probably yeah i mean that's that did

that that occurred to me yeah or um yeah yeah or the put your hand the other way up but i suppose that you you would have to know what was you'd have to really know what's happening but yeah that would be that If you'd done that, which you might have just done for the lols in the same way that Sarah did, then that would... I think that's better than the wanking hand, isn't it?

You'd spot that straight away, yeah. Straight there on the wall. And also, I've got like weird patches on my hands, like sort of almost vitiligo. And so the photo was taken in the summer when it really comes out to play because my hands get a bit tanned

and then there's just big white patches on there. I would have been quickest ever, I think. Yeah. Middle finger up and big white patches. Would have smashed it. So Dara and John both run out of time um mainly because john's talking about thinking about a russell watson interview and uh dara's devastated though you can tell he's really he's really upset yeah by that uh fern somehow gets four points even though she uses 504 guesses. Wow, yeah.

And also, Fern's nearly screwed over by the fact she appears to have hand-localised body dysmorphia, where she just starts talking about her hands as if they're like big sailor's hands. She's going, they're big, flat and square and dehydrated. That's not what your hands look like, clearly. Don't look for that um but she does she does do it in the end i mean i think using those things where you have to you can eliminate whole boards for 100 guesses i don't think i would do that i think i'd be too

i'd be like no i've got it i've got to do it properly i've got to get it in as few guesses as possible i don't you know i don't think you've got 20 minutes i don't think it's that helpful to you know if you if you've got two minutes left and you know we're near you might think okay right i've got to do it but i don't i don't think it's necessary because i think you've probably got time to have a have a good hold your hand your own hand in front of you yeah put it by each photo and you've probably got just about enough time to do that. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, I suppose I thought, you know, you would think Dara would have with lasers as well, you would think, and I think you're given the laser.

It's an odd. Well, I think the laser was inside the hand, right? So I think, I don't think John had the laser. Right. I don't think Fern found the laser. And I'm not sure if Dara is. So if they pulled the hand off, they saw the message for the board eliminations

and I think the laser was inside the hand. So I still think you need to have a little look around to find it. But very satisfying if you did. So it was five points for both Sarah and Munya, four points for Fern and zero points for Dara and John. John, you know that whole dad's hands thing? Yeah. Yeah, what are you on about?

Russell Watson. Yeah. So he said he was playing the piano one day and then he looked down and he was like, God, I've got my dad's hands. What you're saying is, the opera singer Russell Watson says in an interview you saw saying is, the opera singer Russell Watson... LAUGHTER

..says in an interview you saw with him that he realises his hands look like his dad's, and that affected your system here of looking for your hands when you had your own fucking hands in front of you. Why bring your dad into this at all? It's easier to look for your dad's hands than your own. LAUGHTER Dara, you hampered yourself by picking the wrong hand. It's easier to look for your dad's hands than your own. LAUGHTER

Dara, you hampered yourself by picking the wrong hand. See, I made a mistake. I was looking for my auntie's hands. LAUGHTER Because Cecilia Domingo said to me once... LAUGHTER Jon, at one point, I'm fairly sure that you chose a black hand. LAUGHTER Those are my dad's. John, at one point, I'm fairly sure that you chose a black hand. Those are my dads. Live task.

Guess the fully extended length of the extendable item. Closest to the fully extended length wins. Another team task. Odd that it was a team task, this one, I think. I feel like they could have... I suppose there wouldn't have been much difference between the guesses if there were five guesses up there. It might have been tricky to judge. Might have been, but I agree with you.

It doesn't seem necessary to be a team task, and there has been a team task in the episode. So that's why it feels a bit team task heavy. It probably just in terms of it not going on forever. Oh yeah. They could have done less things and more guesses.

Yeah. But yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's a fun one to watch just mainly for Alex, the procession of Alex every time he picks one up and slowly walks it

and unfurls it. I think it's a lot. I mean, I think this is yet another live task that families could find themselves playing at Christmas. It's fun and a little bit controversial, I think, though. I think they were...

The last one, the Hoover, is very controversial. Yeah. And I think the reason it's controversial is because didn't they say it's going to be...'s not the length of the hose it's the length of the of the the uh you know the plug yeah yeah they very much made it feel like they were going to unfurl the the that length yes and then then they didn't do that and that's why it's at the end you can see john and and dara they're kind of looking really confused and. And that's why at the end you can see John and Dara, they're kind of looking really confused and upset. And that's why, I think, isn't it?

Because they were told not to guess the length of the hose, but to guess the length of the reel. Yeah. And those things are really long. Those Henry Hoovers have a lot of... It's all wrapped round, isn't it? Yes. So I feel it was quite controversial, that last one. Henry Hoovers have a lot of, it's all wrapped round, isn't it? You've got a little... Yes.

Yeah, exactly. I feel it was quite controversial, that last one. I mean, Dara and John looking upset is fairly standard for the series, I'd say. Dara's been upset for most of this episode. But no, still, he's not gone back to his old catchphrase of, wait, what, what, wait, wait, what, which would have been perfectly employed here um but they get two points and sarah and munya get three points meaning it's munya's first first episode victory in the series i was very surprised at the beginning i you know i i don't remember

who's won every episode so when alex says that fern or munya haven't won an episode yet that's that's that's bananas to me because even john's won an episode and fern or Munya haven't won an episode yet, that's bananas to me, because even John's won an episode and Fern and Munya haven't managed it. Yeah, I was surprised. Especially Munya. Yeah, both of them, really. You would think that it does feel like everyone's...

I'm sort of surprised that the whole points are quite spread out. It feels like a very it felt like it was going to be very difficult to call and that it was going to be quite close with john a long way at the back yeah but then john yeah john had a few a few episodes where he did pretty well and he you know he won an episode and but today in this episode he's... He's back to old John. He's six points in the whole episode. Right. Which, it feels impossible. It feels...

That is so hard to only get six points. From five tasks. From five tasks. It's amazing. He got two in one. That's like... Yeah, yeah. So he literally came last and fourth.

Yeah. Wow, that is pretty bad. But then Dara, nine points in this episode. This feels pretty, this feels important because he was streaking ahead. He was absolutely nailing it, you know, getting consecutively very, very good scores. And then to only get nine points in an episode

has really left a gap for sarah no definitely it is sort of interesting with that because i was again i think about my own series and i came uh first or equal first in six of the ten episodes yeah and yet could e if if uh if uh if daisy had come second in the final task and we'd gone to a playoff, I think I'd have still won that episode, but I would not, and she'd won the playoff. I would have lost the series having won six episodes. So the episodes where things go wrong, or the episodes,

if you have a low-scoring one, or if you don't just consistently come first, second, or third, I guess, then if you come fifth a couple of times, then you can absolutely really screw things up but it is it is it is sort of it's interesting that it can work that way because you would think oh someone's won six episodes that's kind of a dull series but actually you know it ended on the on the final task and the final moments of the final task so yeah it's always there's always a sort of balance there isn't there but yeah it's good i mean it's good it's good for the series yeah i'm glad it's working out this way yeah um because

when dara got that i think it was episode two or three maybe three um where he got basically the perfect score yeah got the maximum points that he could possibly get and everything i think then you start to dread that he's just going to run away with it but but you know if another episode like this and he will have lost the lost the series to sarah because the where we're at the moment john and fern are joint bottom 113 points munya not far ahead of them on 118 points and sarah on 141 points with dara on 142 points so it really is it's all to play for it's very exciting and he started the episode with a nine point lead over sarah but now there's only one one point in it um dara's lowest scoring episode john's lowest scoring episode somehow uh and fern very low scoring episode for her as well

yeah so yeah not not great not great um so richard do you have predictions? I mean you've said that it's between Dara and Sarah I think it would be mad I mean things can happen and like that thing where a team gets five points and everyone gets nothing and they're on separate teams so it only takes

a couple, if there's another team task in both the last two episodes which maybe there won't be, there's the possibility of a sort of 5 if there's if there's another team task in both the last two episodes which maybe there won't be there's a possibility of a sort of five nil you know a possible ten point uh turn around but you know i i guess yeah i don't i don't think it's between the bottom three and the top two it's probably not possible because one of them would be on the same team so i think it has to between the two i think i just because I think the female contestants have been doing so well in in the recent series they've nearly all been one is any as a man won a series since I since I won my series I think I think it's all women isn't it since I think it is because it's Sarah

Kendall Morgana and Sophie Duker so yeah I think it's been all uh all female winners so do you think that that means that Sarah Sarah might romp home with this do you think that's what we're looking at you know even our champion of champions it was three women and two guys admittedly one of the guys won I can't remember which one it was now but um it's not really important but um but you know I think there might be something in this uh that it just feels maybe and now it's sort of fairer in terms of the the lineups i think the lineups early on were sort of four guys and one woman and still the women you did quite well i wonder if there's just something in this tv show that women it means women excel at a little bit more or just have a

little edge yeah over um uh because it's sort of you know and if sarah does win it'll be the archetypal thing of that if someone who isn't she really wants to win and she's not uncompetitive no but she's but she is equally not gonna you get a sweat on to win it. So, I mean, I think Sarah would be a fantastic champion. I think she would be great. I do like Dara, but it would be sort of funnier if he just falls. It comes very close, but he doesn't quite make it. I think he'd have to move house,

because you couldn't go past the Taskmaster house every day if you were Dara and you'd lost it, lost the series, I think. I think he'd have to move. Yeah. Now, Richard, you mentioned earlier in the podcast your testicle ventriloquist puppet. I did. Which of course you created because you had a bollock off but you've written a book about

the ball. I have written a book it's called Can I Have My Ball Back and it's been out since October and it's a sort of it's a cancer memoir but and it's about it's quite it's funny though and it's it's quite a positive book I'm very pleased with it because it obviously wasn't all laughs that that year but but I think it was a very positive experience for me in a lot of ways despite the one rather large negative uh and you know and it's been a thing i've been in this sort of how you define masculinity and yeah and and why men are in sort of a bit of a mess at the moment it's been something that i've been interested in anyway and then this has happened to me so it's quite it's an expiration

of testicles uh as well as as well as my own story but it's and you know it's a story just of uh family and uh and and realizing that life is not uh infinite uh and yeah things like this can happen but so there's lots of positives in it and and i think it's pretty funny so i'm really pleased with it but yeah so oh great it's nice to have that it is um ever since you wrote the book talking cock i've been thinking when's he going to move on to the bulls? Well, there you go. I'm going to have to go on to the arsehole next. Hopefully, just go on to the arsehole for fun reasons. There won't be any anal fissures or anything. Yeah, hopefully not.

Sorry, that's not the way I wanted to end the chat about your very interesting sounding book that was written based on trauma. But there we go. It's happened now. And that's available based on trauma but there we go it's happened now and that's available wherever you get good books is it Richard it is it really is yeah well thank you very much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast you are you are always welcome of course could you please rate your experience on the Taskmaster podcast between one and five

points in the style of the Taskmaster it's been pretty good today i think um it's been nice we can't we can't just for the listener me and richard can't see each other today because the only cameras that richard had that were working were all focused on his snooker table so the only way i was going to see richard was if he lay sort of prostrate on the on the snooker which i was up for i should have done it it would have been a fun way of doing it yeah so we haven't so not seeing you yeah because i couldn't see you and you've got your you've got such a handsome face ed thank you so much so not being able to see it has slightly dented my experience whereas that's yeah not being able to see me as slightly enhanced your experience i'm going to give you

i'm going to give you four and even though it's not your fault it's my fault for my equipment not working i'm going to give you four out of five though it's not your fault, it's my fault for my equipment not working, I'm going to give you four out of five, just to keep you on your toes as well. Thank you very much. Good to stay on the toes. Thank you very much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast, Richard. Everyone go and buy.

Can I have my ball back? We've loved chatting to you. Bye-bye, Richard. Bye. There we are. Thank you very much to Richard for coming on. Make sure you go and buy his book. He's a very, very good writer.

And listen to his podcast as well, Rehalestapa, which he mentioned there. There's so many phenomenal episodes of that. Thank you very much for listening to this podcast, though. We'll be back next week to talk about Taskmaster Series 14, Episode 9. Really getting down to crunch time now. It's getting really exciting. As we talked about, Dara and Sarah pretty much neck and neck who's gonna take it home uh well we can ask one of those people next week because the guest next week on the podcast is sarah millican lovely to

have sarah on the podcast very excited to talk to her obviously everyone involved in this series because they're brilliant comedians is hugely busy so it's great to actually find time uh to talk to people uh and we've managed to find a time for sarah so that's very exciting um so we will be chatting to her next week but for now enjoy yourselves have a nice life be kind to each other i'm not gonna not gonna do that um be horrible if you want um i've been Ed Gamble. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. 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.