Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 124. Dara Ó Briain - S15 Ep.1

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

New series alert!! On this week's podcast Ed is joined by Series 14 Champ, Dara Ó Briain. The pair chat through the first episode of Series 15 and reflect on Dara's time on the show...wait, what,wait... Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterVisit 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.

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble, the host of it. Very excited this week because we are back with a new series. This is always an exciting day on the Taskmaster podcast. We are chatting about series 15. Can you believe it? 15 series in, still feeling as fresh as a daisy. It's, I mean, what a lineup. What a lineup we have on this series. And we're going to be talking about everyone in great detail. We've got Frankie Boyle.

We've got Ivo Graham. We've got Jenny Eclair. We've got Kyle Smith-Bino. And we've got May Martin., we've got Ivo Graham we've got Jenny Eclair, we've got Kyle Smith-Bino and we've got May Martin and that is in seat order that is how obsessed with this show I am they are all fantastic I have seen a lot of this series I'll let you know and you are in for some

real treats not least in this opening episode they really hit the ground running I thought brilliant tasks brilliant ways of doing the tasks, and instant chemistry in the studio. And, as always, lovely stuff from Alex and Greg and the team. So we are very lucky this week to be speaking to a former champion

about this first episode of Series 15, Dara O'Briain, the champion, the reigning champion, the current champion, Dara O'Briain. Amazing Taskmaster contestant. I think if you look at any of the stats, one of the most successful and one of the most obsessed with the intricacies of Taskmaster, very

much looking forward to hearing from him and also he can settle some scores I'm sure from his series as well as talking about this brilliant new one, so let's get on with it. This is Series 15, Episode 1, as discussed by Dara O'Brien. Welcome back to the Taskmaster podcast, Dara O'Brien. It's a pleasure to be back.

It's also lovely to have you back while you're not talking about yourself, which is good. You can just relax and not worry. I wasn't suggesting, are you making that suggestion? I will totally be talking about myself. I will find some way to link all of this back to myself. I mean that you can talk about other people's tasks and you can relax knowing that your tasks

aren't being picked apart. Yeah, well, in the sense of the last time I was on this podcast, we, in quotation marks, were last time I was on this podcast, we were basically basking in my failure. We had a little party in wait, what, what, wait, wait, what. And so it's nice to be here, possibly in a slightly more upbeat form. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. I believe what happened was you were obviously excellent on the last series of Taskmaster and swept the board in multiple episodes, but we did accidentally, I must say, Oh yeah, totally, by fluke. Pick an episode where you were quite poor. I mean, look, the thing about Taskmaster is doing well is not funny in it,

to a certain extent, and doing badly is not uh it's not funny in it to a certain extent and doing badly is uh and that's a uh that's just the way it goes unfortunately if you give me a sheet of paper with stack these bananas I'll stack the bananas you know that's what I'll do that's who I am you know and like it's not even as if I'm competing against the others because you're there on your own I'm just competing against the bananas. And I wish to stack the bananas as well as I can. I'm sorry if that is my nature. I'll go and riff somewhere else.

That's the problem. Look, it works for you. You won the series, of course. Look, let's not dwell on that because if one thing I've learned from Taskmaster is the sharp showbiz lesson of when that show goes out, the final show that you've built up for 10 weeks to and then you're presented with the trophy and you stand there and the music. And you're getting round of applause from everyone and you have that moment.

And then instantly it's followed by a trailer for the next series. And the audience's attention immediately goes oh shiny new things uh this this relationship is over and so they're all about oh what how frankie's gonna do i would hope you know yeah jenny's gonna do and it's it's a great not that like at this age i need these lessons anymore i've learned but it was a quite a brutal distillation of of the business that we're in, which is, yeah, you get your moment. And the minute you win, I mean, look, I'm currently following,

the football team I follow are having a very good season and I'm trying to enjoy it because if we win, the minute you finish winning, you have to worry about the next season. And so suddenly you go to being, oh, we're playing for this again now.

And so you enjoy the moment, I suppose, as a philosophical takeaway. Or also, could I not have had a bit more time to just go? Well, when I won, it moved to another channel. So there was a big gap. So they weren't announcing any lineups or anything. Oh, wow. So yeah, I mean, our series took it from Dave,

won a BAFTA, and then it went to Channel 4. So in many ways, you're like the 1939 Miss Great Britain in the sense that you remain Miss Great Britain until after the war exactly and yeah

and so for the six years you were an inspiration to the nation in a difficult time as you weathered slowly and visibly aged yeah by the time

we got to the end of the war so to speak the Channel transfer Miss Great Britain was looking rather ropey. A little bit rough around the edges, but, you know, had seen so much, had seen terrible things.

So much in those eyes. Oh, God. So, no, it is. And actually what's happened as well, that I presumed that now that I have, oh, by the way, do you want to know how many people have ever said congratulations on winning Taskmaster? Please. No one has ever said congratulations on winning Taskmaster? Please.

No one has ever said it. No one has ever. People see bits of it and they don't think, but very rarely people go, well, look at you. Wow. Nope.

Does not happen. On the day, loads of tweets. Lovely. Thank you very much. But then after that, it's amazing. Boom, gone. Gone.

Absolutely gone. And you hired that open-top bus for nothing. We just drove around Chiswick for like an hour. My kids are kind of getting off here. And I'm waving. They were going, why is there a bus? Can we get the bus somewhere? Where is this bus going to?

Can we go? So we just ended up picking up people and bringing them to Ealing. Yeah, you're just a bus driver. You know, it cleared the cost of the bus. Yeah, that was amazing. And I think I've been very restrained to not making

a megabus joke there. Thank you. I think it's great. Very good. With the image in your head isn't that. It's a double-decker

with an open top and me holding Greg's golden head and waving that to the non-plus people of West London going, is that the guy I've mocked?

Isn't he a gnat? Isn't he unemployed now? Is that what he's doing? So I hope you don't feel any resentment towards this new lineup because they stole your thunder so quickly.

No, no, no. If I have a resentment towards them, it's like a long-standing residual resentment towards each of them individually. So much needs no explaining. So no, no, that won't come true. But it's, no, no, no. I think it's a very interesting line-up.

I also think that there's a huge change in tone, as there often is from series to series in Taskmaster, and there's a huge change in tone as there often is from series to series and taskmaster and there's a massive change in tone because to live to put a bow on our series uh it was a family dynamic it really was whatever way because of the casting which i thought was delightful yeah i think people have fallen in love with people that they didn't know before which is the whole point of this uh surely. Also to reignite the embers of the passion they had for the older members as well. But it was a very family vibe.

It was in the sense that there was a patriarch and matriarch and three children and the three children sort of squabbled among themselves and mummy and daddy had their own silent battle that they were doing that they never spoke of, that they kind of like, you know,

we put a brave face in it. But I will say this, I did listen to Sarah Millican's episode when she did the final, and not to rake over a thing that not many people know, but there was a moment where she said, well, I'm not very competitive. And I want you to know that that is not true.

And I listened to that, like i was on a tube somewhere like somebody once you must have heard me go what no you oh you liar uh i know some people said some people said we're very competitive but why i i wasn't uh very easy to say that when you don't win i think i think that's the immediate go-to it's the gracious thing and the gracious thing for me would be to go of course listen it was lovely just to be on the same show that but she was there was a moment there was a glance at the end in the in the on the last episode where just it had tilted and this battle had gone on for six seven weeks it just just there was one task too many now and she said and, and Millie went, it's gone, isn't it? And I said, yeah, it's gone.

There was no sense that she wasn't keeping across this going on. But it was definitely, the vibe was, me and Sarah, were mum and dad and then the three kids

were doing their thing. And like any family, we love our children, even if they are often a disappointment to us and aren't quite getting it together. But we think they will in the long run. And so there was a whole different vibe.

So it was kind of very, very... I feel like you, yeah, they were your three children, but I'm not sure that you loved them regardless. I feel like John, if he was a child in your family, would be a guy who was 35 and still hadn't found a job or moved out of home i think yeah it was beginning to become truly resentful towards his presence um we've had our troubles with john uh we would talk about it but you know we still think we still

think that given the right you know circumstances he could actually this could work out for a minute be fine so we'll always be there for him but But we think that maybe, maybe it's time, John, to get yourself out of the basement and move on with your life. So there was a touch of that, like whatever, about it all. But it did manifest itself in the sense that there was very little inter-slagging

or taking things apart or that kind of competitiveness, like whatever. And I think as we'll find in this episode, that is not a tone that the next series has gone with. Yes, it's straight off. It's straight away people are picking each other apart. Immediately. I would say it is a family, but in this case,

if this was a real family, both the father and the mother would be in jail and the kids would be put into care. Oh, no, it's the Manson family. It's the family they see. It's like it is a... into care. Oh, no, it's the Manson family. It's the family they see. There's no sense. This is a family at the start of the movie where the count would freeze

from each of them as they perform a murder. And then on the way to Sunday dinner and they literally wipe the blood off the machete and then come in and go, oh, you're late. And they go, what? These murderers are all a family? Oh, this is a great Netflix series., what? These murderers are all a family? Oh, this is a great Netflix series. I'm writing that down.

That's a great idea for a film or something. I'm well into that. And then you see the shock cut of it all, like bulletproof. Yeah. It's like, damn, damn, freeze frame, freeze frame, freeze frame. And it turns out they're all kids. They're all Frankie's kids. Frankie and Jenny's kids. And they're all murderers.

Obviously, you've, I mean, you've crossed paths with at least one of these contestants. Yeah, that's putting it mildly. Yeah, yeah. And that is really interesting because now that I know I have to face one of them in a kind of, whatever it's called,

championship things in a while to fill the final seat because I've seen them before as far as I remember. And so one of them is, there is a whole kind of, wow, that'd be fun.

If it was Frankie, that'd be really interesting to me. You know, the final, at the end of it all, at the end of it all, the final act is we meet again

on the Taskmaster's Day. But you wouldn't be the host in this occasion. Doesn't matter. Yeah, I know. I know. I know what you mean. It would not quite be

the same situation. It wouldn't be the same thing at all. But the Taskmaster task. But still, you know, all that, all the threads finally come together.

I don't have that kind of epic narrative. I don't have an epic narrative, frankly, but I don't have that epic narrative with Ivo, who's a lovely guy.enny who's a sweetheart

uh may really nice always very nice kyle very much the mystery to me and i don't think with the uh so uh on a personal level i don't know him at all so i got no baggage with him at all no baggage right well let's let's get into it let's see if we can find some baggage let's talk about the first prize task of series 15 um it is the most dependable thing that weighs about one kilogram now i suspect we're going to have some discussions here uh about what about what about means yes yeah yeah yeah it's fairly sketchy goings on with points giving with i have about well two things can i first give a general uh thing which is that uh when before you do task master you may agree with this

you watch Taskmaster as a comedian and go oh god you get the fear of what would I say in these situations what would I do

you know and for each of the tasks that are presented your brain goes oh god what would I do and then you do it and say win it and you think

well surely now I need never worry about that again I can just watch the show without and I instantly was returned to oh shite what would i pick uh and that's the minute the panic yeah the panic came across again like whatever that's weird that that it's a bit like the exam exam stress dream it never ever fully goes away the taskmaster stress dream never goes

away that oh my god i gotta do taskmaster in the morning and i'm in my pants uh i'm a comedian in my pants have to do taskmaster and i've got to come up with a kilogram, a dependable kilogram. And could you think of anything? No, that's, like, I certainly didn't go, I hope it's a breakfast item. It has to be a breakfast item.

Yeah, that was weird, so much breakfast stuff. People were like, well, what is the thing? What is my base state for dependable? For the thing that I can trust, that could everything? I don't know. I think a big teddy bear, a big, you know, like that might've been a, he's already been, this one kilogram teddy, that's a bullshit.

So one kilogram, he's already been here for me, Mr. Puffikins, and he also conveniently weighs one kilogram. I think I might've gone with that. I'm sure Greg would have really bought that from you, Dara, that your big bear, Mr. Fluffykins, is always with you and dependable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But he is. Why don't they weigh one kilogram or something? Although modern bears have their arses stuffed with beads. I don't know if you know this. Do they? So they sit up. So yeah, it's like a technological advance in Cuddle Toy technology. Oh, it's not like a sex thing.

No. You know, they're very modern bears because they've got anal beads. No, not anal beads. They just have, at the base of them, there's a site,

like they've shifted the weighting on them so that when they can sit up, and they're not like constantly falling over or falling forward or whatever. So they put a little bit of beadage, not things on a tube. Well, I just think the phrase modern bears have got beads stuffed in their arses

could be interpreted very differently depending on the community you're talking to. It is, yeah. And I'm clearly talking to the wrong community here. Because I think a lot of, at that point, a lot of parents of young children were nodding.

Were nodding with me. And now, and now you've made it wrong. It's not like me to, you know. Yeah, to tawdry it. Lower the tone. To make it,

anyway, the point is, you could probably hit a kilogram without having to get one of those massive schtiefel bears out of somewhere like that. You could probably hit a kilogram on that,

like whatever. That feels a bit like what Frankie did with the painting. Yes. That he went for, which is dependable because in a sense, it creates this emotion every time. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting take on it,

but not totally universal. Great painting though. Great painting. Love the painting. And love that we've already seen a little peek into frankie's home life which is not something he normally allows uh within his persona yeah it's nice to see that it although it's not bang on persona you know his kids have had a painting made for him he's clearly a family man it's still you know slightly austere and uh and and very funny that painting is not it's not like lovey

dovey dad stuff is it it's no no no no no no at the yeah it's weird actually two months i had a thing where i went oh those kids have really grown up because i remember when the kids are born like i haven't spoken frankly in years and i was like of course they're in their teens now those kids because i remember that like yeah you remember them when they had clear faces don't you absolutely and they were unblurred. But I also remember, though, I had a kid when Mock was on and Frankie bought a massive tiger, like lion's head, which was quite frightening. It was like a big, it was a lovely gift,

but it was like, it was like really actually quite, oh, a huge mane on it. Okay, we made a wild Frankie Poy present this huge. Say hello to the big tiger. Say hello to the big tiger. Say hello. Welcome to the world. Yeah.

Fear the tiger. Yeah, I feel like Frankie just wanted to bring that in and he decided that this was the category that he could crowbar into.

You're giving this to 10 categories and it's like the worst part of the show in many ways because it's homework and also it's not in the moment. You're giving this a 10 categories and it's like the worst part of the show in many ways because it's homework. And also it's not in the moment. You've got too long to think about it. And I did quite well on this,

but I definitely tailed off in energy towards the end of it because I was going, oh Jesus. And I'm just going, oh look, you know, I got a comment named after. I'll just throw that in somewhere. Is that the best thing? It's either going to be the best thing on a journey,

on a car journey, or I think Greg might like, I just thought like, I got a couple of cool things in my life. Can I just mention one or two and then Trudeau gets the points for that? Because you run out of energy on it.

I think that's what's happened here. It weighs two kilograms, and I would argue that that is not about one kilogram. That is double one kilogram. Plus or minus 10%. That's my take on one kilogram, which is I'm allowing for a heavy hand on on the uh on the poor uh or the you know the wrong size of spoon maybe yeah a little bit it's cooking it's you know i mean like i mean how far would you go before you go whoa calm it down on the fat on the flour there that he that's yeah two kilograms of flour two

kilos versus one kilo yeah yeah it's cooking it. It's all about cooking. It's all cooking. It's all about cooking. Back to food. You love that. Yeah. And Ivo's is the wrong side of that. I mean, I'm so happy Ivo's doing Taskmaster because he is so good with his words, such a way with words, the way he describes this prize,

but it's completely counter to what he is practically because he's a complete disaster. No practical ability, but can describe things in a very florid way. And I think he's the perfect contestant in many ways. Lovely. That's exactly, exactly. Yeah.

And I think it's also what's probably the cruelty of if he'd gone for the nine pack, you would have nailed it. But you went for the four pack. Because he looked up the weight of the toilet roll on wikipedia no really oh for christ's sake he looked it up on wikipedia um and also just loved that his first the first words he spoke in taskmaster he does a very odd sort of rhythm to his sentence and greg has to stop him and ask if he's okay. See, I got that. He was trying to, you know, create a little sentence of his own

and then two people jumped in on him and I thought that was the point where you went, whoa, okay, we never did this because obviously there are hours they sat waiting for John Kearns to start talking. We all just let that go, you know, going, well, that's going to be the end.

They're not going to put the silence in for me to go I'm on a break and so instead we let John do his thing for hours on end or Munya be off

in Zimbabwe for days telling stories about a slippery bath and so forth and so we all let that go because they're our children

we love them whereas that is not the relationship Frankie's in like a shock you sound like a shock. Yeah. You sound like you're on a panel show. So it was, yeah, it was straight in with the bants. It was straight in with the bants.

And it wasn't a good prize for Ivo, I think. And I guess it is dependable. Although Greg says it's not dependable because your finger can go through it, which is more of an insight. Is that the definition? Yeah, it is. What situation is your, I don't know.

I tend to roll them in a different way. You've got to fold or scrunch, really. I scrunch. You're not doing a single. I fold. Well, aren't you good to your arse? Greg seems to just be using single sheets without folding or scrunching. And his fingers are just going through them every time.

I'm currently in a battle with, I posted, I think, with the makers of the York toilet paper dispenser, which is in a lot of theatre toilets. Yes. And it's the one where it comes out from the middle of a large tube to a kind of a cat's arse thing in the middle. Yes. And if you pull it out anything too much it just comes square by square and it's extremely

difficult to find to calibrate the exact level of that will advance it without ripping it

and that is and I posted this on Twitter a picture of this machine on Twitter after a particularly difficult experience

in cell being and I posted a thing on going, hey Twitter, can we do our thing? Can we find whoever designed this and beat the shit out of it? Dreadful machine. And there was a lot, honestly it was one of the most, you know, people really backed me up on that. It was a terrible

machine. So the dispenser is often more on the paper itself. Clearly a man who's losing his mind on tour. Oh my God. Jenny brings in 21 eggs, which weigh just over a kilo. She's got the weight pretty right. Yeah, that's interesting.

People start jumping in again, saying the eggs aren't dependable, that they can go off, they can do this, do that. But surely, you know with an egg, you're ready. Like if you've got fresh eggs or you've got eggs that are within the day, they can do this, do that. But surely, you know with an egg, you're ready. Like, if you've got fresh eggs or you've got, you know, eggs that are within the day, they are dependable.

They're a dependable breakfast item. They're multi-use. However, if you don't know, this is the thing with the egg, it can be calamitously bad. There is a kind of a benchmark people have going, oh, he couldn't boil an egg. But an egg shows no difference in its appearance boiled or unboiled. You know, if you

say to somebody you couldn't fry a steak, that would make more sense because you can tell when a steak's gone. But if you're an egg, if you haven't started the clock correctly, you know, there's no way of knowing until you literally open that egg. The egg itself, Dara, is still dependable. It does not change

the fact that it's dependable. It's the person who is not dependable in that situation. The egg will do Dara, is still dependable. It does not change the fact that it's dependable. It's the person who is not dependable in that situation. The egg will do as it's bid. So much of it is. I gather that's how we use it. It's turning into a very Thomas Aquinas discussion. It's not money itself that's immoral, but it's the use to which the money is put that's immoral.

I appreciate the philosophical direction we're taking here. I don't think it works. Eggs are notorious. Guns are not bad, Tara. It's people kill people, you know what I mean? Very good joke in Sledgehammer. Remember Sledgehammer? Sledgehammer was unknown.

Remember Sledgehammer was a brilliant joke about this really ultra ultra violent detective. And there was a joke once where some, you know, peacenik went, oh, you know, guns don't kill people. And Sledgehammer goes, no, bullets do. Anyway, but no, I would say eggs inherently unreliable because if they roll and fall, they're just gone. Yeah. Yeah. And and also sometimes you crack them open and there's a beak inside or something.

You know, there's a lot that can go wrong with an egg. There is. It's never happened, Tara. I think it has. I think you're right. It happens to you? I know, but I read about a guy and he cracked it. And there was a snake. There was a snake in the egg.

There was a snake in the egg as well, right? I was expecting that, like, whatever. And then there was a velociraptor. Who knows what's going to be in the egg? Anything could be in an egg. An egg is inscrutable. But what's beyond the egg is difficult to tell. So I think an egg is possibly.

I think the very fact that the eggs are so fragile makes them not dependable. Interesting. Okay, well, Jenny got two points. Greg agreed with you. Let's talk about Kyle's toaster. Hang on. Yeah, great. Very, very good prize.

And just a lovely, a lovely bit of wisdom. Once bread becomes toast, it can never be bread again. It's fantastic. You're right. Honestly, let's sit down on a t-shirt and then reflect on it. It is a, you're right. Once any of us change it can never be bread again. It's fantastic. You're right. Honestly, let's sit down in a T-shirt and then reflect on it. It is a, you're right. Once any of us change, can we return?

What is the nature of change? I mean, it's physical change versus chemical change. You know, there's all sorts of different ways. It was profound. The show should have stopped immediately. And everyone should have just been told to think about that for a while. I feel like Kyle being profound may have been a fluke, given his performance in the rest of the episode.

But, you know, there's plenty more episodes to come. I'm sure that there will be some more profound statements from him. It was four points for that. Yeah, we both agree that that was a great prize. I mean, quite boring on the face of it when you say a toaster, but I guess if you're asking for a dependable thing, it needs to be boring. It has to be dull.

Yeah. And then the sine qua non, the ultra, sorry, the Naples ultra of this, was to take this sort of simmering breakfast theme, and the way it came out, the order in which it occurred even, and then absolutely hammer it with a plate of six sausages and it's astonishing. Just the full

kilo of cooked breakfast. I mean, it didn't look like a good cooked breakfast. I would say that. It was budget hotel piled up breakfast. It was a hangover breakfast in a travel lodge. Yeah, look, I mean, sometimes you've done the gig the night before, you know, and you go and you go, I'll get me breakfast out of this like whatever and i don't think i'd

ever go that heavy on that i mean i you know i like a breakfast but jesus that was that was eat this and get it for free that's what that breakfast was that was you know this is a prize it was prize breakfast it was novelty breakfast but uh but the idea of it you know you're right you're hungover you're you know that's the one thing that will work. And Greg loved it. Greg absolutely loved it. I think May had done their research into Greg and knew that he would enjoy a kilo of cooked breakfast, which is true. I've toured with Greg for years,

and it was always a big kilo of cooked breakfast. One morning he ate, I think, three different types of egg and then announced that he felt like he could punch through a car. Well, I mean, I won, I don't know, I got four or five points on one of the ones for bringing in a frying pan that does lots of different sections, to which he said two things. One was, I own two of these.

So breakfast is a thing. And also then, who's the old man in the photograph? And that was kind of hurtful. I don't remember that as pleasantly. It was an absolute home run for May. It was five points for May's kilo of cooked breakfast, four points for Kyle's toaster, three points for Frankie's portrait,

two points for Jenny's eggs, and one point for Ivo's toilet rolls. Always, I think, must feel very harsh to be the first one-pointer. Yes, first one-pointer's tough, yeah, yeah. That's not a good feeling. Good. Ivo, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on the show. Obviously very hard to follow Frankie's beautiful,

family-orientated art, but I would argue... Are you all right? Are you playing a Radio 4 panel game? Where you can't say certain words? Even on Taskmaster, I'm still auditioning for Radio 4 panel games. Task one, have the best first dance at a wedding with Alex. You can choose any music you want, but must be wearing these headphones throughout.

Your first dance must last no longer than a minute. You have 20 minutes to prepare. Your time starts now great task brilliant task people will go oh how clever how clever for them to make wear the headphones rather than that's a rights issue yes that is just save them christ knows how many thousands of pounds for booting wonderland the uh so let's not act like the production team are geniuses uh the uh i mean that's why most everything is classical music other than that like the uh yeah or yeah or ringtones they've done in the past they've done dance dances to ringtones in the past as well right okay are they are they in public ownership okay must be

clearable yeah yes yeah so uh but it did work very very well um did you do the jump yourself to what would i've done what would i've gone for yeah so i actually um i it's something similar to frankie i would have done because i don't trust my choreography skills i don't think i would have been able to do anything like kyle did um so obviously i would have gone for a horrific death metal track maybe something from the news something from the new sangua sugaruga bog album and then just snogged Alex for one full minute.

That's delightful. I would have gone even more ambitious choreography than than Kyle did. Or I would have gone for some reason

in my head was high in a mountain da da da da something like that. Or the dance in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where they all they come out

as a thing and they're dolls. Oh that's good. So they're in a box and they come out as a thing and they're dolls. Oh, that's good. So they're in a box and they come out as dolls and then we do that dance and we pretend to be dolls. And that I would have done.

I think I would have gone with that. So, but I would have, I would have pushed for, you know, let's actually hit the beats in this like, and one and two and one and go for it.

I would have, yeah, totally go for that as a thing. We would have loved to have seen it. Your movement during the, the airport travelator task. Do you know what? There was genuine, that remains one of

the great injustices. It was robbed by someone who doesn't know what a mirror does. Let's talk about Kyle. I need to remember this. It was great.

It was bang on what it should have been. It was lovely. It worked. Short, quick movements, move, move, move. Mirror each other. And then ta-da.

Finish with a ta-da. Big ta-da at the end. Start with the worm. There's a small detail that I absolutely loved. Towards the end when they turn around and look at the camera, Kyle does a wonderful eyelash flutter that was just spot on. The guy is a performer. Of course he is course he is i mean look he's a pro but the uh it was a uh it was it was a delight it was a it was magical i thought it was a wonderful

job he did yeah it was a great start there is a touch of well here's the thing to one said do you commit these kind of things like whatever that's a because our in stand-up is often to be detached and ironic. And then you know you've got to go, ooh, my baby, in a really loud voice and step back from it like whatever it's got. So it is, but Kyle as an actor, I think, was in the moment. Yes. I think that was important.

I think that's the key, yeah. Although May, very, very good. Yes. They're obviously a stand-up and actor, so they've got both of those things in their arsenal. And just, I mean, you can imagine it with Zorba the Greek. I think it's perfectly matched. Yeah.

And just the legs being raised and all of that sort of almost mechanical but very well drilled. But May is very light on their feet and it feels emotional at the end. They put a lot into it. I thought May's work was a delight. They favoured the thing you had to work with here, which was Alex's limitations as a dancer.

And that you basically, Alex needs strong instruction, clear instruction, repeated. I'd imagine it's five minutes to come up with this and 50 minutes of drumming into Alex's head. That's presumably how this had to go. And made it that wonderfully. Yes. And also, you knew what it was.

I think maybe they said it beforehand, but it's pretty clear. Oh, yeah. Oh, we get this, right? Yeah. Plates will be smashed at the end of this. This is delightful. This feels like a wedding. It absolutely feels like a wedding.

So there was that as well. Totally. They nailed it. They nailed it. They did uh let's talk about jenny's i mean jenny's dance around the large pineapple to ride of the valkyries i just it had to me i don't i mean greg said it's that looked like something from a victorian insane asylum for me it had the real feeling of folk horror it was a sort of wicker man style thing where you know you go to an island or a small village and they're doing some horrific ritual around a pineapple yes yes i mean i i never got right at the valkyrie's office i do think the

addition of a wedding dress uh which they didn't all do with the addition of the wedding dress lent madness to it yeah because the best in the world it did look it was Miss Havisham and I don't think it was Jenny's old but the dresses on Frankie and looked ill-fitting like and there's nothing more tragic or screams a backstory than an ill-fitting old wedding dress

like no that's not right. Something's happened yeah something terrible happened and so this is and then she's doomed forever to perform the dance she would have done with her that's not right. Something's happened. Yeah, something terrible happened. And so this is and then she's doomed forever to perform the dance she would have done with her bow all those years ago and now she lives in a house by the swamp.

I absolutely love Jenny though and I'm so happy she's doing the show. You can just see how much she's going to throw herself into it and just take everything on and just really attack everything. And also, I think I'm right in saying, you know, get in contact if I'm wrong,

I think it's the earliest a contestant has used the phrase trench vagina in the history of Taskmaster. Yes, absolutely. Usually it takes seven weeks to really get it until the symptoms really kick in. And then you can complain about it. But trench vagina immediately?

Yeah. It was three points for Jenny, which I which i think is fair i think that was fair because yeah it was fun and she'd added the pineapple and the dress was there um but compared to kyle and maze it wasn't it wasn't a dance as such no um let's talk about frankie let's talk about frankie's actually um frankie where's the wedding dress he throws himself into it again. Again, not something I would expect from Frankie to be like, let's put on the dress and lipstick straight away. Yeah, totally. I mean, and actually interesting,

they're not all dressed up on this one. The, you know, I mean, I know Kyle is wearing, he's wearing the boiler suit of champions. Yes. That we all wear some very different variations of. It is its own sub-genre in the, what do people wear to do Taskmaster? The boiler suit or flight suit, as some of us have.

But it was, but yeah, I mean, we all had a stronger visual look in this. I'm not sure, I think there's only Kyle's gone for that. Yeah, everyone else is quite, quite standard. Apart from Ivo, who's obviously, I mean, that is the sort of thing Ivo wears. If you'd not met Ivo before, you might think that was a costume, but. No, it's not, it's actually Ivo's clothes. It's just Ivo who's obviously I mean that is the sort of thing Ivo wears if you've not met Ivo before you might think

that was a costume but no it's not it's actually Ivo's clothes which is Ivo's clothes yeah but the putting on the dress was a plus point

to Frankie Villar and absolutely I don't really remember what was going on yeah I just I think the dress was his main plan and then the kiss

and then in between he just swayed around it was more like it was more like a genuine awkward wedding dance wasn't it it was like one of the where everyone's watching and the couple don't really know what to do so they just sort of move about yeah i i have been in that situation where i as i walked out i said to uh i think it was ed it was my best man said the moment it feels right uh join us on the floor. The moment it feels like

there's nothing, because we have not, we've prepped every other bit of this day, but this bit, we weren't on ours going and doing a lesson or choreographing a thing for.

We're just going to circle around for a while and then get out of here, get out on the floor as fast as you can and join us. So the, so yeah,

I suppose that regards in some ways more honest as a wedding dance. Yes. And a lovely kiss as well. Yeah, no, it was nice. It was a nice touch. It was. But it was padding.

It was clearly padding. It was padding, yeah. It was one point anyway. The thing with this, again, Ivo has really thought this through. He's put in things that he knows Greg likes. He's done clues to two songs from Greg's favourite band, The Wonderstuff. He does Dizzy and the cow one.

I can't remember what it's called. Size of a Cow. Size of a Cow. Very clever. But then the dance itself is just a bit of a mess. Like they've not, they miss some bits and it's a little bit, you know, Ivo spins around on that thing and nearly falls off. It's just a bit scrappy.

The spinning of the Lazy bit, you know, Ivo spins around on that thing and nearly falls off. It's just a bit scrappy. The spinning on the Lazy Susan, you know, it smacked up somebody running to the shed. That's what it smacked up, and let's grab whatever's there. I am not going to condemn, I can't really condemn that. But it was like, well, I can use this. Should you though? Should you use this though? Yeah.

Should you be spun on the Lazy Susan? It's very Ivo. Ivo will run everywhere. He runs into the first task. I would be surprised if we see him walking in this entire series. Oh, look,

he's come across as the puppy-ish one. Yes, absolutely. As he is in life. And in a later task, this becomes quite exaggerated. This becomes an extreme puppy-ishness of it all.

Yeah. But it was a, but I thought the, in fact, it wasn't a lazy season. It was a balance board. Yeah but it was a um but i thought the in fact i wasn't lazy it was a balance board yeah it was a balance board which i you know which is a medical device and you know is an important use for for you know the i've used many of them with my dodgy legs i've used many of them to repair the structure of your knee like whatever and to see it used whimsically is an

insult to the whole rehabilitation slash physiotherapy industry because you now use it as a lazy susan don't you when you have i do we have a little thing and we spin it and doesn't spin because obviously it builds a friction because it's like a and then and it just stops and then and then all the condoms go flying across it's like a damien hearst painting at the end of the meal if you use that it's just like tangential splashing in every direction so uh um i don't Yeah, look, it was grand. But, you know, honestly, it was a task that needed the clarity. It needed a strong, you know, vision of this.

We're going to hit these 10 marks and bang, you're out of there. Yeah. Ivo will be a very enthusiastic contestant, I feel. I mean, even last night, Ivo was doing a gig uh in potter's bar i believe uh and he was emceeing and during the uh final section he found out that uh one of the audience members has a different breakfast cereal for every day of the week uh he then found out what those breakfast cereals were he brought the headliner on and in the 20 minutes that the headliner was on he ran to the local big tesco bought all of the cereals and then ran back with

two minutes to spare that's that's pretty impressive yeah so that's the energy that's the energy we're going to get from ivo uh if not necessarily the points um it was one point i have i have sent over cheese in a gig uh when there's a man as a welsh man who needs cheese and then for the finale we were presented with cheese in with cheese in the pool. Luckily there was like a centre or something very close by and we were able to get some cheese from. But like seven different breakfast cereals is

pretty impressive. Dedication to the bit. That's pretty amazing. You know, and in fact I saw the end of the clip, it was posted online, and I could see all these boxes of cereal and I thought it was a routine he does with cereal or something. And then he threw some of the clip, it was posted online, and I could see all these boxes of cereal, and I thought it was a routine he does with cereal or something. And then he threw some of the progress outlets to somebody, Flavin's progress

outlets to somebody, and I was going, I would have hoped he got more. Now that you've explained it, I do think the audience should have been on their feet for that. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a kilo of oats as well, so maybe he should have brought that in. Oh my God! Flavin's progress outlets is very dependable.

Very dependable. It was one point for Frankie, two points for Ivo, three points for Jenny, four points for May, and five points for Kyle. I found the dance to be rubbish. Always nice when a bride looks at

their watch in the middle of a wedding dance. LAUGHTER I wanted to get it bang on time. It was bang on time. Bang on... LAUGHTER There was no choreography. There was just a man, heavy breathing, in a dress.

And then, the most stomach-churning kiss that's ever been televised. He just said to me, watch it and feel it. I watched it and I felt it as well. I felt it was shit. Let's talk about task two. Two parts to this one. Completely unwind this ball of string. Your time started when you said Alex's name. Part two, which is on the back

of the task, put a neat ball of string. Never done before. Terrible. Savage. Savagery. Put a neat ball which is on the back of the task put a neat ball of string never done before terrible savage savagery the uh this is a neat ball of string on the cushion fastest wins you do not have to unwind the ball of string this was i would have been absolutely livid at this dara oh yeah same here um the uh i would you know because i always my thing was to walk in and go oh alex every time and i did that a few times they only showed a couple of them but yeah but I did it every single time and so it would have been nailed by my own stupid

joke every time but the so I would have had that started already had I remembered to do that then that I'd feel fantastically smug about it like whatever and it was funny to see people go I've done now I'm done bang I'm out of here the genius move is obviously Jenny making a tiny ball of string.

Brilliant. That's superb. That's brilliant. Look, I'm not saying, you know, that when May thought, oh, hang on, wait, there may be something else here. Did anyone check under the table?

Or is that now, is that now old Taskmaster? No, I think you should always check under the table. I think maybe they edit out a lot of checking under the table. I bet they do. Oh, I have no doubt they do. In the task. I doubt in the task you've got i mean yeah you know that's that's

insane but he did say are you sure to each of them yeah they go are you sure you've done everything needs to be done which would be the point where i'd be going and i'd be saying my catchphrase wait what what wait wait what at that point clearly something is up frankie did not uh work that out that there was something up Also the other clue would be I'd imagine Alex has his clock there whether he stops the clock he would normally say

I've stopped the clock so if he's not said that then you've not finished Oh that's interesting Yeah Oh you're right Absolutely yeah Because people

when they walk in suddenly the clock starts Yeah Yeah okay fine Yeah You know it's devious it is very devious but i yeah i would have been very angry about that especially as you're completing tasks that's always the aim the first task is completely unwind this ball of string

the fact that there's another task that then goes back on the original task seems very devious it says you do not have to unwind the ball of that i would have worried that does that mean i don't have to do it in the first place i can just put a right onto the lid that's what i'd imagine it was saying negated has this negated the initial task so therefore if i read the whole thing i just go bang yeah and then say alex and get zero uh time would that be i think so yeah i think or you just never say his name yeah so there's it never starts yeah that'd be even more i've never done the task yeah that'd be incredible that we live in a universe like two parallel universes one with the task never ends and one with the task has never begun uh oh i think marvel will try that

at some point in whatever section seven or whatever it is they call it of the of the of the of the marvel universe the uh phase 12. yeah the string the string phase string theory yeah yeah um now i we should go through people individually but i i would say so kyle very uh cleverly doesn't say alex yes and he's very smugly not saying alex yeah to the extent that he does then say mr horn now i would argue that is Alex's name. Say my name. Absolutely. I would say that. If any way it's a polite way to say it.

And the way we should always be addressing Alex. If anything we're over familiar. The clock should have started. Should have started there. What is Mr. Horne if not his name? If the time starts when you say Alex then I completely agree with that. Mr. Hor if not his name exactly the time starts when you say Alex then I completely agree with that

Mr. Horn is his name but it's lovely to see the different ways they attack it, Frankie obviously just throws all the string on the floor, lets it unravel and then even when Alex says is there anything else you need to do, he's like no just straight out, I think Frankie's having

a real laugh in this series, especially in this episode. He's having a lovely day, but he could not give a shit, is the vibe I get. Yeah, there's a touch of that. It's fun. Kids will watch this. They like this.

There we go. But I also would have had a question about unravel it completely if you end up with a lump, if you end up with kind of a messy ball of it anyway yeah that's the thing i would i would have thought you had to look you know like roll it all out so it's all out yeah this though i would type it up and not doing this and creating a really really neat spiral of the whole string and they go that uh rather than like cute hands wimbling and so i've replaced i've replaced a ball with a lump of string yeah yeah so uh it wouldn't it wouldn't help you if you know if he'd got to the second hands wimbling. And so I replaced a ball with a lump of string. Yeah.

Yeah. So it wouldn't, it wouldn't help you if, you know, if he'd got to the second part of the task. But again, it didn't, I mean,

you know, either, either way he did that, it wouldn't have helped him because the clock was then on 172 days by the time it got to the second. Yes, I know. I mean,

the notion of it always being there, it does feel that that's going to be a part of in the, in the future. Cause the show does love its the mythology. At some point they'll just install a clock which will always be running up, will always be counting up the time

since Frankie started that task and it'll always be there. Along with the winners pictures and various bits of from various different tests. For that clock to always be running you know that would be in the new zealand series i think it's the second series i think something laura daniel does and i excuse me if you're listening and i get this all wrong i think the task is something about dripping water into a bucket um and constantly dripping water into a bucket or something like that but But she works out a way of doing it for ages.

And in the backgrounds of other people's tasks when they're filming, you can see that it's still set up. Wow, that's great. Yeah, it's very, very cool. Oh, that's very good, yeah. Yeah, in a future series, we may well see Frankie's string still on there

with the timer still running. Kyle does a good job of not saying Alex, as we said. on there with the timer still running. Kyle does a good job of not saying Alex, as we said. And just, there's little things that Kyle does that make me laugh so much. Just like rubbing the cushion and talking about how it's velvet really, really made me laugh. Like, he's always doing something.

And he winds it up neatly. I mean, he does a good job. He does it pretty quickly in five minutes, seven seconds. No hacks, just pretty straightforward. But you can't beat what Jenny did, like we said. I mean, he does a good job. He does it pretty quickly in five minutes, seven seconds. No hacks, just pretty straightforward. But you can't beat what Jenny did, like we said. I mean, I think that's so clever. It's smart in a different way to the way May was smart because May clearly knows the show.

May knows the show. They thought, right, there's got to be a trick to this. And they found that draw. They found that draw straight away. I know, I know. And May really tried to go, oh, it's the only one with one handle sticking out i'm like no you know you know that there's a draw there from watching previous series stop trying to pretend you're not a total nerd yeah yeah yeah yeah also from what i gather it may like say um likes an escape

room absolutely yeah and uh those kind of skills the kind of people who like escape rooms i like an escape room um i tend to like puzzle based things and go well there can't be a straight one way i mean you've got to stop your mind going just do it just do it now bang do it yeah and then take you know i mean as i demonstrated so brilliantly during the find your own hand task task as I lay crying on the floor. I mean, Ivo, true to form, very quick, quickly unwound the string, just chaos, looks for another ball of string, gives up and then, of course,

the next port of call is get a ceramic dog, wrap it around its snout. Of course, that was always plan C, which is use the snout of a ceramic dog and did it very well i thought the ceramic dog nailed it i thought it was yeah it did slip off there because i was waiting for the bit where you do oh no i've done over the years and now i can't get it off yeah like the ceramic dog or something yeah and then it wouldn't be neat yeah so uh i i thought it was

devious i thought i thought the whole thing was devious and it was another level of finding ways to hide um bits of task and i thought yeah very good yeah it was nice it distinguished well it was yeah it was one point for frankie two points for ivo three points for kyle four points for jenny and five points for may and i think with tasks like that that is may marking themselves out as a real competitor in this series. Yes absolutely and also with Jenny establishing her place in the sitcom slash narrative

going why would you do that to somebody that was a lovely Why would you do that to me? Because they also announcing the numbers like that was at the end it was one minute 49 yeah slower than me walking a monster you would do that that's awful completely unwind this ball of string your time started when you said

name i said your name. I don't think I said yours. I was hoping you were going to say, hello, Alex. You hadn't bargained with Scottish rudeness. Time started when you said... Hmm. I kept saying, hello, KL. What did I say?

Yo. Yeah. Task three, get all the rubber rings on your barge pole. You may not touch the barge pole or rubber rings at any point. You have a maximum of half an hour. Your time starts now. You jealous of this one, Dara? Yeah, I did. This you have a maximum of half an hour your time starts now you're jealous of this one dara yeah i did i did this look like a lot of fun and um i would have very much enjoyed i like the way that alex always has to say things like this is only a private

region of barge no one's a day to being hurt that's always very good because they went for it they hammered that fucking barge into the wall more than once like the uh but yeah i would like i would have been i would have spent my time going okay i can't touch it so what's the way around i can't touch it can alex touch it uh can i touch can i touch can i get close to it get another long thing take the the bang off that and then put it and feed it onto the ring yeah could i just do that that i feel would have been a way. It would have been, but I think that would have, this is one of those tasks

where you do just have to do it, I think, because it's against the clock. And I often think they should actually just say, look, we just want to make you drive a barge. We don't want you to, you know,

to rig up a kind of a series. Just drive the fucking barge. Drive the barge. That's enough. In bracket, just drive the fucking barge. Yeah. And that would have been a thing to do.

So the, I thought the, but I would, yeah, I would have found it incredibly compelling. Did you have, did you have any vehicle based ones in your series? No, we didn't actually, no. Because I think this is the only. Push the trolley, push the trolley in Gatwick. Push the trolley. Yeah.

Yeah. Which by the way, an arrival, so I think the one thing we would always have is we had the best location because i've passed through my location three times already returning home from gigs um and early in the morning coming from bergen in norway or somewhere so vanguard was like really exalted nine in the morning and i turned a corner and i saw the corner of gatwick where we had to roll the ball yeah they'd hit off loads of things and knock jared off a chair the uh that was i just passed that and i pressed my nose against the glass because it was in the departures i was in the arrivals and i pressed my nose against the glasses people were looking

by no one knows why massive significance to me and then i stood in the arrivals hall at collecting my stuff at the same baggage thing as we pushed from the baggage thing and looking around with a big dopey grin on my face and no one was going look at you back in the arena where you had your great moments thought you'd been drinking on your flight just look like it was really happy to be in gatwick south it's really nice to be in gatwick i love gatwick so not realizing that i had lived lived a lifetime yeah Yeah, absolutely. I think this is the only time they might have... So in the series I did, Series 9,

we got to drive a sort of mini steamroller. And I feel like this is the only one that has topped that. I'm very jealous of the barge in terms of vehicles. I love that. Now, there is something we've not mentioned yet, Dara, which you should have recognised. Oh, the hat! Of course, I very much recognise

John's hat. The last time I saw John's hat is it was on my head, pissed at the party at the end, on the wrap party and we all were wearing the Ahoy hat so I have photographs of me and Fern and John in various poses with that hat. So I'm delighted to see that hat return.

That's brilliant indeed. Yeah, it's great. So yes, no, I got the Easter egg of the hat immediately. Lovely. That's very good. Yeah. But I always think a barge, it feels like a great idea, but actually it's quite frustrating to steer.

But I think, yeah, I would have gone for it. So excited to watch um how good you made ivo ivo was so oh my goodness so thrilled with the whole he just said i'm on a boat at one point he couldn't believe it of course he's on a boat for god's sake when you're ever on a boat yeah even arriving at that location you go oh my god am i gonna go on a boat and that sums either up i think he loves like and he gamifies anything i went with ivo to do uh karaoke recently for someone's birthday and we we were all all did karaoke there's about 10 of us and we went to the pub afterwards and we're just having a normal drink and then ivo went right i've got a game we all go around one by

one and we have to remember the songs that were sung at this karaoke and if you can't remember one, you're out. And we're like, Ivo, we're just having a drink. Just enjoying my pint. I mean, it's a lovely drink. It is. It's always a laugh hanging out with Ivo. And, you know, he does very well at this and he clearly cares about getting this right.

Obviously, there was an issue. The tiller came off, I believe. Yes, I have no idea if it is. It's the thing that connects to the road. The stick broke. The stick. The stick broke, and that was him. And I think it was the correct decision

to allow for that because it wasn't his fault. He's not the Hulk. He didn't tear the stick out. Because we've already seen the absolute carnage of jenny and frankie they clearly gave that boat a complete battering i mean jenny's i mean it's great to see a mysterious thing from the title sequence yes solved so quickly yeah brace brace opens the entire title sequence just the crashing the you know it doesn't it gets one rubber ring as does frankie just right at the end just speeding towards the rubber ring yeah missing it and

then just carrying on at the same pace towards the wall and alex looks genuinely worried at that point absolutely now the interesting thing about it is there is a shot uh where of because you see the various replays of it smashing and see a Alec's reaction and her reaction oh my god and then there's a wide shot of it hitting and there's like three swans who do not move like so it may be the sheer

heaviness of the boat may have emphasised the crash more than because the birds seemed totally unimpressed by okay fine I'd imagine when you're on it, it's a lot more terrifying. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Jenny's quite sort of, she's like really chaotic on the boat.

And she's like, come on, we're going to get this ring. Spin, bitch, spin, I believe she says at one point. That's a lovely line. And it's not a common term used in the slow boat, long boat community. Spin, bitch, spin. And I would like to think that Jenny would maybe one day retire to live on a

she's not, she's got a lovely home but she's not going to move onto a long boat but it would call it Spin Bitch Spin Spin Bitch Spin, it's lovely Ivo was spinning in the dance and then they were doing the twisting

of the, oh Spin Bitch Spin would have been a really good were doing the twisting of the oh, spin bitch spin would have been a really good title for the episode anyway. A lot of spin bitching going on. So Frankie, on the other hand,

does just as badly as Jenny, but he just feels like he's slowly. Yeah. He's just on a day out on a barge. Yeah. He's like rented the barge.

Yeah. And he's going to do this if it happens. Oh, the kids are at me to collect these rings. Oh, I got one of them. Sure. Look, they'd be delighted with that. And then he crashes into this crash if it happens. Oh, the kids are at me to collect these rings. I got one of them. They'd be delighted with that. And then he crashes into this.

Did he crash in the same place? No, no. Ivo crashed in the same place. Ivo crashed in the same place. Frankie was just sailing past the rings going, I'll get that one later. Get that one later?

What are you going to do? Do a three point turn? You're going to have to spin, bitch, spin and come back and get them. No way. I mean, there's no... Beep, beep, beep, beep.

There's no... It's a long boat. You can't come at it from a different direction. That's how it happens. Like, I mean, there's no, beep, beep, beep, beep. There's no, like, it's a long boat. You can't come at it from a different direction. That's it. This is how it happens. So I, yes,

Frankie was blissfully, Frankie had the touch of the John Kearns of this is just not, you know, I'm not totally engaged with this thing. Yeah.

And I'm glad the way that it was like right now. Now, oh yeah, yeah. Kyle, how did Kyle do? Kyle did.

Kyle did, Kyle did, did well, but the main thing that uh kyle will be remembered for from this episode is his song um oh yes one on the barge pole for me yes um greg normally likes little songs but he didn't seem on board with uh with no it was down on the barge pole it was quite catchy uh it was yeah yeah uh he missed he he miscounted so he thought he had five, but he actually had four and had to go back and get the fifth one.

It's easy. That's at the point where the numbers become confusing. Yeah. Everyone gets the first three, and then you're into heavier numbers at that point. It's a commonly observed thing. You're into heavier numbers. How many drinks did you have?

Four or five. It's a point where you're not totally is, you know, how many drinks did you have? Four or five. It's a point where you're not totally sure. People get less definite about it. Yeah. So that's understandable. But there's no going back. And it was devious,

by the way, to have two of them beside each other. It was very much like whitewater slalom rafting, but really slow, really painfully slow version of that.

And I'm ever glad for editing because Jesus, 20 minutes of watching. Because I presume if you looked at the course it was 150 metres long. Yeah, it was. It's when they were reversing as well, it's so much slower. So it just would have been painful to have been there on the day.

But very entertaining to watch. And May, just another task of May, just absolutely smashing it. There's lots of markers being left in here by May, which is, but yeah, but also in a kind of a very just calm, you know.

So calm, so collected, as if they'd done it before, really. Just like fairly, fairly incredible work. Oh, you'll drive the barge? Okay, I'll drive the barge. Yeah, sure, I'll drive the barge and get the watermelon. Like the Matrix.

I'll just download barge driving. Do you know that bit in The Matrix where Calus suddenly goes, I can drive a barge. Yeah. All those bookcases rush past me. Where's barge? Where's barge?

Barge, barge. You know, like whatever. Oh no, oh no. Agent Smith has gone under the waterways of Lincoln. And then he ducks his head and looks up and goes, I can drive a Barge. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, that would have been a very much better Matrix sequel.

Yeah. Amazing work from May. As they say, it's a piece of piss. I always think that's so funny when contestants are like, oh, that was really easy. And then they probably imagine in their head, well, surely everyone else has done it as quick as me because I found this really easy.

And then witness the absolute chaos of Jenny and Frankie. Oh, I mean, from my own experience, Sarah Milk and I had to fold a large sheet once, which we just did by bringing the corners to the corners and the next corners to the corners. We just folded a sheet. And then our children just balling up the sheet.

Oh my God. It's bad parenting. Yeah, you should have taught the kids how to do that. It was five points for May, four points for Ivo, three points to Kyle, two points to Jenny and two points to Frankie as well. They both got one ring.

Why? No! No! Oh, my God. One. The final minute, Jenny. OK, OK, you bastard. We're going quite fast towards the wall. So close! We're going to hit the wall quite fast.

Brace, brace! Brace! I'm bracing. Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Er... Ooh! I'm so sorry. No, that's all right. I'm not sure this was a very good idea. There we go. I don't think you're a natural.

I've maybe discovered a new way of doing it. The first live task of the series, throw your items into your bucket. You must select one item when Alex blows his whistle. You must then throw that item when Alex blows his whistle again. If your bucket falls, you're disqualified. You must stay on your spot and must not move your spot. Most items in a standing bucket wins.

Now, this has got to be the pinnacle of the tone that you were referring to here, Deborah. Absolutely. This is the point at which this show has diverged from all previous shows into a different television show. This is it's The Apprentice. It's The Traitors. It's some sort of other thing is happening now.

I was and I don't think they played enough of this. The genuine shock. Yeah. What Ivo did. And then the response to it was, I think, a moment that we, you know, the reverberations for this would be, would we have felt through the ages because that is not what we do. That is not what we do on Taskmaster. This is you versus the bucket and you, you know, and,

and also we haven't revealed yet what the groups are. Yeah. And that's going to be interesting. You know, I'm not sure how the simmering tension is going to work if the two of them are on the same team. Oh, my God. I mean, I thought John's treachery was an astonishing moment in our series. Well, he was told

to do it. He was told to do that. Yeah, but this sort of thing. I mean, it's odd that Ivo leading it as well. Instinctively as well. Right. Let's face it. Like, it's just a throw up thing. You and I would have thrown five items into a bucket, for God's sake. Instinctively as well. Let's face it. It's just a throw up thing. You and I would have thrown five items into a bucket, for God's sake. I would have missed it.

Okay. I would have thrown five items into a bucket. This hand, this magic hand, the one that got all the colorful eggs in the same spot. This hand, this hand with the balloon hand that landed at Greg's feet. You know, love the live task, right? But while they're doing that a genuinely

astonishing moment and i think um it's uh you could dedicate the entire thing to what was the pure instinct from ivo yeah there wasn't even a moment of should i do this it was just like no and he didn't look there's when when they put it in slow-mo as well he does it and then looks back to his bucket with a just completely calm expression. Also, why would you not wait until... Yes. ...Kael has already thrown his item? Correct.

Because, of course, he's immediately going to respond. Yes. But what I would say is that once Ivo's knocked Kael's bucket off, Kael is then disqualified. So him throwing something shouldn't count. Oh. Oh. oh, wow. That would have changed things. No.

Maybe slightly too complicated to go through that. Yes, absolutely. I think the, I mean, the mutual assured destruction of if you go nuclear, they will go nuclear and you're both dead.

I thought it was an interesting metaphor for geopolitics. I think we all have a lot to learn from this, which is that he went for it and obliterated himself, which is the madness of it. Absolute madness of it. Truly mad. But it was truly mad.

To leave Jenny and Frankie as the only contestants with buckets as well. Yes, that was very strange. Because May, unfortunately, eliminated themselves. I think I would have ended up doing that. I think I'm not a very good shot. So smart from Jenny again, this episode. Doesn't even try to get it in the bucket, because she knows she's guaranteed four points, whatever.

I was watching Frankie, so did she just let it trickle over her head? She just threw it onto the floor next to the thing. That's smart. I mean, you could say that that's not part of the game, but it absolutely is part of the game. But I think the definitions of what is part of the game have been so ripped apart. The orthodoxy had been so destroyed.

The paradigm had changed. Very surprising from Ivo. That Ivo had taken all the common rules of decency and had just shot on them by instinctively destroying another man's bucket.

And I thought that was, it was astonishing. It was. It was. It is the shot that will ring through history. It is the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

It is so many attempts on Heinrich Heinrich's life. Iterdinand it is so many attempts on Heinrich Heinrich's life there's so many oh my god it was Didi Plaza it was everything about it I think we're seeing take your history books throw them out

they're worth nothing now all of them will have to be rewritten and they'll simply say Ivo Graham knocked over Kyle's book all of them will have to be rewritten. And they'll simply say, Ivo Graham knocked over Kyle's book. So of course it was nought points to Kyle. It was nought points to Ivo. And it was nought points to May,

leaving Jenny and Frankie to take five points each. So it was May who still won the episode with 19 points, which showed quite how well they did earlier in the episode, even after the disaster of the live task. Jenny with 16 points in second place. Kyle, 15 points in third place. Frankie, 12 points in fourth place. And Ivo bringing up the rear with a miserable nine points.

Now, obviously, this is only episode one. Yeah. But I think this series, more than any, maybe we have seen people shine and people show how they're going to be later on in the series as well so you know yes yeah i think i think i mean i think the the margin of victory it doesn't flatter may um made it better than that yeah and i think that's uh i think that they should all be very worried about because maybe yeah proceeds very well to the actual task. However, 40% of the tasks are studio based.

So, you know, that's always the case. Like those things, I mean, are a big help. I mean, I did really well on the studio tasks and it was a large part of how it worked out for me. But the, so that thing is always sitting there looming over you. You got to throw a thing, do a thing or whatever. I think a lot of people will see when we see groups appearing

because that's again another 20% of all the time, you know, of the film task. You know, we'll see how that works. I think the, what is very striking over is how focused May is in a way that's possibly different

to how the others are. That they have gone with a quiet kind of competence into the tasks, which is not a phrase we will be using a lot about the others. Yeah, quite right. So is that your prediction then? Do you think May for the victory?

Do you see anyone else? Oh, I mean, it's way too, I mean, because obviously, you know, I mean, it could be next week that they'll be having their wait, what, what, wait, wait, what moment. Yeah, and it'll all go very different. Because you'll be competing against the winner in Champion of Champions. This is actually, I believe, the final contestant to complete. It's a fifth seat for the next Champion of Champions.

So, yeah, I mean, like, I'm not, yeah, like, I mean, I have to, I saw things there that were scary. I saw things that weren't. Yeah. And, I mean, it's bad there that were scary. I saw things that weren't. Yeah. And I mean, it's bad because on the other side of me, I have Sophie Duker, who has already attempted to psych me out for a television show we're not recording for a year. And has already tried to go, yeah, in a kind of a, like, I'm looking at you, I'm looking at you,

you're going down kind of a thing. You've got some pretty tough competition already. I yeah i mean i mean tough in terms of very good at task master and will just absolutely tear you apart i know i mean i i i feel that the people i'm competing it'll just be when they blow the whistle on the if that was that task then we would all just throw a ball to each other's buckets For sure. Nothing. No one gets anything. It's all zeros here. I think Duke, Morgana, Kendall. Oh, God.

These are not to be trifled with, these people. Yeah, I know. I know. There you go. We can't wait to see it. Dara, thank you so much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast. We, of course, always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster. How would you score your appearance on the podcast?

I would score my own appearance five because I got to finally you know just settle some scores quietly quietly have the final word on Kearns

and Milliken oh no not yet on Kearns yet by the way Kearns' play Kearns' play right was only like

12 words long none of the stuff that was in Kearns the spinning of the the egg timers the black and white all that stuff the stuff that was in there, the spinning of the egg timers, the black and white, all that stuff, none of that was in Curtis' play. There was a thing about,

because I think we used to constantly think about all the timing and all that. None of that was in his, he just wrote eight words on a page and then it had to be inhabited. Where is my acting work? Well, I was going to say, surely, because it was stunning i mean myself and john

i think spoke about that on the podcast about about your performance in that because i i actually think it's it's a good playwright that allows the actors always room to creatively interpret especially if you know they have the chops to do so which you clearly did um and it was a beautiful performance uh so i agree as the acting work should be coming in. As a playwright, I think you should write every single word down and make them read them all. It's a very different

philosophy. I'm very much David Mamet to his Harold Pinter. I don't know why I'm bringing this up right at the very end of all this. No, you've got scores to settle. You've got to get them all in. But there's no other reason. I mean, it's fun to talk to you. It's always good to see you. But honestly, if I'm bringing this up right at the very end of all this. No, you've got scores to settle. You've got to get them all in. But there's no other reason. I mean, it's fun to talk to you. It's always good to see you.

But honestly, if I'm not driving the knife into my weird Taskmaster family, then what is the point? So just to be able to say that, it was five out of five. And also, look, you've got to give five because this is a new series and there's a whole tingle of excitement. And Roman, you think you're out and they drag you back in.

That's how they do it. Thank you so much, Dara. A pleasure. Thank you so much to Dara for coming on the show. We are just getting started with Series 15. Wonderful way to kick off. We'll be back next week, of course, dropping at 10pm, which is straight after

the main channel 4 show which is on at 9 p.m every thursday from now until the series is over about nine more weeks can you imagine over two months more of brilliant fresh new taskmaster so come back here at 10 p.m next thursday to listen to us discuss episode two of series 15 with Kyle Smith-Baino, one of the contestants in this series and a brilliant contestant he is too. Come back, listen to that, hope you have a lovely week. Bye bye!