Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 18. Romesh Ranganathan - S1 Ep.6

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

On the podcast this week Ed is joined by Comedian, Podcaster and TV star Romesh Ranganathan! The pair revisit episode six of series one and conclude the look back at the first ever series of Taskmaster. As well as going through all the tasks they discuss Tree Wizard, Melon Buffet and Romesh's 'all in' prize tasks!  If you would like to watch along as Ed and his guests revisit the early series of Taskmaster then go to https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster/episode-guide where you will find all episodes. Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail] Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster For all your Taskmaster goodies visit www.taskmasterstore.com  Sales, advertising and general enquiries:[e-mail] the podcast is produced by Daisy Knight for Avalon Television Ltd  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 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. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. I didn't forget the name of it then. I just wanted to say that it was going to be about the final episode of Series 1,

but then I didn't want to say it was the final episode of the Taskmaster podcast because it's not. We've got millions left to do. This is the Taskmaster podcast where we discuss old episodes of Taskmaster. We're doing them in order and right now we are on series one episode six. It is the final episode of series one. It's been a great ride. I've enjoyed watching all of these back and discussing them with all of the brilliant guests we've had on. We've had people from the show, people who've not been on the show but they're mega fans. Today our special guest is from this series of Taskmaster. Our special guest today to discuss the final episode of series one is Romesh Ranganathan. Hooray! So happy to have Romesh on. Absolutely

amazing comedian. You'll know him from all television. But when he was back on Taskmaster, he wasn't on everything. He was only on 25% of the television. So it'll be lovely to talk to him about those days gone by hopefully he'll have fond memories of Taskmaster you never know with Romesh because obviously he puts out quite sort of like uh angry vibes a lot of the time uh but did he enjoy it deep down we we will find out as we talk to him about Taskmaster series one episode six but stick with us after this uh because we are carrying on we're going on to series two more about that sort of thing after you hear this brilliant interview with the wonderful

Ramesh Ranganathan. Welcome Ramesh Ranganathan to the Taskmaster podcast hello hello hello Ed thank you very much for having me oh thanks for coming on. It's very exciting to have you here to talk about the final episode of Taskmaster Series 1, which seemed to... On screen, Ramesh, was it an experience you enjoyed? Because let's get straight into it. Your vibe generally is pretty annoyed, right? My recollection of enjoying Taskmaster was that I enjoyed it and um and then um I was I was asked to come onto this podcast and then I was sent the recording of when you text

me about coming to the podcast I was very clear about the fact that you wouldn't watch it back I wouldn't watch it back right because I'm not happy with how i came across on on the show right had you seen any of had you seen any of it before i've seen clips but the truth is i've got to balance it up against the fact that i hate everything i do so there's that there is that but you know hang on you hate everything you do so you basically can't put on the telly you basically can't put on the telly uh yeah well i don't i i tend not to but like um i um i was every time i'd see a clip because obviously taskmaster at the time that i did it or that we did it rather we didn't know what it was going to become obviously it's a monster now at that time it was very much we're just sort of seeing what happens and then i and now i've constantly found myself

tagged in um where they're trying to they're trying to talk about the best moments or like you know like key key key tasks in the in the in the history of taskmaster and every time i watch myself every time there's a clip they put up of me i just watch it like i'll just calm down you prick jimmy like is it worth getting that? We're getting so worked up. You know, like, because I do get worked up. The reason I got worked up on Taskmaster is because I am shit at everything.

And so you try and counteract that with passion. But do you know what I mean? And so that's kind of where that came from but now when I watch it back I think it just feels a bit disproportionate to the situation

so you've seen clips you've seen clips of Tass but did you watch this episode by the way I did so when I got it when I got it sent through I thought okay

let me just actually watch it because I remember it was such a long time or it feels such a long time ago um that I thought I should I should give it a look so I gave it kind of uh I watched it I watched it you watched it but and how did how did you feel because obviously you're worried about watching it back how did you actually feel the reality of watching back a whole episode I felt like there's a lot of stuff I was saying that I thought what I was saying was a lot funnier than it actually was i mean there's there's one bit where um i say something like uh i'm quite aggressive with greg and the audience are not happy with that or they don't sort of laugh at all they don't go with it yeah no they don't go with it at all and then i

sort of make a comment about them not going with it. And that's not funny either. It's quite a real double volley of just dropping an egg in the room. It was a real, I thought, watching that back, I thought that was a real screwjob in the edit, actually. Then I'm going to put Ramesh in, because it was supposed to be generally satisfying. There's only a few losers here who are addicted to nicotine. You're one of them, mate. That didn't go as well as I hoped.

I thought go aggressive, you didn't go with me. It's backfired, I look like a prick now. Now, Romesh, obviously, spoiler warning, you came second in the series, but you never won an episode. How do you feel about that should do you feel cheated that you never got to taste the victory of winning an episode i would have liked to do that we were doing it it was at the clapham grand when when i did it and uh every week they'd show

us the walk up the steps if you win and just every week i'd go up there and go maybe today it'll be me um and it just absolutely wasn't so but then what happened was is that the point system um meant that there was some interest despite not winning any of the episodes there was some interest for me going into the final act you know i mean i i was thinking i will maybe this what an incredibly what incredible ending to this would be if the guy that hasn't won any of the episodes goes on to win the whole thing. But obviously that didn't happen.

Did you feel, what I've noticed re-watching this series is occasionally I think Greg underscores you just to see your reaction. Oh, 100%. Can I just say the decision... You can. The decision to award Roisin Conaty's reverse video, where she just sort of squirts out some water,

against my Tree Wizard video, the fact that we were given a joint result on that is one of the biggest travesties I've ever experienced myself personally. And I remember at the time of that happening that I was really pissed off about it I couldn't believe it but I didn't make a big deal about it because I knew I felt like I made a massive deal about every other single decision that happened so I thought just for once do not go off about something just for one and that was the one thing I actually think I justifiably could have gone off about something so i think you are right about that i think i might have said it

on this podcast actually although i did enjoy roshin's i think it was a simple and beautiful approach to that task uh i feel like i mean history's proven you right i think the one that's gone down in the annals of taskmaster history is the is the tree wizard video. Yeah, but I totally... I basically stitched myself up by showing Greg that I was somebody that would lose to shit in a way that he found enjoyable. And so there's no good that can come from that in terms of my progress in the competition, really.

Yeah, you can see when Greg gets that bit between his teeth because he does cheeky little laughs all the time and he scrunches up like a little boy and he puts his hand over his mouth and he loves torturing you during the series and it's a great watch but I would have lost it I don't think there's ever a point the other thing I sort of was aware

of as well was I don't think there was ever a point that I could have really lost it that he would have stopped doing it you know like some people where if you really okay shit sorry this has gone too far like let's just i don't think greg i don't think greg has that i don't think greg had that with me so i don't think there's any there's any level that i could have reached at which he would have gone okay i've put i think he just would have kept on going and kept finding it really funny you know what if you'd cried what if you started screaming and crying and really

really really lost it can you imagine if i just felt that strongly about it and i was that desperate to try and get a reaction from him i just started crying i can't even imagine what i don't know if i've ever seen it in a panel show or a show like that where one one of the people just starts crying i don't know if that's salvageable after that can you can you get energy i mean the warm-up has got an absolute fucking job on his hands there isn't he just coming back out okay so guys uh you know obviously uh emotions can run high with something like this uh anybody had an emotional incident any hands up anyone here poor mark oliver having to

come back on and ask people what their favorite flavor of crisps is while they're mopping up your tears behind the makeup ladies desperately patting at your eyes best best story about getting publicly upset gets a packet of haribo come on guys uh most satisfying item was the final prize task in the series how did you feel about the prize tasks is it a bit that you enjoyed i mean obviously i think i think you're you're the best at price tasks in this series in that you go all in with them yeah what did i i can't remember what did i do for this one this one wasn't an all-in example but previously you had done you had done your car in your wedding ring yeah i had done the car in the wedding that actually isn't the one that um neither of those got me into the biggest trouble actually the biggest trouble i got into was for the the snow globe with the picture of my

family uh yeah my picture my kids in that my sister-in-law gave me uh and i think the category was worst present you've ever received and um i i was really really pissed off when i got that that snow globe because i just thought you're like you're supposed to be i mean i know it's through marriage but you're supposed to be a family member and that is that is that is what i boil down to for you somebody that uh that enjoys a snow globe with a picture that you've cut out that you've printed off a face it's a facebook picture of my kids with santa stuff on and she's printed that out and cut that out and put it into the snow globe um and then presented that to me um i was really and so i thought it was really funny to i thought it was really yeah to to have that on the show and uh

she took it really badly people like actual real people who aren't comedians can take stuff badly like there's there's lines people have lines they they have they have things that they care about you know not everything's fodder um no it was a it was a bad present though and there was an element of whitewashing to it that i was not comfortable with yeah i wasn't uh i wasn't um that wasn't that wasn't my finest moment and then when i told lisa my wife about it she was like yeah why do you think that would go okay like did you have to do anything to make it up to your sister-in-law? Not really. I just had to own up and say, look, I did think it was a terrible present.

That's how she found it. Is that how you were going to let her find out that you didn't like the present after it was broadcast on digital television? I didn't know how big... In my defence, I didn't know how big Taskmaster was going to be. So, you know it's you know for all I knew it could have just it could have just gone out and it would have been absolutely fine I remember I've had a couple of things like that where I talked about Lisa's mum on another show about her talking about she talked about blowjobs one Christmas and I sort of talked about how horrific I found that.

And then I came home to find Lisa watching the show. Lisa never watches anything I do. And I said, why are you watching this? And she said, one of my friends told me it might be worth my while to have a look at what you've done on this show. It was horrendous. Anyway, I regretted doing that.

It was very inconsiderate of me and I'm sorry. But also inconsiderate, was that present? Yes, it was a bad present. No, this wasn't one of your all-in prize tasks uh ramesh this your most satisfying item was your vape mod oh god oh god not happy with that i mean he's claimed he's watched the episode no i didn't know but no but no i didn't honestly i i tell you how i watched it i sort of just skipped through but like i did watch it though to familiarize myself yeah and then once i know once i was once i was satisfied i'd i'd uh i'd got the got the grips with it i moved on um that's one of the work that that's that's that's awful that's truly awful i mean it really tried to really sell it you said you said it charges your phone as well that is that is so pathetic

that is do you still vape from us i don't because uh the 28 minutes of uh time that the vaping was a cool thing to do has elapsed now so i i don't i i was i i think that vape mod that i used that i had on taskmaster was i was really excited about about it because you know like i was trying to give up smoking and i'd started using the little sticky things and then that was the first one that looked like a proper piece of tech and it had colored lights on it and yeah the little light yeah and it had a massive tank on it and you'd you know it's like a you could turn a room into a turkish bath within seven minutes i mean it was all of that and there was a time when and i think you know without sort of wanting to generalize too much budget it's a very blokey there's something

very blokey about the theatre of filling a tank, putting it on the mod, you know, you've got spare batteries. Some people were making their own tanks and stuff. It's just so pathetic.

And that was, that, that, that was around the time when I really was into it. The amount of money I've spent on,

on vaping is just insane. But, there's a, there was a fish, there's a fish chowder, right? This is just insane. But there's a fish chowder, right? Yeah, so Tim did a fish chowder. You actually got three points for the vape mod, Ramesh, which I think you scored a little highly on this one. Tim won with a fish chowder, which I thought was a great angle on it,

a satisfying meal, a warm, satisfying, homely meal. The problem being was that it was cooked four days previously. So everyone was absolutely horrified by it. And Alex still tried it to be fair to him. I mean, Alex is, yeah, I don't know why he thought any sort of TV would be worth that.

But, well, there's stuff coming up later in the episode that's worse for him to eat. By the way, broadly, I'm calling this episode the episode where you lose face in the vegan community. For multiple reasons, which we'll get to. Yeah, go on.

So Roshin brought in the Orgasmatron, which is one of those head, those spider-shaped head massager things. I love them. I love them too. And she got one point and I thought that was completely outrageous. Yeah, I don't...

The problem with the Orgasmatron is that it's something that doesn't look that impressive or amazing and then you actually try it it's it's it's unbelievable you know it's tingles mate it's pure tingles it's so good two points for frank's which was the anti-stress ball with michael winner's voice saying calm down dear which should have lost i don't know how that's satisfying and they frank's obviously got his prize tasks and just gone through a weird box that he's got in his attic.

Yeah, absolutely what happened. He just sort of, on the day, sort of looked around and said, oh yeah, I don't want this anymore. Let me just take that in. And then because he's a legend, you can't be too harsh on it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, okay. Two points for that.

And then three points for your vape mod of course uh and josh got four points for his completed 2014 world cup sticker album which is one of the most pathetic things a grown adult could ever have i think well i thought the same thing and then i did a football show where i talked about how pathetic I thought sticker albums were and my Twitter timeline was a bin fire after that. The number of threats and just attacks I got

the day after that went out was incredible. So people are passionate about it. I'm a football fan but it's still a sticker album. What is going on? It's nothing to do with football as far as I'm concerned. It may as well be in my little pony sticker album do you mean like what is going on it's it's nothing to do with football as far as i'm concerned it's just a stick it may as well be in my little pony sticker album and rarely does football stuff go down well on taskmaster alex horn said at the beginning of

this podcast when anybody brings in a football base thing it tends to go down quite badly um but this still gets still gets four points i guess you sort of feel sorry for josh because he just looks like a little boy who's brought in his proudest achievement. Yeah, I mean, part of it is, you know, Josh sort of describes it in his kind of earnest way and then you think, oh, am I going to crush his dreams by telling him that was a huge waste of time?

Another person crying on that episode. Having to stop every five minutes when people are crying for different reasons. Task one. Get the lowest golf score using eggs. Complete all five holes using chicken's eggs. Your scores will be calculated as follows. Shots times eggs times minutes. Now, here we go. let's get straight into this

you're a little bit worried about the uh about where you stood ethically on this as a vegan have you have you thought about that since have you maybe worked out that perhaps it was an okay thing to do or were you contacted by any vegan vegan organizations after this i would say the second after i completed the task i knew that there was no way i should have done that i mean there's absolutely no there's no way that it's justifiable if you're following an eat a vegan lifestyle that you would smash some eggs around a mini golf course i don't understand how i managed to convince myself that that might be all right it just makes absolutely no sense i i don't know i don't know what i was thinking like like now there's no way if somebody said you're gonna smash these eggs around i'll just

go well i can't do that mate you're gonna have to find some tofu eggs or something i could like i can't i can't i cannot do that but for some reason i just oh yeah well you know i won't eat them obviously that's unethical but yeah i'll knock it i'll waste them more than eating them yeah it's worse it's much worse than eating so much worse than eating them um yeah so i would say look i'd i'd say I would like to apologise to the vegan community, but I don't owe them anything. But I would say that that was a mistake. That was a moral error on my part.

Do you think it's because it was maybe earlier in your career and you were sort of slightly less sure of yourself and less assertive with things like that? And you thought, well, I've got to smash up the eggs to get into the big time well um yeah i mean you've you've summarized it in quite a disgusting way though but i do think that's i do think that's part i do think that is got its part to play i think there must have been part of me that thought um you know i don't i don't really think i should be hitting these eggs around a golf course but at the same time i want to be on taskmaster and if word gets around that

if word gets around that romesh is gets a little bit funny about non-vegan stuff then i don't think it's worth booking him well what's going to happen to you then you know that i reckon that did have its part there's no way that didn't have its part to play. I'll smash the eggs. No, that's okay. What? No, I'm completely vegan and I've changed my entire lifestyle. But I'll drop that in a heartbeat if it means I can feature in this task.

No, absolutely. And I'll smash more eggs than anyone else. That's how eager I am to please. It's pathetic. That's the thing, isn't it? Not only did you drop all of your principles to smash some eggs around a golf course for no reason you also smashed the most eggs out of anyone in the whole task you they ran out of eggs you depleted their egg supply i i don't uh i don't know how uh how i feel about that because i think that that's one of the things

where an egg limit an egg limit wasn't specified at the top of the task i don't i don't think no i mean suddenly alex just midway through uh just said well you know and we can't run out got any more eggs and i go well that's that's not what i was led to believe i was led to believe that this was like there was infinite eggs for me to do this and the school you know the score's on me i get that being cancelled by the vegan association that's on me right i i didn't realize there was an egg limit that's i i don't know maybe they assumed maybe they assumed romesh that you know when you were coming in for your day of doing that task, they thought, well, he might do one or two, but as a vegan, he probably won't want to do more than that. So we should probably only get in, say, 35 to 40 eggs.

There's no way he's going to do more than that. Do you know that the thing that would really upset me is if I found out... I had never asked Alex, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had a rubber egg because they knew do you know what i mean like they had some sort of substitute egg yeah just just because they thought i might refuse but um i wonder if it was my um psychologically i just thought well if i'm gonna do this i'm gonna destroy as many embryos as i possibly can it was like you had a taste for blood. You were just smashing around.

You know when a vegan first tries meat and they're like, I'm really enjoying this. And that's what I was like, oh God, these eggs, they smash so satisfyingly. I want to do it again and again. The truth is when that happened, because I did honestly think, oh, I don't know if I should be doing this.

And I think I said it, I did talk about it on the show. But after I finished doing the task, I don't know if I, I don't know if I should be doing this. And I think I said it, I did talk about it on the show, but after I finished doing the task, because as you know, like there's quite a long time between you doing the tasks and that going out on television eventually. And every time I thought about that task, I thought, oh no,

you're going to have to stay off social media when that goes out. Oh God. It's so bad. Because you came bottom. That is the worst thing about it. You came bottom in the task. So, you know, you abandoned your principles for one point. Everyone else sort of seemed to have a bit more of a technique. Tim put his in a tennis ball but still only came third

um he was clearly desperate to win it he was devastated that he only came third josh decided to boil the egg which would have been my first thought straight away i would have thought boil the egg yeah but watching him back it's difficult isn't it because obviously you didn't know what taskmaster was when you were doing it because there was no previous series so you didn't think i'm gonna think outside the box i'm gonna find my way around this task as as the series went on because when i when i first got asked to do taskmaster i just i agreed because i loved alex and i still do do you mean i like i just think i was so excited about doing it doing his his show and and obviously greg's amazing and so i was just excited about doing it but we didn't

we just you just don't know not only did we not really know what it was going to be you you don't know when we were doing the first series you didn't know whether what you were doing was good or not do you know what i mean like you would you just be i remember you just be given this task and you sort of think and you'd be doing and alex is watching you completely expressionless right so you're sort of doing it you're thinking is this for all i know this could be exactly how they wanted this to pan out or they could be worrying about if they can make a show out of what i'm doing here do you mean like you sort of you've got no idea and so and one of the things that became clear as the

series went on is that i was the least outside the box thinking of of anyone involved in the show really and that and that was i found that really really like not upset upsetting is an exaggeration but like i remember sort of watching how the others did it and thinking oh yeah i mean that's actually a much more interesting way of looking at it than i did it you know it was i was so route one the whole time um it was just i don't know in this in this one like sure timper is in the tennis ball josh boiled the egg but no one else thought to smash up 35 eggs no no no you're absolutely right nobody thought let me absolutely remove any doubt that i'm gonna come bottom in this task it is that that expressionless thing is really off-putting from Alex the first time you do a task,

because you're like, oh, he's really just going to stand there and watch me do this without saying anything. There's only a couple of times where you'll occasionally see him break. He'll hide behind his clipboard. That's when you know you've done something absolutely awful, because he'll be laughing and hiding behind the clipboard. He didn't even break when i nearly died after eating that watermelon like you know when like i when i smashed the watermelon he didn't break he didn't change his

face at all to the point where i thought this must have been what everybody did and then even when i started choking at the end like i really they like at the, because what happened was that was at the end of my first day ever filming on Taskmaster. And they said to me, we just finished doing a load of tasks. And I think I was the first one in the house, right? You know, the first one that they'd run some of the tasks with. And at the end, like, just before the end of the day, they went, Romesh, they were obviously, like, buzzing because they felt like, OK, the tasks work and stuff. I imagine they were quite nervous about how it was all going to go down. And then they said, we've had a great day.

We've just got one more thing. It's really quick. Do you mind doing it before you go? And I was like, yeah, of course. And it was this watermelon task. And so I went in, smashed the watermelon on the floor and started eating it off the ground. And Alex didn't break at all. was like and then I started choking as soon

as the whistle went I just felt so full of watermelon and um and I my body was genuinely making noises I'd never heard my body make it's like it sounded like it genuinely sounded like a a pig in distress sort of like it was horrendous and i it took me i reckon 35 40 minutes to get back to sort of feeling like you know i was in the toilet i was hunched it was really like full on and then um they told me that when they did the original cut of the episode the channel said you can't put it you can't put it you've got you've got to take some of that out it looks too horrifying like well and it looks it looks pretty horrifying the edit they went with yeah well i've they they there's a much worse version probably on the dark web or something oh we should we should get we should find that we should track that down on the dark

web yeah but even during all that alex was like totally unfazed right he looked just looked totally he was he was unbroken and so it's only when i sat in the studio and watched what everyone else had done and i was like oh what i did was bashing that's that awful feeling isn't? Where you watch everyone else just tackle things quite... I mean, Josh in that task, literally, like, eating a watermelon like he was at a picnic, and then you do it like a cannibal. I mean, that's my first question to you.

There was clearly a table in front of you. Why did you throw it on the floor? Well, I knew it wasn't going to be like a melon buffet. I knew it was going going to be like a melon buffet. I knew it was going to be a whole watermelon, but I just didn't realise that a watermelon was that soft. Like, I thought... In my head, it was, like, rock hard. And then when I threw it, I was like, holy shit, that is... LAUGHTER

That... That has gone everywhere. Like I say, Tim put his head in a tennis ball. It was good. it was a good attempt it was a good idea josh boiled the boiled the egg and at the point he was like he said i'm gonna boil the egg how from what i can remember you boil them for three minutes now i know you won't you probably won't know how long to boil an egg for romesh i don't know how i don't i certainly don't know how long to boil an egg for golf no no no but you want to hard boil it right so you'd want to you'd want to boil it seven minutes or above really josh boiled his for two and a half minutes in the end so it was basically just like

having a hot raw egg yeah what josh had decided to do was just waste a bit of everybody's time wasted everyone's time he basically boiled it for as long as he should have done a quail's egg Absolute Wally that boy Yeah 7 eggs he took Just compare that to you quickly 36 eggs I did 36 eggs

36 eggs yeah You did more eggs Than the next person down Josh did 7 eggs you did 36 So you you did more eggs than the next person down Josh did 7 eggs you did 36 so you did 29 more eggs than the person below you Josh was the next person below me and he did 7 Tim used 3 eggs

Frank used 5 eggs Josh used 7 eggs all quite tightly grouped together there and then you used 36 eggs God I've forgotten together there and then you used 36 eggs God I've forgotten the horror of that that is bad but Roisin won by dragging and caressing

the egg I mean Tim spoke up about it and he spoke up about it in quite a serious way it sounded like he was asking him to turn the cameras off he was like guys I hate to bring this up but she wasn't playing proper golf. Yeah.

It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol and we deliver that too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. 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 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. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. You know, I slightly, listen, I love Roshan, but the truth of the matter is, is that that is not an advantage gained by thinking outside of the box.

That is an advantage gained by not even having any clue how that game's supposed to be played. Do you know what I mean? And the idea that you'd be rewarded for that seems ridiculous to me. In her favour, I'd say that I don't think she was deliberately cheating. I think she would do that

if you took her to play an actual game of golf as well. Absolutely, yeah. At Wentworth, that's what she would do. Yeah, exactly. She'd get the ball and she'd drag it all the way the length of the course

and then pop it in. And she'd go, God, I knew golf took a long time, but it's taken me a day and a half to get round here. Well, I didn't sort of

say it at the time because I thought I was going to run away with this one, but looking at it again, Roisin just swept them. Sweeping's not I didn't sweep the whole time

you swept most of the time no I didn't I didn't crack I didn't crack an egg and I got over the big ones I got over quite easy I think you all shit at golf

it was my first go task two stage a realistic blooper from a home movie the taskmaster will give points to the best filmmakers you have one hour your time starts now

any memories of this there was a sharp inhalation of breath when i read out the task description because because i i think this might be the most embarrassing thing in terms of how comedically pathetic what we did was well i i i've written a couple of notes for this go go go one of my notes which i wasn't going to read out loud is this might be the most embarrassing task in Taskmaster history. It is so... It is so... It is so unfunny, what we did.

And I mean specifically you, Josh and Roshin. I mean, that... Sorry, yeah. So it's Tim and Frank, and then me, Josh and Roshin. And we have to do a blooper video, like something you might see on You've Been Framed. And for some reason

Josh, Roshan and I decided to do a realistic blooper. I mean, it was an insane decision. The whole reason that those videos are funny is because they happen by accident. What isn't funny, and whenever

anybody gets a faintest sniff that something might have been set up when they're watching it's not funny anymore so then what we do is by design make a blooper video i mean i i it's so because you're right it is the most because it just shows a lack of comedic such a lack of comedic understanding from the three of us especially for three of all three of you then went on to have your own sitcoms in which you played the leads this is not a good audition for that i hate it i hate what you did yeah i hate it it's really there's no i don't think there's a single

redeeming element to it at all apart from maybe we all arrived on time uh but so let's let's talk through the storyline of it i don't know if you did you watch this bit back or was this too hard for you to watch this is with the the the cake isn't it where the yeah so alex gets his face in a pie and then falls into a paddling pool correct i. I mean, at least it started the long-held tradition in Taskmaster of if you want to make a mess with something, just put it all on Alex. Yeah, true. I mean, the problem was is I think we thought that that was what was funny about it, you know, that we were putting on Alex.

But when I talked to Frank and Tim after it after the show and they said as soon as we saw yours we just thought there's absolutely no way we can lose this I mean that was pathetic and Greg really really laid into it to be fair he laid into the acting and he laid into the camera work as well

because the key issue I think for me was that Roshan claims to be Blair witch into the camera work as well. Because the key issue, I think, for me, was that Roshan claims to be Blair Witching the camera work, but what she actually does is just miss Alex falling into the pool. So all you get is just the raw acting power of Josh, Ramesh and Roshan. I think that there's a world in which if uh you know i i didn't even feel assured enough to to not smash some eggs but if i was further on in my career i might have asked my agents to demand that never went out because that that that

it's it's really embarrassing it's really embarrassing and it's also the energy in the room like when when they showed that was it was awkward because it just wasn't so it wasn't so shit that it was even funny do you mean it was just really embarrassing also because you were trying to be funny in the video yeah i mean and it so clearly wasn't yeah And trying to be funny is one of the rankest, most disgusting things. Seeing somebody obviously try to be funny is one of the worst things that you can witness in the world. It's worse than the end of Event Horizon. Seeing someone try to be funny. And so for us to do that.

And the worst thing is it didn't occur to me that it could be done any other way. That's an even more embarrassing thing. And then watched and then i watched tim and frank's and i was like oh right that's what happens yeah you actually can they did it probably it was a proper blooper they had a little little character backstories to it uh tim fell off the ladder they were called brad and jeff tim fell off the ladder uh and then they did the the wonderful thing of putting the legs in the ground to make it look like Tim had gone into the dirt and it was funny, it was a sort of

sideways look at it, it was a little wink to the Taskmaster audience, it was perfectly handled I thought The amount of stank you've put on that is by design I know you've added that by accident The little VAT you've added onto that description of how good it was.

I do remember when the legs were sticking out of the ground, you just think, okay, well, we're dead in the water. That's it. What I quite liked about yours, and this is, you know, I don't know if you remember this coming up. So the setup is obviously it's like backstage behind the scenes in Taskmaster. And where they see you, where they catch you on the video is that uh i think you're doing a task where you have to count uh hundreds and thousands now this to me seems like josh has suggested that

for the video because he previously has had to count beans and rice and all of that but he didn't know he was the only person who was doing that. So on the day, do you remember him suggesting that? Yeah. Oh, well you can do, we can do it with counting hundreds and thousands.

And then you and Roshan sort of go, yeah. All right, mate. I don't know. That sounds like, that sounds like a really shit task, Josh.

But if you think that's something that might come up in taskmaster, yeah, absolutely. It's in keeping with what the show's been doing. Yeah, all right, Josh, yeah. Put my own twist on it with the hundreds and thousands. It's a different food item. I've never talked to Josh and Roisin about,

we've talked about a lot to do with Taskmaster, never spoken about that because I think all of us, it's a bit of a, and I know what you did last summer moment for us, do you know what I mean? It's sort of best left unspoken. How did the discussion go though? Who came up with the idea?

Because obviously someone would have had to come up with the base of the idea and then the other two would have had to have got on board do you remember how was it like was it quite an excitable like creative discussion were you did you all think you'd done an amazing job i don't think we thought we'd done an amazing job i think that we thought it was very difficult because we actually knew that deliberately doing a blooper is not going to be funny it's unlikely that that's going to be funny so how so but but we didn't give it any more thought than that what we thought was well that's difficult to make funny let's just try and do it as effectively as we can I think

I'm pretty sure the swimming pool thing might have been my idea because I remember when when I did a tree wizard one of the things that i was obsessed with the tree wizard is to keep having another element that where you think it's finished but it hasn't finished i mean that was kind of that was kind of the thinking of that so for me the at the end of tree wizard the jump up into the tree was you know it's just sort of you think it's done when the balloons are have appeared and then suddenly i jump in you know it was like that so i sort of weirdly that blooper video might have been partly inspired by tree wizard where i just thought you think that the cake's a thing do you know i mean but then yeah it's the paddling pool that's the thing do you get what i mean so i i think that's that's sort of where

that came from i'm saying that as somebody that's loath to claim any kind of uh and of course but of course we now know that that would work if the cake was good or a satisfying ending because in your mind people were still laughing at the cake and then you hit them with the double oh yeah people are absolutely they're bent double at the cake they bet they barely see the swimming pool because they're just eyes streaming with tears of laughter from the cake. Zero points. Task three. This is the final pre-recorded task of taskmaster series one make the best meal

for the taskmaster using ingredients beginning with every letter of the alphabet you have a total of two hours your time starts now so i mean this is hard isn't it to come up with to come up with a a good meal for a start I don't think anyone came up with an actually good meal. But to even think of stuff beginning with all the letters of the alphabet, I would panic so much. Yeah, I was sort of stood there. There's a lot of thinking stood there

just sort of being perplexed by it. And I remember just thinking, you can't put this on TV. I mean, this is so like, just me staring at a blackboard just in silence like this is so this is so bad and then did you think they were going to put it all out unedited i thought it was live is what i was just like this is i think this has been a big mistake guys i don't think there's going to be a series two of this.

If you keep insisting on, on transmitting this as it happens. No, I just, I just sort of stood there going, cause it's just, it's just so difficult to think, to think of like, and then obviously, you know, I was claiming to be vegan. And so there's that restriction. Well, yeah, that's it. It's unfortunate that this falls in the same episode as egg gate because you at least in this you are thinking you do out loud say oh i'm not going to have any meat in this because i'm vegan

yeah but then you you do have quite a lot of dairy in your list of food yes i would say um you know i would say if anybody was asking if my veganism meant i missed dairy if you want any confirmation just have a look at how much dairy i smashed into that into that menu it's one thing to go i'm gonna just sort of i think i sort of made the decision to lax the restriction on that but then it i just sort of went into it so fully and completely uh it was uh yeah wasn't a good look wasn't a good wasn't a good look so your your dish i mean i thought yours looked all right actually i think greg was a bit mean about it again but i think yours yours looked pretty pleasant it was sort of

like there was avocado on toast with bacon and stuff in there all chopped up it looked like flavors on bread yeah that was bad the theaking shouldn't be anywhere near avocado really but i thought i mean in terms of actual edibility not a word but i'm gonna go with it uh within within the meals that were presented i thought yours was pretty good roshin i just never want roshin to cook for me the quinoa and sausage thing that she boiled the quinoa and the sausage together in a pan um and i don't know if the sausage was cooked or not i think alex is either undercooked or overcooked uh josh is josh's looked all right i thought he did he did a pizza but it was on a wrap it wasn't ideal look genuine genuinely offended when alex said it wasn't a real pizza

in the studio i'm surprised they left this in to be honest because Alex says sort of a pizza and they cut to Josh and I've never seen him look more serious. He just goes, fuck off! Genuinely upset. Looks like he's going to smack him. I thought it was a weird decision by Josh to sort of he sort of sat with him

didn't he he sat with him and ate with him yeah that was a weird decision I thought it was a really weird move you were more active in your

in your role in the meal you chose the xylophone for the X and played Alex a little tune while he ate somebody's messaged me to say since then that that wasn't a little tune while he ate somebody's messaged me to say since then that that wasn't a xylophone what yeah somebody a glockenspiel apparently oh really it was a

glockenspiel so that should have been your g somebody messaged me to say um one of one of the things that irritated me about that task was you're actually playing a glockenspiel not a xylophone um i didn't reply um no probably not worth a reply no i don't think that's worth i don't think that doesn't send any engaged signals to me whatsoever so i just know do you think the person who sent that said i'll say one of the things that annoy me about that task because then he'll message back and he'll say what were the other things please frank's now frank won um he i mean i think he can cook i think he can cook the watercress down soup which not only looked quite nice and homely it was a rabbit and watercress soup it had a great it had a pun name which i enjoyed very much uh and the steak with zucchini wheels which he calls Steak-O-Van

I mean I would have eaten Frank's I think I mean you probably would have done as well yeah I absolutely would have done that week oh mate I'd have eaten anything Frank had an amazing energy about him

I thought where he just looked distinctly unharassed and unfazed yeah throughout the you know it was

it was such a lovely he had such a lovely pace about him in the way that he tackled stuff it was and you just think

he's going to come unstuck here because he's I don't think he appreciates the nature but he didn't he was just like he just took it all in his stride it was very very impressive appreciates the the nature but he didn't he was just like he just took it all in his stride it was very very impressive i think that the thing that

impressed me the most that he did was when it was the trying to get as many tears as possible task yeah and i so root while it's unbelievable just put hot sauce in my eyes um but we needed that that you you really fulfilling a role there just absolutely going for it like a full psycho um and then frank just sort of sung a lilting ballad you know collected tears from everybody it was it was uh it's beautiful to watch but deeply annoying i think you're not giving yourself enough credit for stuff like that like the watermelon task and the uh and the putting the hot sauce in the eyes i don't think that's route one i think it may be the first thing people think about but they would have they would have rid that from their

brain immediately they'd be like i could rub hot sauce in my eyes wouldn't do that not doing that only another would do that whereas you don't you didn't have that filter you know it's just such a bottle such a lack of kind of desire for self-preservation you just think I'd rather have the tears than my own eyesight so you just go straight into it let's talk about Tim's because this is what pretty much ends the whole series poor Alex

they're supposed to be friends the pheasant in a bowl I don't know why he presents it in a bowl like that it just looks so medieval. I think Alex says it. It just looks like something from a banquet. I think this is the worst food stuff ever presented on Taskmaster.

It was dog food ravioli. A, to put dog food on the list is so horrible. To make ravioli out of it. To make pasta with kettle chips nachos and cheese spread i mean it's undoubtedly funny but you should of course of course they're best friends because you wouldn't do that to anyone who wasn't your best friend right i just i just couldn't believe that tim would see when i was when you're watching him get the items up you just think how's he going to get out of this? It was like

I was just thinking, what's he going to do here? Oh, he's actually going to make food out of the things he's written there. Okay. Dog food ravioli. And Alex ate it. He ate it. Yeah, it's actually pretty impressive.

But his main issue seemed to be with the pasta because it was so thick um but i'd want the pasta to be thick because then it would take longer to get to the dog food i know but then you what are you doing then you're working hard to get to dog food that feels insane doesn't it yeah yeah you almost you want the past to have a bit of give don't you so you just immediately pierce the pasta. Well done for making your way through the pasta. Your reward is dog food. Tim got three points for that dog food ravioli dinner. He marked Josh and Roshin down for doing pizza,

one point each. Now, look, that's fair. It's not a particularly inspired thing to do pizza, fine, but at least it looked edible. Tim got three points for doing the dog food ravioli. And I think that might be that he just enjoyed seeing alex having to eat dog food don't you i think i think making somebody eat dog food in any situation is worthy of some points not just taskmasters you know it's sort of it's a hell

of a thing to see isn't it um and then you you got four points for that Romesh you must have been happy with that uh yeah I guess so I mean the xylophone thing I thought was really I thought was really inspired but yeah Greg was Greg was quite sneery about it um actually well I think I think Frank maybe won up to you because he used the xylophone to present cheese so it was like a a cheese presentation plate so it was like a cheese presentation plate. So it was part of the meal. But he used it for ambiance, which, you know, I was on board with as well.

Ramesh, the vegan, you replaced meat with bacon, right? Yeah. You still had eggs and ice cream. Yeah, well, no, yeah. What I thought was I'd compromise by including dairy item, but I didn't go the whole hog, as it were. So the studio task was one I'd forgotten about, actually. It was lovely to see it again.

You all had to wear boxing gloves and you all had to only get the blue sweets out into the empty bowl. Most blue sweets wins. Non-blue sweets get subtracted from your total. You have 100 seconds. Did you enjoy the studio tasks i love them yeah well it's the first time that you're able to i know that we did team tasks but it's a weird experience doing taskmasters and i'd never done anything like that at the time obviously we

know the formula now but that thing of we you know you don't you genuinely don't communicate with any of the other contestants about the tasks at all. Yeah. You know, that you're told not to, I don't know how much you've talked about this, but you're told not to discuss it at all. And we all followed those rules. We never would, you know, we talk about how,

we sort of say had a good day on Taskmaster, but you never talk about the details of it or anything like that. And so those tasks were the first time that you sort of had a bit of a, you were doing it, you know, you were doing it all together. It was quite, it was quite nice.

And also a lot of them are quite good party games. I thought, do you know what I mean? It was like that, that, you know, you get yourself a boxing glove. Well,

I think you'd need more than a boxing glove. You just do it with the other hand. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That would be what ridiculous game that would be it was actually really easy but no it was fun I enjoyed them

were you stressed at this because this was the final studio task and obviously you might have been in with a shout of winning the whole series right I wasn't stressed, but I did... I really did think I had a shot of winning.

You know, I was really... I mean, I did have. I was... I hadn't let on, but I really thought this is going to be incredible if you can... If you can, having not won any of the episodes, pull this off and win the series.

That would be absolutely amazing. But I was very secretive about that. I didn't let on that I felt like that. So yeah, I probably was stressed, but not in a way that I would like to make clear. In the end, of course, it was Josh Widdicombe who became victorious in the first series of Taskmaster. And at which point Josh let us know that someone,

when he was announced as the winner by one point, someone was heard to say on their microphone, the fucking beans point. Another angry fellow contestant who shall remain anonymous. Somebody obviously clearly wants to win. But of course... Of course, Josh then went on to win champion and champions as well.

So, you know, a good competitor. We're going to do some emails now very quickly, Ramesh, if that's okay. Yeah, of course it is, mate. This is my favourite question. A question for Romesh. Did you ever intend on going to Cologne? Love the podcast, Nancy in Denmark.

It's so passive-aggressive, that from Nancy in Denmark. Did you ever intend on going to Cologne? Yeah, I did. I did intend on going to Cologne. But, I did. I did intend on going to Cologne, but I can't remember why I didn't go. Come on. You said yes because everyone said

they were going to Cologne and then you pulled out on the day, right? Did I pull out on the day? I don't know, actually. I might have made that up. I think I pulled out too close for it to be sort of okay. I think that's probably true.

Yeah. I think I pulled out in a way that probably did suggest that I wasn't intending on going. But yeah, I was intending on going to Cologne. We had a lovely time on the show and I was planning on going to Cologne. It's a real shame that it didn't happen for me. Well, there we go, Nancy. There's your answer.

I hope that... By the way, next time you send in an email, Nancy, just drop the stank a little bit, yeah? I would say. Dear Ed, if you have Romesh on, please can you ask him to explain his fury? All the best, Scott. I wasn't...

You know, like, obviously you're sort of... You're sort of arguing the point. I wasn't ever really few i mean i do i did appear furious i wasn't really furious but there's some things that like sometimes greg would just would just keep up with just would not take on board what i was saying you know they wouldn't take on board what i was saying so like there wasn't a fucking box when i was like there definitely there absolutely wasn't for example right so i'm like so i'm sort of having that argument and they're just saying there was there was and in my to my mind there wasn't so i don't know where else you can go from

there except for indignant rage i mean i sort of i just and And then you always look like the mad one then. If you're the guy saying there was a box or there wasn't a box, if you're coming out. After that went out, the number of, the number of people would say to me in the street, there was a box. Do you know what I mean? Like that, that's like a heckle I would get out and about.

Like, because I was just, I was so desperate for points. Do you know what I mean? I was so desperate for, I just, i was so desperate for i just so i was so i was sort of i'd realized that i was the least kind of lateral thinking of the group and so especially watching how tim was doing it i felt i increasingly found myself feeling quite humiliated by the way that i'd been doing the tasks and so then when you suddenly feel like there's an injustice or you've got a chance of of getting more points then i would try and argue it but the truth is is all i did was i gave greg fuel to sort

of uh yeah to sort of angry really yeah so so basically you were you realized you hadn't done enough when you filmed the tasks and you thought the studio is where i'm gonna have to claw some of this back basically that is that yeah you've sort of explained that in a much more elegant way than I did yeah I was just trying to desperately sort of use blunt rage and charmless shouting to try and reverse what I'd done in the tasks yeah exactly right one last question uh this is from Sam in the US uh dear Ramesh, did you come up with any other tunes for the Tree Wizard theme song? No.

Actually, what happened was is that Tree Wizard, I never was planning to do a theme song for Tree Wizard. It was always just going to be that video. And then I thought of the name. I can't remember. Just suddenly started going, started saying, oh, like the whole concept was Tree Wizard. And then the song just sort of, honestly,

if I had to say something, it sounds so wanky. It sounds like what somebody says when they made a critically acclaimed album or something. But it just sort of came to me from the, like it was just sort of, it was just sort of. Fully formed. like it was just sort of it was just sort of fully formed it was just fully formed it was fully formed and that's not that surprising when you realize that the song is just basically a verbal description of what's happening in the video i mean it's just it's amazing just came to you when you saw the video yeah what was the uh how did the symbolism of describing exactly what was happening

as literally as you possibly could in the video, how did that come about? Yeah, no subtext in Tree Wizard. You can't accuse it of having subtext. Completely nuanced for a Tree Wizard. It's just commentary, basically, isn't it? Yeah, it is essentially. It's a commentary with a little bit of lilt.

Tree Wizard! Magical hands and holy shit, it's another it's a commentary with a little bit of lilt magical hands and holy shit it's another balloon tree wizard takes position what is he gonna do tree wizard flies up to his tree and wave goodbye to you tree wizard tree wizard tree wizard romish thank you so much for coming on to the Taskmaster podcast we always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points in the tradition of Taskmaster so could you please give the podcast experience a points rating now I would give it I'll probably give it a four I think it No. What's happened there? What's happened there? Well, look, I like you.

I like Taskmaster. I like the concept of podcasts. I think they're very exciting as a medium. Yes. I can't say I enjoyed remembering the blooper thing. Okay, so that's not a point to start. I would say, you know, I don't think you can have full marks for something that makes you relive a trauma.

So that's where, and you know, I'll be honest with you, I did think about three, because I think that is a potentially a two point loss for making me talk and think about that again. Yeah, and what's great about that is I'd a two point loss for making me talk and think about that again yeah what's great about that is i'd i'd forgotten about that task and now i've been reminded of it and i think there's a lot of people out there who also will have forgotten about that task and quite how awful your attempt was but now we're making people re-watch the show so it's now going to get out

there we're going to give it cut the cult state status it deserves it's it's the room of Taskmaster oh god it's so it's so so bad I don't know how any of the three of us went on to do any other comedy again so four four points then for your experience on on the Taskmaster podcast yes thank you very much Romesh you're welcome back at any time to discuss any other series of Taskmaster that you weren't in as well thanks I mean that's of no interest to me but thank you so much for the opportunity thanks bye well there we are we're done thank you very much to Ramesh for coming in uh he didn't come in anywhere I don't want you to worry that we're breaking any COVID regulations uh he uh he popped onto the internet

as did I and that's where we met uh thank you to him for chatting to me about Taskmaster series one episode six but we are moving on time stops for no man. Next week, we'll be starting on Series 2 of Taskmaster. It's a brilliant lineup. I'm very excited to chat to various people about all of these episodes. It's such a good series. I've started watching it already. Watch along with us. So your homework for this week is to go and watch Series 2, Episode 1, the catch-up.

And next week, we'll be chatting about that episode with a special guest obviously do all the brilliant taskmaster things you can find the episodes on all four go on to youtube.com forward slash taskmaster for all your taskmaster extra needs there's some brilliant uh there's some brilliant compilations on there there's some brilliant uh bloopers um oh sorry i shouldn't say bloopers after that chat with Romesh he seemed genuinely devastated to be reminded of that and here's something I forgot to say written in my notes

it reminds me of some sixth formers trying to do their own jackass there we go let's really rub salt in that wound so go on the YouTube go on the Taskmaster store there's lots going on there there's home tasking going on on the YouTube as well keep an eye out on there

and on the Taskmaster Twitter account it's a whole world it doesn't stop when the show's not on it's constantly going it's a whole universe but come back next week Taskmaster Podcast we begin

series two so you think the cake is the blooper yeah and you think oh god that was bloody funny. That's probably the best thing I've ever seen. Oh, shit, paddling ball out of nowhere. Oh, my days, that's such a surprising and entertaining blooper. And if anything, they're almost two method

in the way that they carried that out. I thought it was brilliant. That's what I think about that. That should be your reaction. 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 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.