Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 2. Nish Kumar

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

This week on the podcast Ed is joined by comedian and Taskmaster series five contestant Nish Kumar. As well as talking about Nish's time on the show the pair discuss the latest episode of the current series. There's some behind the scenes revelations and a new and exclusive feature from Little Alex Horne. Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail]  Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster  For all your Taskmaster goodies visit www.taskmasterstore.com   Sales, advertising and general enquiries:[e-mail]  Taskmaster is on Channel 4 Thursdays at 9pm and you can catch the family friendly version Sundays on E4 at 6pm. Taskmaster the podcast is produced by Daisy Knight for Avalon Television Ltd     Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Official Podcast, Episode 2. Ed Gamble here. We're going to be covering Taskmaster Series 10. If you've not listened to last week's episode, go and listen to that one.

Give you a vibe of what I'm doing here, what I'm trying to do at least. We will be going through the most recent episode of Taskmaster Series 10. That's Episode 2, which you would have seen on Channel 4, Thursdays at 9pm that's when the show's on if by some weird reason you have not seen the show, go back and watch the show before you listen to this I would highly recommend that

otherwise this podcast will be a spoiler and also not make any sense to you so go back, watch the show then come and listen to the podcast. It's sort of a companion piece. You can't have this podcast without the show. Thursdays at 9pm, that's when Taskmaster is on. So the general vibe of this is we're going to be chatting to a special guest each week,

going through what happened on the show and having a little bit of a giggle along the way. And this week's guest, very excited to say is nish kumar nish was on series five of taskmaster he is a wonderful comedian outside of the taskmaster cinematic universe he hosts the mash report he hosts hello america on quibi he is a wonderful stand-up comedian we are very excited that nish said yes he loved his time on Taskmaster and I'm very much looking forward to hearing what he misses about it, what he loved about it

and what he's loving about this series in particular because he's a fan of the show as well. So like I say, go back, watch the show, then listen to this. The show is on Thursdays, 9pm, Channel 4. But if you have little children or you just don't like swearing and you don't like bums and all of that sort of rude stuff

there is a family friendly version of the show which is being broadcast on E4 every Sunday at 6pm so if you don't want your little kids to be seeing all the naughty stuff that's going on there I mean it's not too naughty

the show's not it's not like super rude but there are a couple of little bits that you think oh maybe the kids shouldn't be seeing this pop on e4 six o'clock check it out there but without further ado let's crack on let's get into the meat of it, and let's welcome our very special guest, Nish Kumar. They say save the best for second. It's an honoured position. Of course, we had the Taskmaster's assistant in episode one, Alex Horne. But when they said, who do you want to be on episode two? I knew straight away it's going to be Nish Kumar, star of series five.

I'm going to call you the star of series five Nish because as of yet we haven't booked anyone else from series five the goat the goat of series five the goat of series five and for anyone listening uh goat is an acronym used by the kids which stands for greatest of all time uh but when we call Nish the goat of series five, we mean he was the worst player and an actual goat. Nish, you must have, you know, you've agreed to do this. So you must have fond memories of doing Taskmaster. I have many fond memories of doing Taskmaster Ed. None of them really, you know, to do with the success of doing the tasks, but I've always seen success. I've got, I'm measuring it on different metrics.

Did I bring joy to people? Yes. Did I bring light into their otherwise meaningless lives? Yes. Did I win any of it? No. I've just got a more holistic, you've got to stop applying your Western monotheistic philosophies

and notions of success to how i did in taskmaster so straight away there with that answer nish uh you've managed to alienate people by calling their lives meaningless and also somehow managed to attack the west this is what a start from nish this is is why you booked Nish Kumar. Do you have any specific memories that you hold dear from your season of Taskmaster? It was an amazing lineup season five, I think. It was a lovely old lineup. Obviously, I knew, well not obviously I I know uh Aisling B very well uh I

know Mark Watson very well uh but I'd never I never really met um Sally or Bob properly before um and so it was a real and obviously for people of our age uh Sally Phillips and Bob Mortimer are icons of comedy you know growing up with things like smack the pony and shooting stars and alan partridge so i was pretty excited to meet them and they were absolutely great i mean bob mortimer talking about how he has a hyenas yeah and so has to reverse has to reverse straddle the toilet that stands out as one of my favorite in studio moments of taskmaster ever, I think. Bob Mortimer's hyenas.

It's a real classic moment. The song that I did with Mark was obviously a highlight because it was one of the few things that we, either of us actually did well. And, you know, it's like one of those things where you realise you've done something badly, but you're involved in something that is going to make people very happy. And that's how I feel about about 95% of my contribution to Taskmaster. But certainly Basketball Gate. Yes. I recall with some fondness the task was that we had to put basketball through a basketball hoop without touching it. And I sort of had a nervous breakdown and decided I was going to chip it.

But of course, in the edit within the studio, they decided to only show your successful attempt as if you'd got it in first time. And obviously the roof came off i i couldn't believe it when i was watching it it blew my mind because you know we should let the listener know me and nish are good friends we've been good friends for a very long time uh so i know what nish is like i think taskmaster was quite surprising for some people because uh your public facing persona uh is that of a very

intelligent man. You deal in satire. Your highbrow humour is very much your calling card, whereas I know you as an absolute mess. So Taskmaster very much revealed... I contain multitudes, Ed. Yes. So when you chipped that basketball in for seemingly the first time, I couldn't believe it. I was off my sofa. I was screaming at the top of my voice. I was like, this is this is it. Nish has finally come through. This is incredible. Yeah. And then the absolute genius revealed. How did they do that in the studio? Because you obviously reacted in the studio like you'd done it first time you were off your feet arms aloft they basically because obviously they do operate with quite a serious amount of secrecy especially in terms of what they're about to show um but um they sort of forewarned me like we've done something with the basketball clip you'll like it don't worry don't worry you'll enjoy it and so obviously when that happened you sort of a you absolutely know

you're not getting away with it there are some tasks and you'll know this there are some tasks that you you forget that you've done yeah because you do so many in sort of such a concentrated stretch of time and especially because you do them over a whole day so sometimes the tasks you do at like 5 p.m you they i just erased all of those mentally for my mind so there's quite sometimes it can be quite sort of out of body experience watching yourself do something that you have no memory of but the basketball one i'm oh i remembered that let's just put it this way i remembered doing that and i remembered the issues around it and so they were like oh we've done something fun with it

and then as soon as I saw the chip you go I don't think I'm getting away with this but for the second that I am getting away with it I plan on enjoying it yeah the absolute maximum it's very telling that you loved that so much and you enjoyed feeling victorious even though you knew deep down that you hadn't done that well. Yeah, that's a perfect metaphor for my whole life. I know I've got none of these moments actually coming, so I'm going to grab this fake one with both hands.

Oh my god! Well, well, well! Looks like last in PE, first in being a legend! A lot of the TM nerds out there, quite a few of them have done tables ranking contestants best to last in terms of points. Oh, I've seen the tables.

Variable adjustables for things throughout the series, different lengths of episodes, different amount of episodes, et cetera, rather. And you pretty much come bottom three every single time, I'd say. First in fun, last in actual achievement. Well, no one is yet to have done a spreadsheet of fun, but I'm sure as soon as they do.

If any show's fan base is going to make a spreadsheet of fun, it's this show. I know the Taskmaster audience. If any show's audience, I'm actually amazed they haven't done it already. But I also think because, I mean, you took those losses and those screw-ups in your stride, and you clearly loved every moment, which is great. You weren't frustrated by is great you weren't

frustrated by the fact you uh you weren't doing well in some of the tasks and also it makes your victories all the more sweet so obviously there's the song with mark which has gone down in the taskmaster hall of fame but i would argue my favorite moment of yours and i think the proudest i've ever been of you on anything and look you've got your own TV show on the BBC. You've got your own app-based satire show. Yet the proudest I've ever been of you is Coconut Businessman. The reveal of you stepping out

with the little coconut head. I was like, yeah, this is it. This is probably going to be the highlight of Nish's career. I just, I think it's a shame that we didn't see more from the coconut businessman in the years, in the years after Taskmaster. I was hoping for a sitcom at least. Or not even a sitcom, like a drama.

I want like a proper drama, like a business-based HBO drama with the coconut businessman. Maybe, fingers crossed, he can just turn up in the next series of Succession. Fuck off. Fuck off, coconut man. Fuck off.

So, Nish, let's crack on uh because we're here to talk about uh taskmaster series 10 uh you uh have seen the first episode i know that you've you've caught the first two first two episodes so we are going to talk about episode two i actually think, I mean, generally, I think this series has established itself episode one. I think, bang, that set the stall out very quickly, and now we're really rolling with episode two. Let me say this for the contestants, and I mean this both as

a compliment and an insult. I would have fit in very well on this series. I agree. Make of that what you will. You know what, Nish? I think on this series you would have been in very well on this series. I agree. Make of that what you will. You know what, Nish? I think on this series, you would have been solid mid-table. It's not just the fact that they're all terrible. It's the fact that they're all having such a good time

and are always seemingly on the verge of tears of laughter. seemingly on the verge of like tears of laughter like daisy may cooper is always 30 seconds away from a full yeah like crying with laughter fit even though they're hysterical it's not helped them out in the prize task because yet again two weeks in a row i mean we had alex on last week he said it was really funny to kick off the whole series with a terrible attempt at the prize task. They've doubled up. So the prize task is the best thing with holes in it. And I mean, pretty much across the board, apart from the winner in this task, I think we had another awful set of prizes. Absolutely awful. Heinousous did you enjoy doing the prize tasks nish because i've personally found them very stressful i found the prize task the thing is ed i didn't really and this is the this is my approach to the whole thing i didn't really

overthink it i just had an idea and i executed the idea the prize tasks are weirdly difficult because you don't want to you don't want to think too far outside the box. Yeah. But you also don't want to do what's happened so far in the first two episodes and think absolutely bang in the middle of the box. These ideas could not be more within the box

that they're having. You hear holes, you think a crumpet. So in the box, I had a prize task rejected because, sorry, Ed, you can't bring that in. It's offensive and you've got to think about the victims. What was it? So the prize task category was best defunct thing. And I brought a collection of Kevin Spacey films on Laserdisc.

And I just went ahead and bought them, by the way. So you've just got some you've just got the usual suspects and K-Packs. Yeah, I've just got them upstairs. So, yes, more food related stuff in there. Was it crumpets from Daisy, wasn't it?

Can I also just say, Greg just described, said that he had a new way of buttering crumpets and then just described how you butter anything. Yes, we should talk about Greg's revolutionary butter system. Now, we don't often drill into things the Taskmaster says on this, but I think we should. So Greg's revolutionary butter system is, I can see why he thinks it's revolutionary. You take a lump of cold butter and you sort of massage it across the crumpet.

And therefore you only melt as much as you need. And then you put that butter back in the fridge. But that is essentially buttering something and taking off the bit you don't need, right? essentially buttering something and taking off the bit you don't need right it's like somebody's saying right i've developed this really amazing way to get places quickly you know if you walk imagine if the momentum that carried your limbs forward was increased exponentially depending on how quickly you wanted to go um so again richard didn't up his effort after last week and neither did Daisy uh and again Richard really showing his shark eyes and aggressively going after everyone else's prize tasks yeah he's really uh he's in it to win it old Dickie Herring has come to win he has been

clamoring to get on this show for so long and now he's here, he is not letting go. Mawaan's rabbit was, I mean, it was like something out of the end of Watership Down. Yeah, Mawaan's rabbit, horrifying, but I think a clear winner in this case. I think he was the only one who thought outside the box. It's something that he'd made, it was

clearly from his life, as opposed to Honeycomb from Richard, Crumpet from Daisy, as discussed, Teabag from Johnny, and Catherine's husband's dirty tights. Heartbreaking stuff from Johnny about how the PG Tips adverts affected his career. Yeah.

I mean, maybe if you'd sold it harder, the teabag would have done better. Mate, I did five years doing that. Now no director will come near me. So we come to the first task of episode two, which is the first team task. Nish, you were obviously on a team with Mark Watson. Did you enjoy the team tasks?

Yeah, I loved the team tasks yeah i love the team tasks i mean they were they were rare examples of my uh of successful efforts on the show for me but also it is genuinely a fun surprise when because i that was my last filming day in the house yeah so i had sort of assumed that they just weren't doing team tasks. Also because they don't tell you anything. It's so shrouded in secrecy that I had assumed that basically they weren't doing team tasks this series. And also we took the, because they tell you to not communicate with other guests,

especially if they know your friends. And so they tell you not to communicate with other contestants. So I really hadn't talked to Aisling about it or Mark mark about it we've taken it all very seriously so i just assumed that we weren't doing the team task so when mark watson appeared it was a genuinely delightful surprise like it was it was it was really fun the team task is a really really fun day that's that's an interesting uh little tidbit for behind the scenes for people interested in that sort of minutiae. In the dressing room in the Taskmaster house, there is a sign which tells you the rules of being a Taskmaster contestant. And there aren't many, but one of them is do not discuss what you're doing with anybody else on the lineup.

That's a pretty solid rule. And also when you do the team tasks, I don't know how they did it with you nish they yeah they really keep it secret but you know something's going on because your day is a little different so for me certainly normally what you do is they'd get you a car and take you to the taskmaster house or take you to the location if you're filming on a different location but on that day i got taken to a cafe nearby the taskmaster house to sit with uh to sit with andy the producer andy uh and but he wouldn't say anything so i'm going oh it's team day right i can imagine with another taskmaster contestant who's not obsessed with the show taskmaster they might be a bit more confused and in the dark but i was going it's team day right it's team day we're

doing team day today it's team i can't wait for team day um so they really do shroud shroud it in secrecy and then i was the other end of that i was the other end of that where i just got taken to the house until i just thought it was a normal day yes that's my that's more exciting i can imagine um it was good for me i love doing the team tasks especially uh the team i was with i was with katie wicks and rose matafayo and it was just reassuring for me certainly in the case of seeing Rose Matafayo do Taskmaster knowing that I wasn't as competitive uh as I thought I was because at least Rose was there it was a real source of concern for myself and um your fiancee uh going into it you know um Rose and uh Rose and Ed are you're not just two of my friends you're two of my former

housemates the gamble versus matafayo axis because you are both fairly competitive i think that is a polite way of describing both of your personalities and so it was a real source of concern she was like oh this could end badly for our social group. Yeah, absolutely love it. I've done escape rooms with you both when you're supposed to be on the same team. Well, exactly. I was going to mention escape rooms because this first team task in Series 10 is a treasure hunt. And it had an escape room vibe. And I think this is something that certainly myself and Rose, if we were in a team doing this would have absolutely loved i suspect you might have hated this nish or you wouldn't have enjoyed it in the

same way you know what i would have loved it i'd love to sit in an umpire chair and making some noises that i mean i really i really see you doing that i mean i don't think you would have done it in the same way as johnny i, the man's first instinct when asked to make a noise was to impersonate Richard Nixon. There is no one else in the world who, if you ask them to make a noise, that's the first thing they'd do.

Not even Richard Nixon! It's incredible. The fact that, I mean, it's not even a noise. It's a sentence, isn't it? So, you know, everyone else, I think, would go, ha-ha, or, you know, a fart or something like that. Just go, root one, noise.

And he went with a Richard Nixon quote. That's where he started. I am not a crook. I am not a crook. All right. I am not a crook. I am not a crook. All right. I am not a crook. In fact, I'd go as far to say none of the noises he did were ones that I would have thought of.

There would have been no overlap. You wouldn't have thought of impersonating a fax machine, Ed? No, it's not my go-to dish, weirdly. I really like the way they've handled the social distancing because obviously then you had muan and katherine having to get on with the uh with the treasure hunt and to sideline johnny put him up an umpire's chair and make him make different noises i think was very entertaining and only something that you could see on taskmaster yeah that was such a an elegant solution to

not being able to have three of them within two meters of each other yes um and i'm sort of looking forward to see how they get around um that in the rest of the team tasks yeah but yeah it was a really it did take me a second because i was like why are they all standing so far apart oh everything that's happening well it's interesting that you say that because i was very surprised to find out that Daisy and Richard filmed before social distancing because when Richard walks into the room that Daisy was in she moved away from him so quickly I assumed that that was I went oh she's just being socially responsible that social distancing nope it was before coronavirus i mean i'm really glad greg drew attention to it in the room as well because it was the reaction of a woman to seeing richard herring enter a room was to leap backwards and scream

but even when like i could see why that initial shock of oh there's someone else in the taskmaster house with me because you're so adjusted to the fact it's just you doing it yeah yeah yeah but even maybe three or four seconds after that when she should have relaxed she was still backed into a corner looking at richard like he was an alien but a really a really fun task i think uh i think moan summed it up when he up when he found the key in the candle and said, that's some next level shit. It's exactly the sort of thing that I'm into as well. I love escape rooms and I love things being hidden in other things.

They've also got a really nice way of building the right teams and picking people that will go well together because they they both they were both very good they actually were I would say yeah they seem on a par these teams I think certainly I mean Alex made fun of me for this last week I always have to go back to my my series but our teams were slightly less balanced we had joe and david uh were on a team together uh and the difference between the way we approach things was amazing they would stop them you know go to the toilet halfway through tasks and things like that and make and make a cup of tea and make themselves sandwiches and stuff uh but both of these both

of these teams actually for the first time in the series, I thought they actually might be quite competent. They were both very sort of effective. I mean, sure, we are talking about their efficiency. At one point, Richard Herring did just go, maybe there's some bacon here. Someone has got Francis Bacon in his head and he just went off and looked for bacon. To be fair, but that's what Taskmaster does to you sometimes you panic because what if then you're in a situation where you know you find out you're in the studio and then like they do that awful thing where they're like well let's just

have a look in the fridge and they zoom in and the answer was in the back of bacon all along so it's always best to check the bacon but you will look like an idiot if bacon's got nothing to do with it um so i think it was scored very fairly as well i i kind of feel like personally uh i know johnny didn't didn't get louder and louder but i felt like he deserved five for the the breadth of the uh the noises yeah i thought um i thought if if i he was the one the only one who could have felt hard done by because i think i feel like you should have given him five points for the innovation of opening with I'm Not A Crook. Oh, yeah, it was perfect.

So we move on to uh task two which is a taskmaster portrait uh task always a terrifying prospect uh having to do a portrait of the taskmaster because you know these are the ones he's really going to judge quite angrily uh because it's his own face um so in this case, they had to make a portrait of the taskmaster using balloons. They had to fill up the frame, which one person forgot about, we'll come to that shortly. Any art task panicked me beyond belief. Yeah, I can't draw.

So I was always at a disadvantage in these things. But balloons, I think, is incredibly hard because you're working with a famously temperamental medium. Well, not if you adopt the Parkinson approach and simply don't inflate them. Well, this is this. Catherine's rapidly becoming one of my favourite contestants ever, I think, because she's constantly on the verge of a breakdown. She spent ages not inflating the balloons at all, even though surely that's route one with a balloon. First thing you do. And then she was holding the balloon pump

and her first thought was that it was some cream. Where's she getting her cream from? It's not someone's weaponized cream uh now obviously richard uh we know richard pretty well uh and we knew what he was going to do as soon as there was a long balloon he could not resist inflating that balloon penises the man's done shows about penises uh he he loves a penis he thinks it's hilarious he's correct i would have done a penis as well to be fair very tricky i think but we got

to see johnny's uh johnny's artistic nature uh shine through it was one of those things in tells us to where occasionally you just see greg go well that is just impressive that is just just genuinely quite quite impressive and you can tell there's a hint of disappointment in his eyes yeah because he's really there to like he's really there to rag on people but you could genuinely tell that he was legitimately very impressed it was really good it was really good considering he had his canvas was some grass and his paints were old balloons he really made something that was recognizably greg certainly as a competitor in taskmaster i always um you know got a little bit annoyed probably unnecessarily when people already have skills in things.

So there's been loads of people who've had artistic skills. So Katie Wicks in my series, Johnny in this series, obviously, Joe Lycett, Noel Fielding, all have sort of basis in art. But then they use those skills and I feel like that's cheating, Mish.

Yes, unfortunately, there was no task in my series that was remembering Bob Dylan albums. Or being angry at the government in the most loud way. Why were my skills not utilised? But, I mean, Mawaan made the crucial error of not reading the task properly. He did not fill the frame. And also he drew on the balloon, which wasn't specifically forbidden, but it didn't feel like it was in the spirit of the task.

I felt like then he was using balloons and pen. like it was in the spirit of the task i felt like then he was using balloons and pen yeah it's interesting he never got to that stage of um the judgment process because it had already been dismissed outright uh we never got to actually find out whether greg would have marked him down for it it was in his defense absolutely hilarious yeah because i mean it was so small it was so small and especially given he completely understood the task because as soon as he read it out he said oh it's like art attack now so he's seen art attack at no point in art attack do they cut to the above shot and you can't see and it you can't see anything at no point is the art attack itself smaller than Neil Buchanan you can get anything you need with Uber Eats

well almost almost anything so no you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats but iced tea and ice cream yes we can deliver that Uber Eats get almost almost anything and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now.

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the future so uh i and so johnny clear winner in this case, I think. I felt like Daisy was hard dumbo because at least it was big and it looked like a face. It sort of looks fine. It looked as much like Greg as Richards did. Yes, it did. But I think she got marked down for, if there's one thing you have to say about Greg, it's that he's got a long old body. Yeah, sure. And I think where she maybe got marked down was she gave him a massive head sure yeah the guy's got a big old bonce yeah but

he's also rocking a long bod he is and i think maybe she got marked she got marked down for proportions but i i think it's still her she got one point point and Mawaan got two. I feel like Mawaan should have got one as well, just because it was so tiny. And I think maybe bump Daisy up to two with Richard. Yeah, I would agree with that, yeah. The only reason Richard got two points is because he was complimentary with the old Wang. He was, yes, he gave us and he taketh away with the wanghead because whilst it was length good

but obviously girth and bend not ideal you have to assume that it was that he was also depicting the taskmaster flaccid because you know this isn't france We can't just have... We can't have balloon-based erections just on Channel 4. This isn't Channel 4 in the 90s. Are you suggesting that there was a discussion with the channel as to whether the balloon was erect or flaccid? I think there was a serious discussion. It's an angle. You can't hit an angle.

And so I think what the case that they would have made is, it's flaccid. It's just an absolute nightmare. The case I would make, though, is as soon as you put air into a balloon, it becomes an erect balloon. Which is why Catherine's method in retrospect was genius. Yes, it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole body was flaccid in Catherine's method in retrospect was genius. Yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole body was flaccid in Catherine's effort. She wasn't going to fill those with cream. Okay, right. And now we're quite lucky, Nish. We've got a new regular feature on the podcast. We're going to hear from Alex Horne, the Taskmaster's Assistant,

in our new section, BFF. Horne, the Taskmaster's Assistant, in our new section, BFF. Every week, the Taskmaster's Assistant will be giving us a fact from behind the scenes of the week's episode. So let's have our first one today. This is Alex Horne with BFF. Hello there. My name is little Alex Horne, and I am your new BFF, Bonus Fact Finder. And today's bonus fact comes as a result of the balloon portrait task. By the end of that task, there have now been 15 portraits of the mighty Taskmaster created by contestants. There have also been 13 specially commissioned portraits of the man. That is for the artwork for the front of the house, for the main room and for the back of the

studio. Around the house there are also 12 photos of the Taskmaster dotted around. So in total that's 40 pictures of the greatest man alive. Goodbye. And now the final pre-recorded task of the show. Balls in hoop boat. That's the sort of general note.

Those are the points we've got to hit. Very difficult to sum this task up. So obviously this is one of the location general note those are the points we've got to hit very difficult to sum this task up so obviously though this is one of the uh this is one of the location tasks it's not in the taskmaster house uh it's in a huge room uh they're in a dinghy with wheels and they had to get uh large exercise balls swiss balls uh into some hula hoops um while they're a boat on wheels. They're not allowed to get out of the boat, Nish. They're not allowed to move the hoops. That was very specific.

Yeah. This is a task that I would have liked to have seen you do. Because you are chaos. I think you would have struggled with it. I would have heard my favourite Nish Kumar noise, which is... There would have been a lot of that i feel i would normally agree with you the only reason that i would say i might have

done better with it is as we're watching it i was like you gotta try and you gotta just roll them down the end and then do the sort of admin of gathering them together which is what day daisy was absolutely amazing at this yeah she was incredible and so the only reason i think i might have done better is i had my initial instinct was i think you've got to roll the balls down and then worry about kind of gathering them together yeah while they're closer to the closer to the actual hoops because otherwise you are expending a lot of cardio energy uh trying to get the one. If you get one ball, take it down, put it in and then go all the way back again.

It looked like really hard work getting that boat moving. I think Catherine, Catherine, I think, found the best way of hanging one leg out of it and pushing herself along. Yeah. I mean, everyone in terms of moving the boat settled into a system apart from Johnny Vegas, who tried everything. He looked like he was in a sort of Lars von Trier version of The Old Man and the Sea. Like, it was harrowing at points. There it is. As you know, regular listeners of the podcast will know that we like to name Drop Lars von Trier every episode.

From now on. That's the first one, but we'll be doing it every episode. It was... The point at which... Also, when you start watching the task, you immediately go... When you see the boat and you see the balls of the hoops, you immediately go, this is classic. This is classic Tuskmaster.

Yeah, it really is. Johnny Vegas stood up doing a sort of semi body roll, trying to manoeuvre the boat after having already given up on just waving the paddles at the air that is that is one of the that's one of the highlights it was the thrust for me it was the cut to the thrust of just like little little hip thrusts to try and move the boat it was pretty incredible uh i see i i would have tried something tricksy and i might have risked it of trying to mess with the definitions of what staying in the boat was and trying to i'd try and hold it on my back and just run around with my feet on the floor and i suspect i would have been punished especially as the taskmaster is clearly being

stricter on this series. But, I mean, I still think Daisy might have beat me if I did that. It was an incredible performance from her. That was incredible. And let's not forget, she was pregnant. I feel like we're almost not making, it's almost not being referenced enough that she's doing all this stuff pregnant.

I did really enjoy Alex saying, we were a bit worried about this task. Yeah. Like everything that she's doing it is pretty incredible that she's doing it whilst pregnant but this task particularly you know i don't even know i wouldn't like to sit in that boat after having had a heavy lunch no exactly much less being with child yeah she did an amazing job uh she an amazing job she did an amazing job full stop and the fact she was pregnant on top of that

was pretty incredible whereas Richard couldn't even do the task without his arse hanging out listen let he who has not shown his arse on Taskmaster cast the first anus stone that was

Arse Master I call was Arse Master. I call it Arse Master because every series you're going to see an arse. He knew it was happening. He referred to his arse as his old fella.

Now let's let's talk about Mawaan because it's been a really tricky episode for Mawaan. I feel sorry for him because it started so well

with the prize task and then the prize task uh and then uh the balloon task uh was a bit of an issue for him he didn't read it properly he ended up with a tiny portrait and here he really misread the rules he didn't just no misreading the rules isn't fair he read the rules and then just decided to forget the rules like so much of the pleasure of the show is in the way that they construct those vts and like the way that they produce them and make them because they're not you know they're not like cutting it in a way that doesn't reflect what you did but what they are doing is highlighting your failure in such a specific way and having him walk off and just playing in

him reading the rules over and over again was a lovely touch i mean it is it is incredible um i mean it's it's one of those things i had i think i had one episode like that where seemingly all of the ones i knew i'd done badly on or messed up were all in the same episode because it's kind of random they're not doing it they're not doing it on purpose to screw someone over it just works out like that so you know Mawaan's had one where a couple of them haven't gone well for him I had an episode where you know all of the tasks didn't really go my way and you had the entire series it was just an unfortunate way you were edited together that all your tasks were terrible i had um one episode where

i was doing well for the first two tasks i think yeah and then then really screwed one up and i knew it as soon as they played it it was it was one of those you can see on the v2 that it's like late in the evening and i was clearly just quite tired and so I just pretended to fill in a sudoku ah now this was this was the task that led Greg to take you aside and have a word with you wasn't it yeah you know which is again one of my one of my taskmaster highlights from all the series uh was you being taken aside and having a stern talking to a technique he then employed with James Acaster and I don't believe he's had to use since uh so we know things have gone really badly if he if he uses that he's only told me and acaster off yeah there's a great shot of him because he takes you off to the side of the stage which is not lit because you're not supposed to be there yeah and so it

looks like a still from the godfather like because the shadow is sort of falling across his face. And also it's like, when he was doing it, again, there isn't really a lot of contrivance with Taskmaster. So when he stood up, you're like, what's happening? And when he beckons you over, you're like, I don't know what's about to happen. Like, he might be about to kill me. Yeah, because look, he's a lovely guy, Greg.

He's a very dear friend of mine, but he is still really scary. Oh, I love him. Yeah, I love him. But when he's taking you off to the side, you're like, he could strike me down with a single blow. And also a talented actor, so if he decides he's going to make it look like he's angry, it's really scary.

It's real scary. What is it? Is it self-sabotage? Do you want this one, Mum? I just thought it would be great. You were doing well in this one for the first time. Yeah, I know, but I thought it would be really impressive if I did a whole Sudoku. Yeah, but we've checked it and you weren't even doing the Sudoku properly. No.

Just try and pull yourself up with the bootstraps. Give it a go. Really have a go at the show. You're not a bad guy, Nick. Another classic Taskmaster Studio task. What's making what noise when it's bashed against what? Everyone did pretty well there. Richard and Daisy got joint first. I mean, Richard was first in last week's episode and in the studio task.

So he's sort of showing himself again as a bit of a competitor, just gets on with it. There's no messing around from Richard. And Daisy, of course, did very well in that task as well. But in terms of the episode, it was a tie break between katherine and richard for first place so richard approaching a victory again uh we've got some tie break facts nish because tie breaks aren't often utilized in taskmaster uh but but they but they have been uh in the past uh there've been 14 tie breaks uh across all the series of taskmaster

uh there've been two three-way ties in the past nish series two and three had no tie breaks um in your series uh there were two tie breaks uh you'll be surprised to learn that you were never in the running to win an episode even with a tie break and let me tell you something I was incredibly relieved because if you thought I was bad at the tasks you should have seen me on the tie breaks interesting because I mean I don't remember the specifics of all the tie breaks I know that episode four of your series was Aisling versus Mark and it was throwing a swede in a bin. And episode six was Bob versus Sally kicking a yogurt. So,

yeah, you should have seen what I did to that yogurt, my friend. I, I, I mean, the yogurt absolutely exploded. It didn't get anywhere near the hoop.

I don't even think a drop of it went, I struck it. And as I struck it, cause that was another one in my mind where I was like, and as the yogurt tie break started, I was like, thank God, because I knew that I had messed that up so badly. I kicked the yogurt and it just exploded everywhere.

It didn't get off the ground. It's incredible to think that, because you film, I think maybe five or six tie breaks. And a lot of them are just destined to never never be seen um interesting uh fact uh we filmed we filmed a lot of tie breaks and one of our tie breaks became an actual task so the the lasso uh task which was lasso alex uh was a tie break and i was told it was going to be a tie break uh and it ended up being a proper task and i couldn't understand why so they showed they showed me doing the lasso and

i didn't do that well with it and i said to alex i thought this was supposed to be a tie break in the in the commercial break and he went oh you'll you'll see why it had to be an actual task and obviously then i assumed well david's messed it up, hasn't he? And then of course, the legendary David Baddiel tying wooden spoons to the lasso to try and increase the weight of it. And our series actually,

our series actually ended on a tie break. It was the biggest anti-climax you possibly could have had. The final episode was me versus Rose with the tie break of choosing a condiment uh to keep a pop-up toy down the longest uh rose uh roses lasted about 15 seconds and mine was sat there for an hour and a half um and i'm happy to reveal uh that after the episode rose was like well how did they decide what tie break it was how they picked one that

they knew you'd won at. Why did they do that? And then the producer said, well, just to let you know, Rose, Ed beat you in every single tiebreak. Boom. And the important thing is that Rose and Ed are not competitive, guys. Okay? So if listeners of this podcast take nothing away, it's that neither of them were bothered about the result.

Okay? So Catherine won the tie break and won the episode. That's Catherine's first century, of course. Some of the worst surprises anyone has ever walked away with. A crumpet, a teabag. I mean, she's got a good breakfast there. Yeah, which she can have

with Bugs Bunny's Mix-a-Batoses adult cousin. Bugs Bunnies, Mix of a Toast's Addled Cutting. Before we crack on with the listener emails, Nish, having seen the first two episodes, do you have any predictions for the for the Victor of the series? Well, I thought at the start because of house, how,

what I know of Richard, which is quite a lot. I felt that he would do well because I feel like it really matters to him, but I have to say my, like, I feel like Parkinson is a dark horse. She's getting it. She's, she's getting it done. She's getting it done in a month's breakdown.

I feel like Moana and Daisy have a flavour of the Kumar about them. Both insofar as in the way that they're executing their tasks, but also the fact that Daisy is almost always on the verge of tears of laughter and the fact that Mawaan is already coining a lot of really interesting phrases because that was some next level shit man

well that was one of two this episode that I think will live with him for a long time next level shit man will be in there, but I think even worse than that, he's back. We'll haunt him forever. He's back. He's back straight after he completely messed up the boat task.

I think the difference between you and Mawaan, I think, I think he thinks he's better than he's ended up being. Oh, but also the other difference between me and Mouan is he definitely has hand-eye coordination. Yeah, sure. So he's definitely, you know, a significant leg

and indeed a couple of other limbs up on me. It's very close to call, like, because as much as I think, like, you know, there's a lot of people just getting it done. The thing about Johnny, Mawaan and Daisy is that they're mavericks. And a couple of big wins in a couple of big tasks and they could do it. It's all very evenly poised.

You've got three loose cannons and three tight guns. You heard it here first. Three loose cannons and two tight guns you heard it here first three loose cannons and two tight guns nish your prediction then you if you had to if you were really nailed down and you had to say a name if i had to say a name i would say i'm gunning for parkinson i think it's going to be a katherine parkinson victory a katherine parkinson victory according to nish kumar chalk it up we're going to get predictions across the series. We're going to see who came out on top. But now, Nish, we've had lots of lovely emails from the listeners.

Of course, if you want to get your questions into the Taskmaster podcast, email us on taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com. Nish, your song for Rosalind with Mark is probably my favourite Taskmaster moment ever but who did the heavy lifting in the songwriting or was it a genuine Lennon McCartney moment that's from Rhian

it was a genuine back and forth I think if I was splitting the if I was trying to work out I would say Mark probably wrote more of the lyrics and I wrote more of the lyrics and I wrote more of the melody yeah but it was it was a genuine it was it was a genuine 50 50 collaboration

it's lovely to see you play guitar as well Nish because uh we used to be in a sketch group together at university and used to play guitar uh for our very humorous songs but then I never used to see you play guitar when we lived in a flat together you'd always do it you'd always do it in your room away from prying eyes your little private guitar moments I also I've really spent a lot of my life fighting the inevitable descent into being the man who gets a guitar out um so i really go through great pains to not uh play in public um but um you know when the uh when they when the task was laid out in front of me watson said what's your musical chops and i was like one of the andy's fetch me a guitar

don't care which andy just get me don't care which andy one of you's producer one of you's director you're both called andy get me an axe oh yeah i saw you translate a poem from japanese it looked so tricky but you did it with ease i saw you judging long jump at the athletics i fell so low because it's born i'm just pathetic i'm always seeing you do cool stuff i try my best but it's never This is from Natalie. Hello. Which tasks from other series, or just singular tasks, do you wish you could have done,

and which are you glad you didn't have to do? I think in terms of... I'm not sure that there's ever a task that's been on the show that i've thought if only yeah based on my general competence level i'm not sure that there's a task that i i thought oh yeah i'd have absolutely nailed that. I wouldn't have minded trying to impress the mayor. Yeah. I think that would have been... Do you know what you would have done? Yeah, but I fear that I would have done something

that just got completely nude immediately. I was going to say that's probably what you would have done. I think I would have done something like that. But I think that was... I think I'd have liked to have a crack at that just because I think it's very fun. The task that I'm glad that I didn't do is... I think it's the very first task in the very first episode

where it's the watermelon task. Yes, yeah. And the reason I'm glad that I didn't do that is because when I watched it and Romesh picked the watermelon up and just smashed it on the floor, I thought

that's exactly what I would have done. And then he was sick of the floor. That's why I'm glad I didn't do that task. Well, that's how you eat all your food, isn't it? Smashes it on the floor. It's a nightmare with soup. Absolute nightmare. My kitchen's covered

in carbon garden, let me tell you. Oh, show off. This is from Fiona in New Zealand. Dear Ed and Nish, please explain your thinking process for a task. Do you rush in and go with first instincts? Do you make a plan? Even with answering the question, Nish has rushed in with first instincts.

You don't make a plan. You don't try a few options. You go for funny over winning. That's an interesting thing, isn't it? Whether you go for funny over winning. But you think your first instincts, Nish? Yeah, I was always, the worst thing you could do in these situations

is overthink them. And obviously the tasks that I did well on were the ones where I was forced by the strictures of the show to take a second over it. So I mean, with writing the song, you had to take a second over it so i mean with writing the song you had to take a bit of time over it with the um the thing where i the flick book where i ate the cat that was another one where it was like the by net by the very nature of it you know they're going to make

those like stop motion animation things yeah you have to take a second to think about and they give you they give you 20 minutes or they give you 20 minutes or they give you an hour to prepare it it's within the task so you have to then go and sit in the dressing room or sit down and really think about it they leave you alone to come up with it that definitely helped me because i think when i wasn't encouraged to do that i did just do the first thing i think i'm i think i thought about them a little bit more, maybe. But obviously there are tasks where it's literally like, you've got to do this, go. And then you've just got to go with your first instincts.

And in terms of funny overwinning, I think naturally, if I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it well, I would do it in the most chaotic, ridiculous way possible and try and, it's like, well, I'm not going to get points. Let's get some laughs. One of the things that you're told quite early on is like don't think too much about being funny i mean this is possibly a bit inside baseball but like in the like briefing chat that you have with alex like

before the series starts he does say like we've sort of designed this that you just doing the task yeah is going to be funny and so don't think too much about um being funny within the context of the task i was always trying to entertain myself so like i basically decided quite early on that i was going to refer to horn as horny yeah i'm basically going to say that as soon as i walked into the room because i thought well that'll be that'll be funny and entertaining and i was always trying to be like fun with alex but in terms of the actual tasks i think a lot of it i was just trying to play them out and the problem is that sometimes things that look like you were trying to do them as a joke people go you must have been trying to be funny. And you go, yeah, tell me about it. I was.

In your back of your mind, you go, nope. I just got stuck on an idea and I became obsessed with kicking the basketball. Nish, thank you so much for coming on the Taskmaster podcast. Oh, I should also say that we had an email from Cam. I jokingly suggested that you could send pictures of Greg and Alex kissing to our email address. And he has indeed sent a drawing of Greg and Alex kissing that I will tweet out at some point.

It is fiercely erotic. As always, we're going to ask you now to rate your experience on the Taskmaster podcast one to five points. Five points. Yes. Nish, thank you so much for coming onto the taskmaster podcast bye mate goodbye well there we are another fun episode of the taskmaster podcast thanks again to nish for being a brilliant guest and thanks for all the exciting behind the scenes revelations from alex of course alex will be back next week with another BFF uh and we will have another

special guest who I will tell you about momentarily uh but we should probably just say the series points now it's quite exciting it's very tight I know it's I know it's only been two episodes right but you can already see that they're kind of on a par with each other I don't know what that par is but they're on a par with each other. I don't know what that par is, but they're on a par with each other. I think in some series it's been obvious even after two that there's some people who are better than others. I'm thinking specifically actually of series eight where Lou was clearly a bit of a winner from the outset.

But I can tell you that it's much closer than that in this series Richard is in the lead with 31 points Daisy very close behind with 29 points and then Johnny's got 25 Catherine has also got 25 and Mawaan's got 24 so it really is all to play for it's pretty gripping we'll be keeping an eye on that we'll be getting people's predictions as the series goes through, but I've got a feeling it's going to be an exciting one. Now, obviously, we will be back next week with another special guest.

Again, I'm going to tell you who the special guest is in a moment once I've done some classic outro admin. Please send your questions in for the show. It's taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com's taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com if you love taskmaster and you can't get enough of it make sure you check out the youtube channel what you call yourself a taskmaster fan you've not been on the youtube channel youtube.com forward slash taskmaster yes there are outtakes the show's recordings go on for hours there is so much funny stuff they

can't get into the main broadcast at 9 p.m on channel 4 so the youtube channel has those outtakes youtube.com forward slash taskmaster a very rude one from episode one uh the egg task where people were in tears of laughter and it really fills in a lot of those little gaps where you think, why are they weeping so much? What's happened immediately before that that's been cut out? The YouTube channel is where you need to go to check that out. Also, about time we started buying some Christmas gifts. For all your Christmas gift needs, go to taskmasterstore.com. There's some great merch there, including some masks.

Very modern, very cutting edge very now some mask masters go get them but just leaves me to announce next week's special guest who will be series nine alumni joe brand so excited to have joe brand on the taskmaster podcast i sat next to her in the studio what a treat she is and I'm very excited to have her on chatting about her time on Taskmaster. The art of not caring. She is an artist of not caring about Taskmaster. She simultaneously threw herself into it and also kept a hilarious distance from caring about any of it. So I can't wait to ask her about all of that her favorite tasks all of that sort of thing and also of course we'll be going through episode 3 of Taskmaster series 10 so to get your questions into Joe Brand please email us

taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com that's taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com and we will see you next week the episode will be out straight after the main broadcast. Check out the show 9pm Channel 4 and straight after that, hit up the potty, baby. But for now, thank you very much. Goodbye! We'll see you next time. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.