Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 21. Ben Bailey Smith AKA Doc Brown - S2 Ep.3

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

On the podcast this week Ed is joined by comedian, actor, writer and musician, Ben Bailey Smith. Ben was of course on Series 2 of Taskmaster as Doc Brown. In this episode Ben talks Ed through all of the emotions that he felt making the show and in particular the brilliant Impress the Mayor task. Ben reveals how Alex talked him in to being on the show and the disappointment that his finest moment never made the cut. To find out more about Ben's new book and all his latest projects visit https://www.docbrown.co.uk/ 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. Yes, you should know what this is by now. The TV show Taskmaster.

It's a fun show where Greg Davis, the Taskmaster, sets tasks for five comedians, or in this case, four comedians and a producer, and his Taskmaster's assistant helps out with all the tasks. That's Alex Horne, but he's secretly the genius behind it. If you didn't know those basic things, then you shouldn't be here. Go away, educate yourself on watch the episodes and then come back and listen this I'll be honest if you've not seen Taskmaster before you don't know what it is this podcast is going to be absolutely baffling because here we chat to people who've

been on the show people who are fans of the show about specific episodes specific tasks we chat through the scoring all of that sort of stuff but look guys sometimes that doesn't happen sometimes we just have a lovely chat about taskmaster memories uh sometimes we end up talking about something completely different it sometimes spins off like life guys you can't predict life what you can predict is that if you email taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com you will be able to send us a question we will read those emails and we will perhaps pitch your question to our guest uh i'll be telling you next week's guest uh in the outro to this podcast so listen to the podcast enjoy the podcast and we'll see you afterwards this week's guest is with the brilliant ben bailey smith aka

doc brown i will be calling him ben during the episode because that's his name uh doc brown is his stage name yes that's how he was known on taskmaster but it's the same man uh so we will see you afterwards uh after a lovely chat with ben bailey smith welcome ben to the taskmaster podcast thanks very much for coming on ah when was the last time i saw you ed i'm trying to like in real life i don't mean like zoom life not that i've seen you on zoom but would it would it would have been like it would have been circuit days maybe definitely circuit days it would have been at some sort of gig but a nice gig i reckon i reckon like off the creeks up the creek sundays that kind of yeah it almost certainly it almost certainly would have been an up the creek sunday gig or like greenwich comedy festival or something

like that a nice gig where no one's going to be mean to you that's that's where you that's where you would have found me most of the time toward towards the end you know you know when you get deeper into circuit and you get off of those gigs and now you're making a bit of money and you get offered those gigs and you're just like, you're about to say yes, then you're just like, no, fuck no.

No. That gig's always horrible. I'm not doing that. When you get into a position where you can do nice stuff, that's all I do now still. Just nice stuff and podcasts. And you see all the comics

that you realised when you were younger had you see all the comics that you realize when you were younger had the similar frame of mind to you they just want to be able to do their comedy in an in a wholesome nice warm environment like where where even if they struggle it's gonna be okay do you mean and to the up the creek reference we should probably tell our listeners like up the creek this club in in Greenwich in South East London, it had like a weekend, as a lot of the bigger clubs did, of comedy laid out Friday, Saturday. Did they do Thursday? I'm not sure.

But Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday and Saturday for sure, yeah. And, you know, if you were sort of doing your thing as a young comic and holding your own in lots of different types of situations up the creek would call you know because friday and saturday they're amazing gigs but they're fucking tough yeah and then bizarrely on the sunday they would like stick a little chair and a lamp on stage and and all of a sudden you could like tell stories you could get into like abstract anecdotes

but friday and saturday it was like if you don't bring your a game there's a stag do that's going to make you want to slit your wrists do you mean yeah like it was coming from kent and they were all there to shout at someone and when it went well that was pretty amazing that gig um yeah yeah of course it was kind of better than the Sunday gig in the way that you felt, I defeated them. Like, I did it. Yeah, exactly. Occasionally, one of the rowdy people from the Friday or Saturdays

would end up in a Sunday crowd for some reason. Yes. And start trying to shout at you. And then everyone around them would be like, please be quiet, we're trying to listen to what this man's putting across here. He's got some angles that we're very interested in. they would be so baffled he's just referenced naomi klein we want to hear more we all we all did those gigs ben so we did we could eventually get to the point where we were invited to do nice things like Taskmaster, which you did very early, Series 2.

We're talking Series 2, Episode 3 today specifically, Ben. Can you remember being offered Taskmaster? Were you aware of the show before it was offered, or was it a new thing going into it? No, I didn't know anything about it. I mean, people who know me closely will know, like I don't do panel shows or quiz shows, not because I think that I'm above them, they they put the fear of God in me like I you know me like we gig

together for years like my my style was never as like you know whip smart as those guys that can just like come up with a a response you know that Paul Merton thing of just like bang like yeah I'm gonna say something on national tv in response to this it's gonna be hilarious I always felt like I I'm not built for those quiz shows I need time to sit with people and say this is what I'm about I used to do this now I do that it's part of my story you know I just thought no I'm just gonna do my stand-up and if there's an acting thing that comes about great and that was my rule so withmaster, it was one of the few jobs that it didn't come through an agent or anything like that. It came through Alex.

I don't know if you remember, but in our circuit days, I used to gig with the horn section a lot, his band. And I'm good mates with a couple of boys in the band, you know, colleagues and drinking buddies. And Alex just called me direct and he said, I've got this idea. It's almost like a Japanese type, you know, I don't think he used the word torture, but, you know, challenge, challenge type show. And I was like, bro, it's not really my jam.

And he was like, come and have a coffee. Come have a coffee. Let's just chat over. And of course, anyone who knows Alex Horne knows that he's one of the nicest, loveliest souls in comedy. So it is hard to say no to Alex Horne. And he broke it down and he said how much fun it would be

and all this improv stuff that I thought wasn't that, you know, that pressurized mock the week environment where it's like, yeah, say this line, say that line. Very much. He was like, be yourself. You know, that's what's going to be funny. And I said, you know, I do it as a favor to you. So I did it for Alex. I did it for Alex. And I had for alex and um i had no idea how badly he duped me and if i could find him today i would wring his neck it was one of the worst experiences of of my life from start to finish um i've been sent a bunch of stuff by your producer like to watch the episode and read stuff about how do you even open it i don't i never want to be reminded of this show but i

thought i'd come on your podcast because it might be interesting to get that angle do you mean somebody i am aware i am aware that you've not you've not watched it back uh you don't want to be reminded of it but i am going to remind you about this episode in particular in punishing detail today ben great fantastic what are your so what are your abiding memories you say it is a terrible experience was there was there any particular moments that yeah absolutely i mean i i when when when your team told me what episode it was i i obviously didn't remember because i'd like wiped it from my brain but um when they said one of the tasks which was to impress the mayor oh yeah like my skin cruel because i i remember that day like it was yesterday like it was horrendous the the thing that really annoys

me about it thinking back was that i had a great idea and I just couldn't put it into motion because of um what what would you call it compliance you know on tv you know you got to be careful with certain things right my my original idea to impress please tell please tell us I thought you weren't gonna you weren't gonna tell us the idea no no no no we want to hear it so it sounded like an excuse but I'm sure everybody who's listening to the podcast has watched the episode what ended up happening is i i ended up singing a tony bennett uh song to the mayor which was a desperate last second decision um and i'll tell you for why because the original idea i had was i was going to go out we were don't worry we were in like one of those places this the last stop on the metropolitan line in l. Was it Amersham?

Amersham. Anyone who knows London knows that the last stop on the Metropolitan Line isn't even in London. It's like Mordor. It's just this other world. Anyway, so we're out there in the sticks, and we're filming in an office block in a town centre. So we get the task.

And I know a lot of people probably think taskmaster's fake or whatever you don't know shit you don't know anything they just throw you in there so you get the task and like oh great this is this is and the i was looking out the window trying to come up with inspiration and i saw like loads of kids going to like you know the town center mall type thing hanging out and stuff on the streets all the little uh wannabe road men and all of that out in the sticks and i thought you know what would be great i'll go and get like three or four of the roughest looking boys i can find right the roughest looking ones like hoods up man bag nike nike uh tns do you mean Nike TNs Do you know what I mean? Like smoking dirt weed

Outside a mall Get four of those guys I like the man bag The man bag The rough uniform Be like a little LSE man bag Anyway Get four of those boys

Get them to pull the hoods tight Mask up And run in to the mares off like just like all guns blazing like they're gonna they're just gonna do this mayor like he's gonna get he's just gonna get moved to right and then i like appear from the kitchen and like take them down you know and save the mayor like for from these hoodlums that was my original plan and the producers like you know you know you can't really involve yeah you know it could go could go to itself so that's amazing i i suddenly you know you know the feeling that i have when i

think about the episode is like remember when you're in drama class in secondary school and they go i'll go into little groups and come up with a performance and you go into your little group and you've got those three kids you don't really have a relationship with and then the teacher's like right let's go everyone sit down in the audience here we go like ben's group you know that feeling yeah that feeling there that's what i had where it was like okay cool five minutes let's get going. I was like, fuck, no. So I love that your plan B was singing a Tony Bennett song from that original plan A as well.

There's never been a bigger drop off of quality. The shift there, I thought, was quite impressive and also a good example of my my psyche and like where i am in life like i just just such i could so easily flip between the the world of of like we we'd smoke in 15 year olds mugging a mugging a mare to to singing a 50 staple by an 85 year old jazz jazz legend do you mean like it's pretty impressive as well that they turned it down, that the producers said, you can't do that, because it's rare that they do that.

And for something to be so edgy that they had to go, we can't do that, that mayor might actually shit himself. I think it was a couple of things. It was the level of chaos that I wanted. Yeah. And the fact that it involved a lot of, you know, people who weren't involved in the production.

So I'm making a TV show promise. So I've got, I've got a minute to make a decision. And I went for what I always do in like a drunk karaoke, a sing Tony Bennett. So that, that was a lot of people won't see like what the machinations were behind it, but that's what it was.

And I've never felt more embarrassed or traumatised in a performance setting, I think, in my life than that. I know I go from rags to riches If you would only say you care And though my pocket may be empty I'd

be a millionaire Do you have any nice memories? Do you have any favourite tasks? Was there one or two that you thought i did a good job at that it came off well i've enjoyed this evening i've not really i don't i don't remember doing anything well oh actually i do and the horrible irony of this is another one behind production that people never would have seen we went to a park and there was a skimming challenge.

And I was like, I can fucking skim. I've been skimming since I was like five, six years old. Like in Cornwall, you know, like I can skim in rough water, still water, you know, small waves, big waves. Like I'm a skimmer. Sparkling water. You know, you get that effervescence, just brushes it up a little bit,

gives you an extra bounce. You might get a seven instead of a six. And they're asking me to skim, I think it was like chocolate digestives, on a completely still pond. And I was like, this is my task. This is my task. I'm going to nail this.

And of course I did, but it didn't make the cut i didn't use it i guess it was a bit of a boring one do you mean so frustrating so like i do remember enjoying that task but other than that every time i went in it was packed full of dread and and and the whole series really made me re-evaluate how i feel about you know the apprentice or bake off or you know joe lysett so and b or anything like that you know when your people do something you're like you fucking idiot why are you doing that yeah yeah idiot look at this guy he's got like two brain cells but what you don't realize is unless until you get in that position where

the pressure's on and you start thinking about millions of people watching you it's mad how quickly your brain just like turns to jelly and you just like there was an episode where we had to get stuff across a river and i was like throwing shit like in a shopping trolley got the shopping trolley in the water there was a mess and there was a bridge i didn't even see the bridge we had emails about that i didn't even see the fucking bridge that's how asking you asking you about the trolley task uh where you didn't notice the bridges uh that you could have walked over um francesca says it's it's her favorite task of all time and it still makes her cry with laughter so you're still bringing joy you're still bringing all that

joy ben yeah i mean you know what, Ed? Actually, that is the thing, now that I think about it, that I got joy from Taskmaster. Because aside from rolling a joint for the Inbetweeners and the song that I made about making a cup of tea, I'd say various tasks on Taskmaster is like the number three thing that I'm stopped for on the street yeah every day I do like that like people appreciate what what how shit I was you know

I mean and then like I think I was probably quite real on it like I just I don't remember like performing or being self-conscious really I was very what you saw in there was definitely Ben do you mean it was definitely just me it's very it's very difficult i think trying to put up any facade yeah i actually don't think you're bad at the task though ben because there there's loads of highlights i think every episode you have a you have a pretty impressive moment the nursery rhyme fish rap where you punch the fish oh yeah i mean i guess that was maybe something no one else would have done on the show so maybe i'm proud of that yeah why not what's up kids you know a lot of these nursery rhymes chat pure gibberish fantasy this one's got some real talk for you yeah hashtag

true story yo it goes one two to the three four five, five. Once I caught a fish alive, I said six, seven to the eight, nine, ten. Then I let that little prick go again. You say, what if you let it go? Motherfucker bit my finger, bro. Which finger did it bite? This little finger on my right. Bam! We come to the prize task, Ben.

The category on this one was best dinner guest. Do you remember who you brought in for this? Because it's one of the rare prize tasks where you have to bring in a person. I think I brought in my DJ at the time who was opening for my tour shows. The last skeptic. The last skeptic. Yeah, he used to have a little rave before and after my tour shows, you know, play some hip hop and have a good time.

And he's someone who is, you know, intrinsically linked to comedy as well. So I was able to sort of bounce off of him on my tour shows. intrinsically linked to comedy as well. So I was able to sort of bounce off of him on my tour shows. He's actually the younger brother of Tienan Duyeb, who's another colleague of ours from Circuit Days. What a talented family. I think this was a great choice of dinner guest, Ben. I think you did a good job here because, you know,

he's clearly got stories. Yes. He's out there. He's doing stuff. He's interesting. He's in an interesting, I think you did a good job here. Because, you know, he's clearly got stories. Yes. He's out there. He's doing stuff. He's interesting. He's in an interesting... I think compared to some of the other... I'll remind you of what the other dinner guests were.

John tried to bring in Greg Davis to try and suck up to him, basically, which immediately for me is nought points. Yeah, it's a complete fail. That did get one point. So he's obviously saw right through him. Richard Osman brought in a great dane that's cool because richard osman is kind of i see him as like the great dane of humans yeah he definitely is he definitely is that i mean i watched the episode

back i can now picture uh picture the great dane he is basically a great dane isn't he sat there on a laptop next to Alexander Armstrong. I love it. But I don't want a Great Dane at a dinner party. That got two points deservedly. They stink and they slobber. No, thank you. I do enough of that.

You got three points. And I think he said the last sceptic looked like a criminal, so he didn't want to have a dinner party. Yeah. He must have known they were just back behind the curtain waiting. Not a nice thing to hear uh katherine ryan brought in her own sister uh i mean you can't you can't argue with that she seems like a fun lady i believe katherine described her as having no filter which is pretty good in a situation her and the last skeptic got on very well behind uh behind the scenes there's a lot they? Yeah. Oh, I'm glad to hear it. That's nice.

I hope the great day didn't get in the way. Some people went unhappy. Joe Wilkinson brought in Henry, who is Britain's sixth strongest man. Basically, everything Joe did just cracked me up, but that didn't surprise me because everything Joe's ever done has cracked me up but that didn't surprise me because everything joe's ever done has cracked me up like i remember being you know a green young comic uh in the um what did they used to call it the thing where you live with three other comics in the first year at edinburgh

and you do 15 minutes each comedy reserve the comedy reserve that's the one yeah so i'm there like trying to work out how to do stand-up um and i think on one of my days off i went and watched um uh two episodes of mash which is yes his show with diane morgan yeah with diane morgan and i just never seen anything like it like that the the sort of the chemistry they had and just how weird they both were but they both I mean I've been a fan of each of them ever since but yeah he just had this thing where anything he did behind that beard just made me chuckle and that's never changed so one other like positive i remember from from taskmaster was just watching joe do his thing you know yeah i mean he he i think uh arguably had

a worse time than you in terms of points and and things like that uh we had him on the podcast two weeks ago um and he was talking about the infamous potato throw where he was disqualified. It was controversial, wasn't it? Very controversial. Most controversial, I'd say, because he was sent out the room to let you guys decide on whether he should get the points or not, and you and John both turned against him. That's right, yeah.

Is that something that you regret now? There's only so far funny gets you, do you know what I mean? Don't get me wrong, I find the guy funny but when it when it when it gets down to like raw competition and you're just desperate for points yeah absolutely you turn yourself my daughter said to me what what would your tactics be in the hunger games today she said that to me today she said would you go all right kill everybody or would you like alley up would you pal up and i was like i'd alley up definitely like i'd alley up and she was like and then what would happen when it gets down to the

last two and i'll just be like you know what it's me and you it's me and you i just blow the dude away and she's like but what if you had a little girl like katniss has and i was like all right let's just end this conversation now because it's getting too deep but heavy joe was like yeah he was like the hunger games ally in in that situation he had to be taken up but it was sneakier than that you weren't you weren't just face to face with him you you you shot him when he was out of the room when he came back in you blamed it on osman very possible it's true i've seen it joe i gave your fellow contestants the opportunity to save you and they were unable to conclusively do that.

Therefore, on this occasion, I'm going to have to say that your attempt was null and void. I apologize. You did our best, mate. That is harsh. That's harsh. You did our best. This is fucking harsh. I'm just saying. It's harsh. let's come to the first task which we've already discussed in detail we're going to run through what everyone else did though uh impress this mayor you have 20 minutes now i'm going to say

ben i completely agree with you i've done taskmaster and all of the ones i hated were the ones where you were put on the spot like that. And you were forced to come up with something creative because creativity is our job, right? So under that pressure, there's even more pressure because people are expecting it to be good. Absolutely. But don't you think it's a weird thing, though, being a comic? Because we are all expected to be quick on the draw and really funny all the time and it is a skill that every single one of us has even the most heavily written comics i i believe that you can't write a joke even if it's a rehearsed a million times and repeated 100 times

a day you can't do that without having funny bones you just can't do it it'd be a castle built on sand that that said i think those of us who aren't ross noble do you mean those of us who aren't like you know known for improvisation it it it can be our biggest fear to be put on the spot despite the fact that we know deep down we can be funny in any situation but the key thing is the situation right if we feel a couple of uh huge psychological negatives like number one there's 14 million people watching number two i don't know like it's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

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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 learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth, or we can demand more from ourselves 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 write the future what's going to be put in front of me and number three is win or lose there's a competitive element to this and i'm a very competitive person but i like to not have the tools to not have the preparation to

compete that makes me feel anxious i think the mayor was a hard audience member i think he wasn't giving away a lot he was sort of doing a little wry smile for most most of the stuff i think that puts you that puts you on the spot more absolutely in 2016 i got invited to go and host a bafta event in uh in los angeles and and and you know it was like a a-list front row like samuel l jackson jennifer lawrence tom hanks uh jody foster and i was obviously nervous about that but i i thought when it comes to it as long as i'm doing my thing i'll i'll be fine it's an audience just like any other it's not just like those guys there'll be a room full of people but because there were so many a-list people there was so much compliance and legal stuff so every other day while i was working over there, prepping for this gig, I'd have to go to this office and perform what I'd written so far

for my opening monologue or other bits that I might want to pepper into the bits in between awards. I'd have to perform them to a couple of guys in an office. And it was as horrible as that sounds. And it is really similar to that mayor thing you've got these guys who sat there who their remit is like let me just find what

doesn't work basically yeah they're not they're not going let's let's laugh along to give them a good gig in this office they're just listening to the word horrendous and then and then you got out there on the night and the mayor was sat in the front row as well. Awful. But you didn't do the worst in this task, Ben. Really? No, you did not do the worst in this task. The mayor gave you seven out of ten. That's a sympathy vote, surely.

Or he fancied it. No, I think he liked Tony Bennett and I think you threw yourself into the performance. I definitely did that yeah for sure um uh joe uh of course famously uh ran out of the office uh and this wasn't filmed he literally ran away from the camera crew and came back with 42 calipos and eight cans of strong lard lager oh yeah uh and the mayor didn't seem to i don't think the mayor was that impressed by that he gave that a seven out of 10, he gave the same as he gave you, so

not only did you not come bottom, you drew with Joe it was John who came bottom you definitely made more effort you know, Joe did what Joe does and bought 42 kiloposters classic Wilkinson

John got bottom, John got 5 out of 10 and bought 42 kilopos classic Wilkinson John got bottom, John got 5 out of 10 from the mayor he panicked, he really panicked way more than you showed the mayor a picture of a pistachio eclair that he hadn't even made

he just had a picture of a pistachio eclair on his phone and he thought maybe the bear will be impressed by patisserie then he made the noise of a dolphin and then he ends up singing desperado by the eagles jesus it's really bad because he also talks up the fact he's not going to sing he doesn't want to sing it'll be awful if he sings and then and then he sings which makes it so much more demeaning the fact that he's talked about not singing for ages and he actually he refused to watch it back he left the studio well i'm not surprised i'm not surprised i know exactly how he feels i i would joe presumably unless he claimed expenses back

from taskmaster production presumably had to declare 47 calipos to his accountant at the end of that quarter as a legitimate business expense i'd imagine that's the tip of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to joe's business expenses yeah i bet his accountant didn't bat an eyelid when 42 calipos came in um catherine and rich Richard both got 8 out of 10. Catherine, very impressive, made him a cup of tea and then performed a rap. See, look, Catherine did a rap. You could have written a rap about the mayor.

I don't remember that either. I guess I just wiped that day from my memory in terms of what else happened. I just remember those two events for me and both of them being soul-destroying. Richard wrote a poem about the mayor, so Richard's version of rap. And he did it whilst juggling.

I love how much you still have disdain for anyone doing anything that's half good on this, don't you? No, I just have so much bitterness and resentment around that day. And I just remember thinking, this isn't worth the money. I just do not want to sing you a song. I just feel like if I sing and dance in here, I have to live with myself and my wife has to live with me. That is true. And that is in jeopardy if I sing and dance in here, I have to live with myself.

And my wife has to live with me. That is true. And that is in jeopardy if I sing. If I Google impressive things. Holy shit. This hasn't gone how I hoped, Peter. I'm not going to lie to you. Now you can leave the mayor task now in your past forever now, Ben.

Great. It's gone. it's gone it's gone sleep easy tonight but unfortunately we may let's see if we can dig up some more horrific things for you sure you can task two make the most unexpected silhouette on this screen you have 30 minutes i can't remember what i made but i remember shit. All right, let's move on to the task three. Now, I'm going to back you up on this, because I think unexpected was too ambiguous a word. But apparently what they wanted was something where you look at it

before it's projected onto the screen, and you can't work out what it's going to be. Yeah, exactly. So you used a saw, a skull, a blood splatter shape, it's projected onto the screen uh and you never work out what it's going to be yeah okay exactly so you used a saw a skull a blood splatter shape and obviously as soon as everyone saw that from behind said oh it's going to look like a deer with his head cut off and you called it why it had a title it was a piece of a piece of art and i think it looked great when it was projected but did it yeah i thought it was unexpected in the no one would expect you to do that but from what from when looking at the things obviously you knew what it was going to be again

as i back you as as somebody who in school didn't concentrate on anything outside of drama and english i think i probably took that in a very like drama English student type of way, you know, like unexpected. So the scene that you create needs to be like a tale of the unexpected. Do you know what I mean? Thinking back, that's probably what I did. But yeah, it was unexpected for me. I think if they'd shown the projection first and then said,

did you expect Ben to do that? I would say no. I didn't expect ben to do that i would say no i didn't i didn't expect that sort of that horrific scene to unfold uh whereas joe for example had a big uh a big like smiley face like a big rave face but you looked at the elements of that and you knew exactly what it was going to be but for some reason he got away with it well he's quirky in it you get away with a lot if you're quirky do you mean no one can really see your expressions because your entire face is covered in hair you get you get away with all sorts of shit i like that this started off with you saying i love all of them they're such great people and now it's like fuck joe wilkinson

fuck john richardson um richard uh used a bin a bin lid a bowl and a statuette and called it Wilkinson. Fuck John Richardson. Richard used a bin lid, a bowl and a statuette and called it Moon Truth. Catherine had a big Lion King outtakes, she called it. This was actually my favourite. She created a whole scene. Didn't go down very well with Greg. Did you

find yourself appealing to Greg to try and get points? Were you ever trying to work out what he liked? My memory is that i got a little riled because i'm competitive my memory is that i was probably quite standoffish with greg like a lot of people come up to me in the street and say um uh do you eat eggs these days i never know what they mean and they say because you're not an egg man you remember you were like you're like you're not this man you're not that man to Greg the whole time and I do actually I remember like Greg saying things like oh what do you think about this and me just kind the school of the school of comedy improvisation will tell you like yes and like if someone's

throwing something at you you just go you agree and then you throw something on top of it and you share the funny do you mean but i think there was definitely a stage in shooting that series where greg would be like why didn't you do this why you do that and be like oh fuck off i don't know it's fucking i don't care um john uh in this task used a red balloon a mannequin and blue tack and he called it the lost balloon um he did like a little art film about a child losing a balloon i did not like it no i didn't like it ben pretentious um it was pretentious but he he didn't believe it i don't believe that john wants to make that sort of thing so i think he was trying to appeal to some artistic part in greg's brain and it worked he he got the he got the five points

unbelievably that is that's ridiculous richard osmond with the four points joe wilkinson with the three points two points for katherine ryan and unfortunately why by doc brown received one point there was subtext behind that title i'll tell you that much why because alex took you for a coffee and asked task three here is 20 pounds by a gift for the taskmaster you have 20 weeks do you do you remember do you remember this uh this decision i have no recollection whatsoever what i bought for greg but i do remember um like asking because i never knew greg on the circuit you know i'd seen his shows and stuff um but i didn't know him like that like most comics you know i would have had a beer with at least once or twice if i didn't know them better so i'd know like a couple of things

about i didn't know anything about greg so it like a couple of things but I didn't know anything about Greg so it was a case of asking comics who knew him or like googling and stuff and I can't remember where I got the information from but I found out something about where he was from or something so I like I remember bought him something personal related yeah it was uh it was a cricket bat and a helmet uh because him and his sister used to play a game called Mad Helmet Murderer where one of them used to bash the other on the head with a cricket bat whilst they were wearing a helmet. That's the one.

That's a good present. You pitched it perfectly. You did research which is way more than a lot of other people did and you appealed to his love of family and his nostalgia and memories of his family. I think it was very, very well pitched indeed.

Did I lose again? What happened? You got three points, even worse than losing, just right down the middle. It's too nice to say it's shit, but it's also too nice to be actually funny or interesting. No, I don't think that's true because also richard osmond won money on the darts with the 20 pounds and then donated it to a charity and got a woman who worked for the charity to record a message thanking greg

that's sickening it is sickening and i can't believe greg fell for it i in my memory he'd given that nought points just to make it just to make a sort of wild point. There's two Great Danes together, isn't there? It's the two Great Danes. They like to smell each other's balls. It's the two big slobbery Great Danes. So it was five points for the charity donation.

Catherine Ryan with an excellent gift which was a square foot of land that makes Greg Davis now Lord Greg Davis. That's pretty cool. I think that appeals to his ego perfectly. And if he'd put the charity thing below that, I think that would have told us too much about the man.

And he is a nice man, really. That's very true. John Richardson got the one point uh because he bought him uh a cookbook and 701 penny sweets how the fuck did i not beat john richardson over the course of the whole series it sounds like he's just like shit at everything it's not a strong app for john to be yeah that's not good uh and joe wilkinskinson bought him a pair of antique water skis so there you go Joe's one of the only

Taskmaster contestants I can't see the thought process in anything he's done yeah but that's Joe you know that is Joe in a nutshell

very true very true he should be a murderer he should try and do like high end crime because you just see the police procedural trying to get inside his head

it's the massive wall of photos and strings on pins for some reason trying to connect Joe Wilkinson to the crime he'd be a good Sherlock baddie wouldn't he he'd be like a proper nemesis for Sherlock completely unreadable but then turns up back at the crime scene

with a bag full of Calippos. The team task. I'd be interested to hear what you thought of the team task do you have any recollection from the team tasks that uh days no was that where we we did we get together or did they bring old contestants back or i remember bring them bringing other contestants in so you were you were in a team with it's so funny how little of this you remember by the way it's really it's really making me laugh is it a case of wiping it or do you just not remember stuff uh no I remember all the good shit from my career absolutely and my love life friendships nights out remember remember a lot man

well you were on a team uh with Catherine and Joe right and in this task, one of you had to put on a blindfold, one of you had to put earplugs in, and one of you couldn't read anything out loud. And one of you was in a bandstand and you had to work out how to get a potato from one person to the bandstand. But you all could only either hear or see. Yeah, I remember this.

Anyway, you got naught points so um richard richard and john were on a team but on this occasion they had josh widdicombe come back from series one to be on a team with them yes to bolster up the numbers which i think is i found a little bit unfair perhaps because he won the first series so you know he'd been to this rodeo before so they had a champ they had a champ and they nailed

it pretty quickly they did it it wasn't that far off they did it in 4 minutes 59 and you guys did it in 5 minutes 49 so it wasn't bad not bad but I'm sure it was just another task that ended with me screaming up at the heavens, let's skim some stones, motherfucker!

We'll see where we stand! Show me! Show me! Is that a potato? That looks like an onion! An onion? Shit. All right, hold on. The studio task.

This is the final task in the episode. Right. You had to throw rabbits into a hat. The person with the most rabbits in their hat after 100 seconds wins. The belts must stay tied around the wrists. How did you find these studio tasks? Do you have...

They're always quite sort of frenetic and quite full-on and quite competitive. Yeah, I mean, again, you would never have seen me at my best. I would have fought, you know, to have the added pressure. I mean, it's just like all the other tasks, right? I found them hard, but like the added pressure of a live studio audience. Yeah, I have no idea what happened, but I'm sure it wasn't good.

Well, actually, you did pretty well on this one. got 12 rabbits which is the same as Joe the problem is Catherine got 15 rabbits and you won't you won't know this Ben but this was a hugely controversial task within the show because um in the uh in the reading of the task they say it's a point per rabbit right but then everyone assumed that the person with the most rabbits would then just get five points in the series. But what they did was it was a series point per rabbit, which wasn't properly explained to them. That's fucking bullshit.

Catherine then got 15 more series points, which basically took her into the lead and won her the show. I know for a fact that John Richardson and Richard Osman are still livid about that to this day and cornered the production staff after. They're still lodging appeals. Whenever they see them, it'll come up. They're screaming at people in green rooms.

John Richardson absolutely losing his mind. You seem less bothered by it. Listen, everything I've done in my career is like a little piece of me and where I am now. And as much as I hated almost every minute of doing it, it's easy for me to look back now and laugh and appreciate the sort of positive effect it had on either my fans or people who'd never heard of me before. Like I, like I say, it's,

it's, it's probably the number three thing people stop me on the street and talk about. So I, like I actually respect it and I listen, I love Alex to death. So it's just, um,

it's just one of those things that for me, I, yeah, I can look, I can look back and laugh We've had some emails a lot of them we've covered to be fair it was Simon in Bathsea asked do you ever get public abuse for going against Joe

in the potato throw task, does that ever come up with people? I never get that. And that, that never happens. Um, I, you know what I feel like in terms of trying to judge over the years, um,

what, like where the energy is coming from for people who stopped me in the street and ask stuff about taskmaster, I would say it seems overwhelmingly sympathetic. I feel like a lot of the people who watch that, when they watched me failing, they thought of themselves. They just thought, oh, shit, that would be me. So I can't say I've ever got anything negative.

It's mainly people going, Bruv, why didn't you see that bridge? I just felt for you so much. So it's always lovely. I have to say it's always lovely i have to say it's always lovely oh that's good i'm lucky like that really it is it's a nice fan base as well uh we had an email from carrie in brighton uh who says can you perform the william tell overture just using your hands and cheeks how long did it take you to think of this task for john it's very similar to the tony bennett thing if someone just goes like do something now quickly you know make these kids make these kids smile it will be

the william tell overture on my cheeks it will be juggling or it will be singing rags to riches like those are like my go-to like party tricks and you so you can to answer carrie's question you can do the william tell overture on oh yeah absolutely i i've been doing it since i was i don't know seven or eight years old i don't know why and i can't remember where i got it from yeah absolutely there you go absolutely love it what i love about that is you didn't stop at the first basic bit you did the whole thing yeah absolutely finally you found the bridge. Thank you. So Ben, I always get the guests on the Taskmaster podcast to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points. Now, we're not going to ask you to rate your experience

on Taskmaster in general, just specifically this podcast. Have I in some way redeemed what happened to you on Taskmaster? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is a five out of five experience for me. And i think it's something that i should have done a long time ago it's i look at it a lot like i look at therapy you know when i was in therapy i thought why wasn't i doing this in my 20s this is fucking brilliant like just just talk it out all the

things you feel anxious about unsure about or things that are out of control in your life just talk about it and then the other person goes that's fine man you're gonna be fine you know i'm glad to do that with task master and how many years has it been uh five years so this one is i've been harboring that resentment for five years so it's important that we've had this conversation i won't be paying you but i do appreciate it. Also, it's just too specific to take to a therapist, some of this stuff.

It is, it is very. What does this picture make you think? Just a big picture of Greg Davis in a throne. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, Ben. It's a pleasure. Is he all right? Is he all right? That's all I've got. I mean, it was so nice nice to see ben it was lovely to have a chat with him but i feel like taskmaster may have affected him negatively and in quite a

few ways but it's i'll be honest that episode made me laugh so much i had such a nice time catching up with ben um we have not had anyone so far who said they didn't enjoy themselves on taskmaster and it's just good to have both sides of the coin um joe wilkinson i'd say the side of the coin he didn't he didn't express uh any love or any hatred for the process he just waffled on and that's what you want from joe wilkinson but what you want apparently from ben bailey smith is genuine mental torture. That mayor task in particular appears to have scarred him for life. So apologies, Ben.

He's deleted the rest of his memories about Taskmaster, but he can't shift that one. That is like a bloodstain that he is desperately scrubbing away at on the carpet, and it's never going to go anywhere. So sorry. But great news for you. Ben Bailey Smith has written a new book. He is a prolific author, and he has written a new book he is a prolific author and he has written a new book which is being published by Bloomsbury

it's called Something I Said it's out on the 10th of June and I'm just reading a little synopsis of it now and it looks really fun why don't you go and get it it's called Something I Said it's out on the 10th of June don't forget to keep emailing the Taskmaster podcast

taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com with your questions. And next week's guest is Kerry Godleman. Kerry Godleman from Series 7, of course. Not from Series 2, but we like to get some other opinions from previous contestants and competitors. Series 7 and also one episode in series nine which we might talk about uh so it'd be lovely to have a chat with kerry uh she is uh not normally slow to give

an opinion so uh hopefully she absolutely lays the smack down on some of these fools in series two uh so email your questions for kerry taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com keep watching the episodes on all four hit up the Taskmaster YouTube Loads of fun content still coming out on there There was a compilation released recently Called Pain and Puke Which I've not watched yet but I can't wait We will see you next week for another Taskmaster podcast

Until then, stay fresh Desperado Why don't you come to your senses Desperado Why don't you come to your senses You've been out riding fences For so long now And you're a hard one I know that you've got your reasons

These things that are pleasing you can hurt you sometime still less impressed than the photo of an eclair oh god oh god oh god okay oh god Oh, God. Oh, God. 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.