Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 35. Dave Gorman - S3 Ep.2

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

On this week's podcast Ed is joined by the brilliant Dave Gorman. Dave appeared in Series 3 of Taskmaster and he finally gets a chance to defend the alleged cheating! Ed and Dave dig deep in to episode 2 of series 3 and reflect on some of Dave's ultimate TM highlights.Get tickets to Ed's Touredgamble.co.ukPre order Bring me the head of the Taskmaster https://taskmasterstore.com/products/bring-me-the-head-of-the-taskmasterWatch all of the Taskmaster on All 4https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterGet 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    Taskmaster the podcast is produced by Daisy Knight for AvalonTelevision Ltd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. Yes, Taskmaster is not currently going out on television, but we are talking about Series 3 because we've been delving back into the old episodes. And today we will be chatting Series 3, Episode 2 with Dave Gorman. Dave Gorman was, of course, on Series 3, Episode 2, with Dave Gorman. Dave Gorman was, of course, on Series 3. Dave Gorman is, of course, a brilliant comedian.

And we can't wait to hear what he has to say about this episode and about Series 3 in general. Yes, don't worry. I will be calling him out for being a dirty, rotten cheat. So stay tuned and wait for that. Why not watch along with us go and watch this episode you probably have watched it already i think you know the drill by now go away watch an episode come back here listen to us talk about it send us an email taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com uh email with questions for our future guests uh general questions about the series anything you

want really thoughts drawings poems etc we will read them will we read them all out probably not especially the poems thing that's quite weird so we're going to chat today before we do i'm going on tour and i'm going to mention it now so strap in for that february next year i start my tour. Go on edgamble.co.uk for tickets. I'm going literally all over the place, up and down the UK. Do come and see me. I'd love to see you all there. Also, if you like Taskmaster stuff and books,

you should pre-order the Bring Me the Head of the Taskmaster book. You can get a signed edition on pre-order if you go to taskmasterstore.com. It is shipping in September, but get in there early. Get your book ordered. It's a very exciting thing, right? There's tasks in there. You're competing against everyone else who's reading the book, and you've got to try and find the taskmaster's head first.

It's genuinely exciting. I might try. I might join in. So be be aware that's who you've got up against you a true champion the big the big chump of the best chump i know that's not true please don't email in now let's talk to dave gorman about series three episode two welcome dave gorman to the Taskmaster podcast. Hello. Thank you very much.

It's very nice to be here. Well, thank you very much for coming on. It's very exciting to have you here to chat about Series 3, Episode 2, which you were in, of course, famously. I was. I wouldn't say famously, but I was in it. I have to say, Series 3, I think we've established now that Taskmaster is 10 episodes.

And so I consider Series 3 to be an unfinished series and I'm waiting for them to come back to me for the future episodes and I can claim my title rightfully rather than have this imposter on the throne. Do you feel that, knowing what you know now, having seen much more taskmaster after your uh your half series um do you feel like you could uh sort of romp home in the final in the final five episodes and take the victory only in a world in which uh my rivals have not seen any

later taskmaster so if they've been kept in a protective bubble from that day to now, and I've had the experience of watching another, whatever, 10 series, then yes. But only under those circumstances would it be a romp. Did you enjoy your time doing the five episodes that you got to do, though? I loved every minute of it. It's the most joyful gig in the world. You just go and do things which are generally fun

and it sort of doesn't matter if you're good or bad at them. Yes. So the pressure's off. If you're bad at them, that's gonna be funny. you're bad at them that's going to be funny if you're good at them that'll be funny it's just a really safe space to work in i think now you say that dave but i suspect we're quite similar in that i think retrospectively when you look back at the tasks and you do a task badly you do that thing of going well it doesn't matter because at least it was funny when you're in the task doing it, it never occurs to me,

well, this will be funny because it's going badly. I'm always disappointed that it's not going well. I think you're quite similar. I always want to do everything well, but that's just true of everything in the world. I would like to be good at everything I try and do. But also, there's such abstract, weird things that you will never have to do again that being bad at it sort of

you go, oh well, do you know what? I'll never do that again. Well, I was never going to do it again anyway. It's not like any of the tasks are going to be, that's my new hobby. I'm sorted now. I've got a new pastime. So it's fine. Yeah, exactly.

The upside down portrait isn't going to take off in your life, is it? Yeah. Now, we've spoken to Alex about the original Edinburgh show. And he revealed on this podcast that he asked you to do the original Edinburgh show. But you were too busy because you couldn't go, you wanted to do it fully and go all in. And you couldn't commit the time to it. He was very complimentary.

He wasn't establishing some Gorman beef. Yeah, no, I'm a huge admirer. I would have, I'd always have loved to have taken part in it, but there is no point in doing it unless you go full throttle. Yes. And throw yourself in a hundred percent so quite if i can't do that i would say no yeah i mean and you certainly did that in the uh within the within the show we're going to talk about the cheating at some point dave because uh i'm not saying sorry the the cheat the cheating day well okay the alleged the alleged cheating.

Is that better? Alleged cheating, thank you. Yeah, that's fine. Because I don't want to, I'm not saying it's your Taskmaster legacy. I'd say it's part of your legacy. When people think about Dave Gorman on Taskmaster, they talk about the alleged cheating.

Yeah, that is definitely a thing that gets mentioned from time to time. I accept that. I'm not sure I accept that I was cheating. Well, of course, we'll do listener emails at the end. And of course, a lot of them were about that. But we've just... Okay, okay.

I was not defending myself because I'm clearly going to be hoist by my own head. Well, of course, this is the second episode of the series. The first episode of the series features P-Gate, which was you claiming that you had a P stuck in the racket, but what was alleged to have happened was that you went and got a new P and replaced it in the racket because you'd lost the original P and couldn't propel it onto the carpet. Now, I mean, we're a few years down the line now, Dave. Have you changed your story in any way? Is there any difference to your quota?

I would say, I mean, obviously, Greg is his own man and he can make his decision. And that's absolutely fine. I will always bow to the taskmaster's judgment. But it would not stand up in court. I'd be fine in a court of law. I would get away with that. I mean, many things about that case wouldn't stand up in a court of law.

I feel like the jury might go, this feels like a waste of time, really. Yeah. There's enough going on in the courts right now without clogging them up with some petty quibble. Now, going into it, Dave, I would have thought I would have had you pegged as a potential winner to the series and very good at Taskmaster because you're naturally very logical and you do go all into things and you approach things from quite a sort of thoughtful perspective in all of your work. Do you think that gave you an advantage in Taskmaster or do you think some of the tasks actually need you to not think whatsoever? There's a time pressure and you can definitely overthink and you can definitely underthink Taskmaster. So in this episode there were the balloons that if you'd thought about it, you'd have thought Morse code and been able to unravel it.

But if you just go hell for leather and teeth and nails, it's probably not the best tactic. But I think it was the first task we did. Obviously, they don't show them to the audience in the order in which you did them. So I think task one, day one, was the first task we did. Obviously, they don't show them to the audience in the order in which you did them. Yeah. So I think task one day one was the balloons. Wow. And, and I had not worked out my approach to taskmaster. And even there are lots of things like when I sort of realised that some people were going on with their phone in their pocket. I'd always turned my phone off and left it in the dressing room and went out to do the

tasks. Then sometimes it would have been really useful to have Google. It didn't occur to me that I was allowed to bring the rest of the world in my pocket with me. I was like, no, that's really frustrating. I know I would be better at some of them if I just had a phone with me. Amazing. I'm an idiot for not realising I could do that.

So there's lots of stuff I wish I'd thought more about. But there's definitely some room for instant just go for it. Like, Peagate, you have no idea how close my first throw came to being absolutely supreme. We're talking inches away from me throwing it once, walking away, P-Gate never existing, and that being a moment of sheer triumph. But then it got stuck in the racket, course so luckily yeah yeah yeah it was fine um i can't believe that but we'll get to the balloon task in a bit but of course no one got the morse code because if that's first task first day no one's looking for morse code are they they

just they want to get settled in they just want to get stuck into the first task that's clever to put that early on or stupid because maybe you maybe you really, in an ideal world, four idiots go at it like animals, and one person goes, dot, dot, dash, dash. Yeah, there you go. I think they were really relying on Al Murray to solve that, right? They really, they put Morse code there. Military historian. He'll be all right.

Surely he reads Morse code. He'll see this for what it is. Let's start with the prize task, of course. Yeah. Did you enjoy doing the prize task? Was that something that you felt that was to your strengths? They varied as you'd expect them to. Sometimes you hear the price task and you go, nailed on five points in the pocket.

No worries whatsoever. Most attractive relative, I've got it. No problem at all. I am related distantly to Cary Grant. So how could I possibly not get five points for that? Others, it's like, oh, just screwing with your mind. Yeah. With the heaviest item in a shoebox,

how big can I get a shoebox? Yeah, see, but that's what I'm talking about. That's the sort of logical thinking that I think we've come to expect from Dave Gorman. So when, you know, you're thinking, get a bigger shoe box, because I assumed they would send you a regulation shoe box,

but then everyone seemed to have different shoe boxes. Yeah, they didn't. They didn't do that. There's some also where, and, you know, it's not like I've just carried my grievances with me for all these years. But, for example, one of them was, I think,

I can't remember the exact phrasing, it might have been the most elaborate clock or something along those lines. Flamboyant clock, I believe it was. Flamboyant clock. And I had brought in a microwave and Al had brought in an oven. Yeah.

So essentially the same joke. Yeah. But you watch the end of that episode and you tell me if there's an oven on that stage. No, there is not. Wow. Good point, actually. Did Al really bring in the oven? I think not.

But your microwave came with you in the car and I believe I think Al might have got more points than you in that price task as well I think he might have got one more point and I think was that oven really there was it really on the line I have my doubts and don't worry about

carrying grievances with you for that long though this is what this podcast is all about you've finally got an outlet to talk about the about carrying grievances with you for that long. This is what this podcast is all about. You've finally got an outlet to talk about the taskmaster grievances. Yes, this was the heaviest item that can fit into a shoebox. And Alex, after he announces this, says it's quite a niche one. And I mean, he had no idea where it would end up going. This is one of the least niche prize tasks in history, I think, bearing in mind now the things that they have now.

It's very quantifiable. Yeah, exactly. I guess there's Sarah playing her mind games with a snake that no one is allowed to approach or weigh. Yeah, I love that. Gives a little bit of play for Greg to make a decision. But there is a purity to those tasks where it is just who did this first yeah who did this best and it's a measurable quantifiable thing and you can weigh

five shoe boxes and have an answer yes yeah yeah exactly there's a purity to those there was sort of no way anyone could beat you with this especially like so you brought the marble the the chunk of marble in from your garden and it was 27.3 kilograms and you were rightly proud of yourself for that because and you dug it up from your own garden which is the extra commitment that i think impresses greg well yeah it's um i mean that's a gift from the gods, isn't it? Yeah. I happen to be doing Taskmaster soon after digging up a huge lump of stone from a garden and they give me that task. I mean, the planets are aligning.

I suppose, was Owls like a Hitler biography or... Yeah, he tried to think... Something along those lines, which is heavy in a very real yeah but different sense again there is a bit of play for for greg to make a decision but yeah it was it that was a nice idea i think now on taskmaster that would just get eyes raised to heaven a bit like it's a bit too clever for its own good but when it was in the early stages that was thinking outside of the shoebox uh it was actually a pretty a pretty

good idea and it goes down very well but it still only gets the three points i still don't think you can deny the massive lump of marble it is yeah they've asked for a heavy thing in a shoebox you've brought in a very heavy thing in a shoebox but even then the fact that a book that is heavy in the metaphorical sense in the emotional sense, gets three points, means it has done better than two things that had some heft. Yeah. Well. Presumably.

The snake, I mean, the snake was a nice idea. I'm a big fan of when people bring in prizes that they clearly just want to have an argument about. Like they've gone, I'm not going to try and get points, but I'm going to see if we can just have a fun argument about that. I'm always very impressed by that. And the poisonous snake was a fun idea from Sarah. I don't know.

This is another episode where I just don't know what Paul's thinking. I mean, he does something iconic on every episode this series, but bringing in watermelon, that's obviously the first thought he's had is the heaviest thing you can imagine being in a shoebox is lots of watermelon it's not even the heaviest thing in the

greengrocers like a shoebox full of potatoes weighs more than a shoebox with a melon in it it's not it's a really watery light fruit. Yeah, you can pick up a whole watermelon, no problem.

I'm of an age where watermelons seem to be really exotic. Yes. And then in my adult life, you realise it's the cheapest ingredient in a supermarket fruit salad because it takes up a lot of space, doesn't weigh very much and it's cheap as anything and the idea that anyone would look at that and go, that's heavy

I know they're quite big but like 20 potatoes will weigh more than any watermelon Oh 100% and like a single watermelon is quite big and probably you know fairly heavy but you can't fit all of that in a shoe box so it was about three it was about three chunks of watermelon in that in that box and he was so so confident it's really hard to work out what he thinks that's going to achieve.

Yeah. It's really hard to imagine he can't think of anything heavier. Yeah. It's neither got the edge of Sarah's snake in a box, the sort of clever cleverness of Al's book. Yeah. Or weight. Yes. Just the weight, man. clever cleverness of Owl's book or weight or being just some weight man

it's just none of those things I don't know what he's I cannot work out we don't see afterwards him going oh this is why I brought this or this is why I thought this was heavy or a clever reason for it he just says it's melon isn't it

and then it's just sort of two points move on he's a remarkable human being absolutely so two points for the melon very lucky for Paul that Sarah brought in a poisonous snake that Alex wasn't allowed to weigh

slash an empty box with a sort of danger sign painted on it. Three points for Al Murray's Hitler book. Four points for Rob Beckett's Concrete, but absolutely trounced by your marble, Dave. Five big points to kick off the episode. Always exciting when that happens. Also, save me a trip to the dump.

Yeah, exactly. How many of your prizes did you do that with? Was that microwave even working? Sarah, what did you bring in? I have brought a poisonous snake. It's very heavy, so the lid is shut. OK. And it's very poisonous.

Have we weighed the snake? Well, no, I wasn't allowed to approach the box. I was told there needed to be a handler. So we don't... I mean. And it's very poisonous. Have we weighed the snake? Well, no, I wasn't allowed to approach the box. I was told there needed to be a handler. So we don't... I mean, I haven't weighed it. I think it's about... How much was the marble? A 27... I think this is about 32. Task one, surprise Alex when he emerges from his shed in one hour. Your time starts now.

This might be one of my favorite tasks ever in taskmaster yeah it's very visual it's very visual it's so open to interpretation um everyone's obviously going to end up doing something something different and it and everyone did something great i loved it yeah i think that the there's an image of rob and of al i think they're both sort of iconic taskmaster moments where you you just a picture of yeah rob in that chair with that wig and al with the gong totally yeah i think that's what the what this task is about really is creating an image right you've got to create something that as soon as alex comes out that shed he's just assaulted by by whatever's happening yeah although i i was trying to do it so it wasn't the immediate yes because i figured everyone would be very loud and visual and in his

face i i wanted my absence to be actually genuinely surprising to yes and it was you can see it on his you can see it on his face. So obviously he comes out and he does have that image of all of the crew in their boxes. But then there's an extra little surprise of where's Dave? Yeah. I did also think, and this is a weird... When you do the show, there's a gap, obviously,

between when you've done the tasks and when you're in the studio. And most of the time, when we would be in the studio and they'd tell you what the task was, we had forgotten how we as individuals had done. Yeah. Like, I wouldn't remember the details of what had gone on. And now, even more removed from it, my is is shot i it's like a surprise to me what i did yeah and as i was watching this one back uh and i knew al had the gong and that's

in the show before you see mine part of me oh money bags murray he was always throwing money at the problem he'd buy it he'd pay a cab driver to drive 400 miles he's just threw money at the problem they're sort of cheating and then i realized i'd given 200 quid to the crew to take that oh no i'd completely forgotten i'd done that it is amazing that within two episodes of this series the two uh the two sort of more seasoned comedians you know the the comedians who probably had a bit more success been going longer doing very well had just gone I'm just going to throw some money at the situation I think I I genuinely had forgotten that I had ever done that and now I think maybe that was the only time I threw money at it I don't know I think so because Al did it Al did it a lot so Al yeah money bags

Murray like you say he uh he was kind of that's his legacy of taskmaster is uh is chucking money at the situation um just yeah just i mean it's great and you jumping out before the button was pressed as well which is like that's the essence of horror you see you see the build-up to the scare and then before the scare that's when it happens just to really catch him off guard yeah i, I mean, obviously now, with the benefit of hindsight, what I'd really have liked is when he'd pressed the blue button, a little brown clown had popped up. That would have been the perfect surprise.

But only if I was filming mine after Paul had filmed his, and we would never know that. You never know what else has occurred and so on. I could have... I mean, that would have been... If I'm in a weird world, I had somehow had a brown clown pop up and I'd filmed mine before Paul's,

I would have made Paul's the most surprising thing in the world ever. Yeah, yeah. By being a callback to something that he couldn't have known let's talk about the uh paul's brown clown um it's the fact that he's seen the jack-in-the-box that presents the task and clearly gone i'll dress up as jack-in-the-box and that's and that's what he's done and it's taken less than five minutes to come up with it. And then apparently waited in the box for 45 minutes for Alex to come out of the shed.

And you know that's true? Yeah. Oh, of course. With another performer, how long were you in that box? About 45 minutes. They might be joking. Yes. With Paul, no, absolutely not.

And you know on the day that they were like are you if you're ready paul i guess we just get alex out now or don't get in the box yet paul because alex is only coming out in 45 minutes and he's gone no no it's all right and he's into that box and what's he thinking about in the box what's he doing in the box it's it's amazing he's putting himself through that i mean alex is putting himself through a weird sort of sensory deprivation for an hour in the shed as it is. Yeah. But to voluntarily then put yourself in even greater sensory deprivation

for 45 minutes is a piece of work. I mean, Sarah and Al both suggested initially kidnapping alex's kids which yeah is sort of terrifying that they both came up with that as an idea because it certainly didn't occur to me it didn't occur to you either did it dave no not in this nothing about it because only because of the time Only because of the time. If it had been come back in 24 hours and surprised Alex, then maybe I would have been thinking about his home life and what I could do.

But the hour, it was just not feasible. Sarah sort of is the only one who follows that violent tendency and decides to frame alex for murder um which is almost i think too high concept to realize in one in one image so alex comes out and sort of sees what's happened and he's sort of he's mild mildly surprised but then the story doesn't really reveal itself very quickly, does it? Yeah. I think the biggest problem with this as a task, I think, and I think maybe the thing I was trying to work around by making it a two-step surprise,

is that you're trying to surprise a man who knows he's going to be surprised. Yeah, of course, yeah. He's opening a shed door and people's going to be surprised. Yeah, of course. Yeah. He's opening a shed door. Yeah. And people are going to surprise him. Yeah. So that already diminishes the amount of surprise he could have.

It's like trying to surprise someone with a surprise birthday party on their birthday and they've been invited. It can't ever achieve true levels of surprise. My initial thought when this was on TV was that it's very difficult to surprise someone who knows they're going to be surprised. So why don't you just get everyone to leave? That's what, as in get rid of the whole crew,

set up a GoPro somewhere, try and clear out the whole house and just move everything out uh so when he comes out it's like all of taskmaster has moved to a different location or been cancelled um that would be joyous yeah i don't know uh i don't know how you'd show it yeah well i guess you just have to see everything being moved out into I mean it would involve getting a removals lorry there's a lot of stuff in that house it's probably not viable so we've talked about Rob's I mean what an image just he says he basically says he had baby brain that he'd not really slept in the last week because they just had a kid

and it's one of those clearly an image that was at the forefront of his brain for some reason i'd imagine he came up with it quite quickly where he's just like i'm gonna dress up as an old woman and spray him with a hose and it is absolutely phenomenal it is and i think um for me it's that it's just the hose that wins it yeah um because everyone else is visual and sound, and he alters Alex's very being. Yes, and loves doing it as well. Absolutely loves doing it. And the cackle is not part of the surprise.

That is just naturally what Rob does, but it really adds to the sinister look of the whole thing. Yeah, and even though it's so deeply embedded in Rob's being, it's surprising. Yeah, it really is. I mean, it shouldn't be, but it really is. And Al, of course, we talked to Al about this last week. I think this is probably Al's crowning moment, banging the gong in his pants and his hat

and tooting all those horns. It's the, yeah, it's the sound, it's the visual, it's everything. I mean, I don't think I've seen a gong in real life before. That's a surprise in itself. Not that big. No. Not a proper J. Arthur Rank kind of gong. You might have seen one about the size of a dinner plate

in a Chinese restaurant or something like that. Not a full-on gong. No. I think obviously the noise is surprising, but I think it's a combination of he's walking out of the shed. He knows he's going to be surprised. He's expecting people to be wearing silly clothes, doing something, you know, have created something. But it's like the essence of some magic tricks.

The size of the gong and the idea of it being brought in silently. Yeah, yeah. It's the size of the prop more than anything else, I think, that makes it so surprising because it's counterintuitive that it would have been possible to bring that there yeah yeah and not have heard or noticed or heard something there was a lot of talk about al having an advantage because he lives nearby and because he knows a gong man i think knowing the taskmaster crew if you'd said i want to go anyone had said i want a gong they would affect they would have found a gong right um? No, I don't think that's true.

Do you not? No. I think they might have tried, but you've got an hour. Yeah. And it's not necessarily, like, there were things, yeah, like go to the nearest supermarket and get me every packet of smash powdered potato. Yeah.

Please. And that will happen for you. of smash powdered potato, please. And that will happen for you. But I want the biggest gong you can get. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that's necessarily going to be sourced. I know. He would have been trying to get a gong into a task anywhere, right?

He probably had gong at the back of his mind before he started doing Taskmaster. He's like, where am I trying to get a gong into a task anywhere, right? He probably had a gong at the back of his mind. Before he started doing Taskmaster, he was like, where am I going to get this gong involved? And this was the perfect choice for the gong. Alex, you've been a bad boy. Thank you. You can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes.

Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous

cultures. Or we can 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 write the future task two is the first team task of the series uh release alex fastest wins your time starts now but of course you can't see that when you go in uh because it's in it's in uv pen written on the task i i mean I would have loved this one. This is the closest to an escape room that Taskmasters come, I think.

Yeah, and I like an escape room. I thought you might. Yeah, myself, my wife and another couple have done several escape rooms as a team for each other's birthdays over the years. Great. And we have established that the four of us are a shit-hot escape room team.

That's good. Our different skills weave in nicely. We've worked out we're a really good team. What's your speciality, do you think, Dave, within the escape room? Patterns. Nice. Spotting patterns, reading text and going, this is not about the text.

It's about every third word or whatever. Yeah, that's good. That's very important. Kind of code breaking some stuff. But the very first time we did an escape room when we finished the guy who was running the room was like you guys have obviously done a lot of escape rooms um proud moment we were lit we were so proud of ourselves and we've approached them all together very competitively ever since so yeah this this task is um very much my sort of thing yes i i am also in an escape room team uh

it's uh me my girlfriend uh and amy annette and rose matafayo uh and we are also a good team but when i think about it i don't think i bring anything to the team i book it i book it online i find them online and I book them and that's very much my strength is putting them all on my credit card and then asking people for the money afterwards that's what I do Remaining cheerful throughout? No awful awful presence in the room

Really? Quite angry if things aren't going well even though I've not contributed any of the victories Right okay But I do love them I do love them and I would have the thing is I like I would have I think Rob and Sarah attack it with quite a lot of enthusiasm and glee whereas you three you Al and Paul even when you discover something you discover it in the same tone as you had when you hadn't found anything out so you'd be

like oh yeah we got a key here. Yeah, okay, oh, that's written on there. Okay, yeah, let's do that. You're not like, you're not excited to be finding these things out. No, no, because you've got to move on to the next thing. Yeah. There's no room for celebrating.

You've seen the word shedding. You've got to get to the bloody shed, mate. So, are you like that when you do escape rooms as well? Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. There's no fun, but we love them. If we don't stop to enjoy it, that would be ruining it. You have a nice time, like a pint debrief afterwards and you chat about how well you've done.

But during the escape room, there's absolutely no joy in your voice or eyes whatsoever. Absolutely, that's it. I think the – I don't's it. I think the... I don't want it to be taken the wrong way, but we've already talked about Paul's eccentricities. Yeah. And the task, the team tasks,

there is always that weird issue where you've got a team of three and a team of two. And in some tasks, three is an advantage, and in some tasks three is an advantage and in some tasks two is an advantage and having less people and i i don't know whether having paul made alan me better or worse i don't i don't know well i mean i don't think you can say it made you better because i mean it's not for thank you for saying it it's yeah it's either the same or worse isn't it it's either the same or worse i i just think like if if i did an escape room with paul he'd be the person off just doing their own thing right he'd just be like oh i'm gonna go and see if i can

bash this off a wall rather than solve the code. Because he started picking a lock. He started trying to pick the lock, right? He said he could pick any lock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not that one. Not that one. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

It's sort of like, fine, you pick that lock. You're busy. Yeah, you stay over there. You entertain yourself over there and we'll work out how we're eventually going to open that lock. You're busy. You stay over there. You entertain yourself over there and we'll work out how we're eventually going to open that lock properly. Yeah. Just don't break it before we find the key.

Alex had the key in his hand all along. Do you think there was a way you could have just prized his hand open if you'd worked out that he was holding it? I think if we worked out he was holding it, that would have happened. Yeah. But I don't know.

There wasn't anything. My memory's fading. It wouldn't surprise me now if somewhere in the room it said Alex has the key in his hand. Yeah, well, that certainly wasn't revealed, so I suspect it... Yeah, it didn't say that. It obviously can't have been if they didn't reveal it.

Yeah, but that's very Taskmaster to just have a thing somewhere saying that. Yeah, the shortcut't say that. It obviously can't have been if they didn't reveal it. Yeah, but that's very Taskmaster to just have a thing somewhere saying that. Yeah, the shortcut is available to you if you look under this plant pot. But without that, I don't know that... I don't know that anyone would have been smart enough to second-guess that's a thing. And then you're just wasting time wrestling Alex.

Yeah. When you've got a route you should be taking i think he's always worth searching i think i searched him quite a lot on our series i think you know first first thing you do check his pockets frisk frisk alex again it's you know it's the advantage of uh more taskmaster under the bridge. Exactly. More information. Yeah. So, yeah, it was not saying that the extra 10 minutes was anything to do with Paul, but Rob and Sarah did it in 16 minutes 46 and got five points.

You guys did it in 27 minutes 37 and got nought, which I think is very, very harsh scoring. Yeah, very. Yeah. You know, it could be 4-1 or 3-2. and got nought, which I think is very, very harsh scoring. Yeah, very, yeah. You know, it could be 4-1 or 3-2. I think 3-2. There's quite a difference in the time. I think 4-1 is probably actually fairer.

It's quite a discrepancy. You know, you still did the task, so nought points seems particularly harsh, but there we go. At least you can let go of that grievance now, Dave. He's a capricious soul he can't learn about it really good so um paul you can um pick any lock any lock any lock did you successfully pick that lock didn't pick that one but task three create the best upside down self-portrait using only the materials supplied,

which are sauces and condiments, onto a brick wall. The taskmaster will judge the picture when it has been rotated 180 degrees. You have 20 minutes. Your time starts now. Personally, Dave, I hate the art tasks. They always fill me with absolute dread because I'm not very good at it. So I have to do them deliberately badly in the hope that it'll be funny enough to get a point uh how are you how are you at uh art stuff um it's definitely not my forte um but I'll I've got a five-year-old boy and he thinks I can really draw and he's in for a shock when he gets a bit older and realises what can actually be achieved.

Yeah. But that's my level. It's pleasing to a five-year-old. Yes. I think you just basically have to try and shield him for as long as possible from all other arts, don't you? Yeah. I think yours might have been the strongest here, though.

I think you were done dirty on the scoring. I think yours was the one that looked most like you which is key for a self portrait yeah I thought it was between me and Al Al got the five Al got the five

but you only got three I think yours yours looked like you Al's was probably the strongest piece of artwork, but I don't think it looked enough like him to be classed as a good self-portrait, is my opinion. I think there's a constituency of people who, when asked, if you just showed some proper comedy geeks those pictures

and said, which comedian is this a self-portrait of yeah i reckon i'd get all i'd score quite well yes the people going might be thinking it's alex but they might think it's me or whatever but i think i would be recognized by you would be yeah definitely i think so i mean so would rob though to, to be fair. He only got two points. Him and Paul got the joint bottom, got two points. Rob's would definitely be recognised, but it's mainly a teeth thing. But again, quite strong. Al's, very good effort.

Sarah's, I think, she benefits from having a different slant on it by doing the full length thing. I don't think she should necessarily deserve the four, but it did stand out. Yeah, yeah. No, I'd agree with you there. I wouldn't have been... I think I probably was expecting to get four or five

when I saw the others, but, you know, not so bad. Yeah, no, it's pretty good. Not such an injustice. So it was two points for Rob, two points for Paul, three points for you, Dave, four points for Sarah, and the big five for Al Murray. It's a four-task episode, a rare thing. This is the one we were talking about earlier.

Pop the balloons, fastest wins. Your time starts when you pop the balloons fastest wins your time starts when you pop the next balloon so as Alex and Greg say that as a task invites you to only pop the balloon when you're ready to go

when you've thought up a good idea but like you say first task of the show that you filmed you just tore straight into it yeah and it was probably only when i'm in the studio that i go oh oh yeah no if i collected all the balloons together in some way yeah before i popped the first one that way yeah um had you seen you you'd seen siri i mean i guess were they filming series two and three

at a similar sort of time so you wouldn't have seen series two yeah so we'd only seen series one at that point so you had seen series one so you knew sort of the general the general vibe um yeah so you should have spotted that really but i do get if it's the first task you're just so eager to get going that yeah i think uh i think if that had been in the middle of the series, it would have been handled very differently. Yeah. You know. I think there's also a sense of balloons are tricky

things, and there have been a few tasks where people do try and collect balloons together and then pop them and do stuff, and some of them don't pop and they bounce out and they cause you problems, and I think there is something to be said for go at it like a wild animal just keep going definitely and you you could definitely do better than some kind of wily coyote plan yeah no i think you i think you are right and you still got three points it's just rob took that slight you know a bit more

time to think about it and went and got implements to do it with so he essentially used the same method as you but he just thought about it for one more second and grabbed the corkscrews Al tried the clever way and it was an absolute disaster yeah that's the thing you can

overthink and he totally did and it was a joy to watch though him absolutely pounding those uh those balloons with that cricket bat and then quite a lot of them just flying away yeah and once it's going wrong yes so horrible when you if you have had one of those aha i know what i'll do yeah and then that doesn't work yes and you have to stick with it and you're reduced i'd rather go at it like a wild animal at the beginning yeah and be reduced to it because my cleverness failed totally that's yeah um i we had a balloon popping task on our series and i would

have done the same here i'm a i'm a. I've got needles in my bag. Just used my insulin pen to pop all of them. I think I would have won this one. You've got an advantage. Yeah, it's a superpower. So sadly, no one spotted the Morse code. Not even Al Murray. He spotted that it might

be Morse code but didn't think to look into it. Which, if anything anything for the production was probably more joyous than someone solving it was just someone going oh that looks like it could be morse code and then ignoring it completely um one point uh for al murray despite not completing the task this is another bad piece of scoring i think he should have got nought points because he didn't pop all the balloons um I'm surprised at Greg. Yes, so am I.

I slug off his scoring every episode and he doesn't like it. Sarah got two points. Three points for you, Dave. A rare four points for Paul. So excited for him. And five points for Rob. A genuinely impressive performance from Rob. What is the idea, Al?

To group the balloons together into a small amount together as possible and then commence popping them. One big pop. To try and get them all in one go to narrow the time down. But I can take as long as I like over-managing the time. So far I've taken no time over this, even though we're taking a long time over it. Yeah.

Trust me, this is the obvious way to do it. Rather than running around in a frenzied idiot panic. Now we come to the studio task, unravel a whole roll of sticky tape, put the unraveled sticky tape into your lunchbox and close the lunchbox fastest wins. I heard a really funny story about you with the studio task dave and how eager you were to win them um that on one of them um you took your before they told you had to go to the stage and you knew what the task was you'd taken your shoes off you took your shoes off just in case you needed to have your shoes off with the studio

task even though you didn't know what it was and I love I love that energy I'm all about that you know what I have no idea if it's true or not but I like it as well yeah it's great it's okay we're gonna go and do the studio task now well I'm gonna get shoes off wow I genuinely didn't know that but I'm um you probably didn't even realize you were doing it. I love it. No, subconscious. Did you enjoy doing them or did you find them stressful? I generally enjoyed them apart from the very last one because three of us could have won the series.

Right, yeah. At that moment in time um so i think we walked onto the stage for the final task rob was in the lead and al and i were in second and third and i don't know in which order yeah but if either of us had won the task we would have won the same right yeah yeah and it was a horrible horrible task it's one of us i hate it it was a horrible, horrible task. It's one of those, I hate it. It was a donut thing. Oh yes. The lowest unique number of donuts. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really tense. Yeah. And it's horrible and, um, just feels completely random and nothing you can do. It's not, there's no skill you can bring to it you're just trying to outthink people and i could see how many paul was putting on his thing

yeah so i knew one number i couldn't do that number i'd rather not known i'd rather i hated it hate that task um but also it's that thing of it being the last studio task where you've had such a lot of fun for all these episodes and then suddenly you're like oh no it's i thing of it being the last studio task where you've had such a lot of fun for all these episodes and then suddenly you're like oh no it's i think i care i think i care about winning but it's it's so silly the whole thing's so ridiculous what sort of idiot am i that i really want to win this absolutely and and i think had it been um have we been walking on the stage and we already knew i'm not in the running for this, there's nothing I can do about it, it's just fine.

Yeah. Absolutely fine. Had I been walking on the stage and it was a balance as many of these on a thing, task, a thing that takes skill and composure or something that you might actually be better at someone at doing, absolutely fine. No problem. I'll try my best but it's a task that you can't fucking do anything just thrown by the wind on that task and I hate that I hate that feeling of helplessness of not having agency in it myself I hate that so that's my least favorite of them all

but generally they're they're fun and the audience add an energy to it yeah definitely that was it was what was odd about seeing them in the last two series where there's been no audience of doing those uh doing those studio tasks uh to to silence essentially I mean they've all been very entertaining of course but it must just be such an odd atmosphere in the studio doing something so pointless and silly to crisp studio silence. Yeah. This was a fun studio task, though, I thought. I mean, everyone got themselves a bit tangled up.

Al, very good at it. Another four points for Paul. Turns out that's his skill, his unravelling tape and putting it in a lunchbox. Three points for you. Another solid performance. I did. It was a very, very apart from the the price task i basically went sailed through the middle yeah it's a good way of doing it it is a good way of doing it it's a very very good approach

to taskmaster if you get a lot of threes you'll be running at the end yeah totally um and two points for sarah and then rob uh fails the task and ends up with tape on his hand. I suspect that Rob knew that there was no way of him losing this episode and he just thought it would be funny to completely wrap his hand in tape. That's what I think. Yeah, I think that was his instinct there. Although he does seem quite annoyed by it and he is very competitive. I don't

think that's true. I think he was trying. Yeah, well then he was terrible. You do know that it's obviously episode by episode, but you also know there's an accumulative point scoring going on. Yes, of course. Yes. So I think he was trying. Yeah. Well, he won the episode, 21 points.

Al was second in the episode. You were third in the episode. Then Sarah, but that was all 18, 17, 16, very close. And then Paul, where he belongs for this episode, at the bottom, 13 points. He's, of course, bottom of the series so far. Your second bottom in the series, but it's so close between you and Sarah. Then Rob and Al's actually in the lead at this point with 39 points. um so dave we've got a few emails from uh listeners there's a note from my producer

here saying here are a few emails uh they were basically all about Dave's cheating. This, this one's from Andy Lord, were there any times that Dave cheated on a task and didn't get caught? It's a big question. Will you be honest? Yes, I will be honest. And yes. I'm not to go into the details Oh come on You've got to give us some details The sweating task

Yeah There's a bit of shenanigan there I can't You see I don't think of it as cheating That's the thing Somebody else might define it as cheating. Okay. And look, you don't think it's cheating, fine,

but someone else might think it's cheating. Just tell us what it was. There might have been a bit of saliva. Right, okay. But at no point was I called on it, and I can't remember how I scored on it, but I wasn't bottom. I think I got more than I would have got without it. But then I suppose if Al can claim that piss is sweat you can probably claim that saliva

is sweat if you were challenged on that. I don't think it would stand up in the same way actually. Right, okay. In actual fact I think neither of them should count. Yeah, okay, yeah. I think neither of them should count yeah okay but but anyway he's probably a bit more chemically accurate than mine

but yeah the thing is the recurring theme of this is my memory is shot so there was a task where we were on a running track and we had to get liquid from a bowl using like a sieve and a thing and there were holes in

everything, carry as much liquid as we could from A to B, whatever. And apparently I cheated at that task but I'd forgotten I'd cheated. And I watched the whole thing play out in the studio and thought, oh, I've done quite well here. And then they went, oh, one more thing. And they showed me dropping some water from my teacup into there or whatever it was. That was the moment in the studio that I found out I had cheated. That's how bad my memory is. So it's all a revelation to me. I'm beginning to think if you even met any other Dave Gormans whatsoever.

None of those people are called Dave Gorman that you met. Well, they were, but I'm not. It's a statement. Of course, yeah. Simon in Portsmouth says, please ask Dave if he usually cheats in games, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, et cetera. I imagine Christmas is being ruined by family arguments over Dave's cheating. Thanks.

No, I do not. I'm an absolute stickler for rules in games. Okay. And believe, I sort of, I don't think of Taskmaster as a game. That's the difference. Right, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but with a game, I'm an absolute stickler for the rules. This is a nice email. Not cheating based. This is from Joel Rawlings. There is a particular moment on Series 3, Episode 2 that made me laugh more than anything else

in any other series. It's not big or clever, but it's the noise the Taskmaster makes to describe Dave Gorman's upside-down condiment portrait, and it gets me every time. Do you remember that noise, Dave? We can play it in for you now. I don't remember that noise.

I'd very much like to hear it. So it was the look of your portrait, and it was the noise that Greg imagined that your portrait was making. Yes. Do you want to play it in, Daisy? I'm going to give third to Dave because that face gives me an element of joy because I think he's making this noise.

Boom! It's an amazing moment. So thanks, Joel Rawlings, for highlighting that. But his question is, is there one single moment that made you laugh more than anything else, Dave? Across the series, the... I mean, it's hard to look past Mike Wozniak's anal relapse. Yes.

I was absolutely in tears. Yeah, it was phenomenal. Watching that. In tears. Yeah, it was phenomenal. Watching that. And there is such joy in being alone in a living room, just you, properly laughing. Yeah.

It's normally a social activity, laughing. And to find yourself properly creased up just because of something on the television is an amazing thing to do to people yeah and yeah mike wozniak's anal relapse i loved um i think uh there's a moment in series one where they've all and it's such a weird little moment because it's not about the task it's not about um greg it's it's Frank Skinner's face. They've all been asked to make a film that works when you play it backwards, basically.

Yes, yeah, yeah. And Frank has done something that he's really proud of. And he's gone into it thinking, I've done this. I've nailed this. God, he nailed this. This is going to be great. And then it slowly dawns on him that what he's done is shit compared to everyone else.

And it's like the blood drains from his face. And it was the first moment of watching series one where I thought, these people really care about this. Yeah, totally. It's a magical moment for me in all Taskmaster because it shows people growing into caring and the competitive side coming out. And just the sense of Frank,

who's like such an amazing comic. One of the best. Just the wind falling out of him. he's just so deflated by that moment and i i love it it's a golden moment for him it's incredible i mean it's the essence of why it's so important that no one knows what the other people have done as well yeah because if you know where you sit within within the rankings then all of the surprise elements gone in the studio and all of the funds gone I think the the other thing I love the very first time so series one when they had a task that only one person had done yeah so it was it was Josh I think was it was Josh yeah beans or something like that yeah and the moment in the studio when that dawned on him yeah it had just been him

is a golden moment and even though there's been variations on that theme in different series it could never be better than that no of course yeah because in the same way that a man walking out of a shed expecting a surprise yeah can never be completely surprised when that happens in series 12 it can never be a hundred percent surprising yeah to the individual um that's why that i think it's been it's so good that they've held that back quite a lot like they've yes absolutely and the the way of television normally is find something that works and then just keep doing it as much as possible and they've actually been very, very restrained with it,

which is totally to their credit. Yeah. But it's, I, the, the sense of injustice in Josh's face. Yeah. When that is revealed is,

is a magical moment. It's perfect. Yeah. And I, and I think left me quite paranoid in a lot of my tasks yeah that's the true genius is this the one that's just for me and you're paranoid anyway doing taskmaster when you the first day you do it you're like what's a task what are we doing one now like it's just constant yeah it's like when when you do escape rooms you walk into the the office at the beginning and you're like is this part of it

is this going to be, are you an actor I'm just constantly on my guard Dave thank you so much for coming on the Taskmaster podcast, we always ask our guests to rate their experience between 1 and 5 points in the style of Taskmaster so have you enjoyed yourself on this

podcast and to what point level I have enjoyed myself between one and five points in the style of Taskmaster. So have you enjoyed yourself on this podcast and to what point level? I have enjoyed myself. I've enjoyed myself a great deal. And I think if there'd been a little less focus on cheating, it would have been a five. But because of this crazy obsession of yours yes some form of cheating i'm gonna bring it down to four four i'm happy with four yeah i mean i'd be i'd be not surprised to find out that this is just

a video of you i'm watching now and you pre-recorded this you've somehow cheated a podcast record no it's uh it's for you and i'm gonna give my other point to paul chowdhury oh good for him he's still bottom but uh good for him dave gorman thank you very much for coming on the taskmaster podcast my pleasure there we go thank you dave for coming into themaster podcast. We'll have to try and wrangle Dave on to a future episode as well because he's clearly a big fan of the show. So we can talk about some other series that he's not even in together as well. We will be back next week, of course, talking about 3-3, Series 3, Episode 3

with another wonderful special guest. Questions about that episode, questions about Taskmaster in general to taskmasterpodcasts at gmail.com. Buy tickets for my tour, edgamble.co.uk and pre-order the Taskmaster book, taskmasterstore.com. Check out the Taskmaster YouTube channel.

There's so much content out there for you to enjoy if you never want to stop thinking about Taskmaster and let's face it, why would you? We will see you again next week. Goodbye! Master. And let's face it, why would you? We will see you again next week. Goodbye.

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. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

See app for details.