Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 37. Paul Chowdhry – S3 Ep.4

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

On the podcast this week Ed is joined by Comedian and Star of series three of Taskmaster – Paul Chowdhry. This is Paul’s second time on the podcast and he gets to discuss the bouncy castle task, his shiny balls and why he didn’t send his clothes to New Zealand on a plane. Get tickets to Ed's Touredgamble.co.uk Pre order Bring me the head of the Taskmaster https://taskmasterstore.com/products/bring-me-the-head-of-the-taskmaster Watch all of the Taskmaster on All 4https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster 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    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. Gamble here. You know the routine by now. We are chatting about series three of Taskmaster, episode four. You know how this works. If you're watching along, you will have seen this episode recently. And I am now going to interview a special guest and we're going to break it down task by task. We're going to about it we're going to talk about what we liked what we didn't like who we think should have got more points who we think should have got less points it's basically match of the day for nerds uh very excited uh that today's special guest is paul chowdhury a returning guest

for the taskmaster podcast uh he was of course a contestant in series three uh he leaves behind him a legacy of idiocy uh is how i would describe what paul did on the show uh and very excited uh to dig down deeper into paul's uh train of thought while he was filming the show uh was he putting on an act was it a persona or is this the real paul chowdury? That's the question on everyone's lips. If you like Paul Chowdhury's work, there's plenty of it available. He's just started doing a podcast called The Pudcast, P-U-D-C-A-S-T. Do go and check that out.

It's an interview podcast. He's had loads of great special guests, including ex-Taskmaster contestant and my podcast buddy, James Acaster. So go and check that out but for now let's hear what Paul has to say about the Taskmaster years series 3 episode 4 here is Paul Chowdhury well I'm very very happy to welcome back to the Taskmaster podcast the star of Taskmaster series 3 and indeed the star of the motion picture Cruella it's Paul Chowdhury welcome back Paul. Ed I knew you

had to get the ratings back up so thanks for having me on again. I just uh Cruella's at the forefront of my mind I watched it I watched it the other night I was I was looking out for you because you said you were in it and it's quite near towards the end and what an impact cameo is from you no spoilers no spoilers but um if it wasn't for me where would disney be today where would cruella be today if it wasn't for me paul i feel like you could do all of your lines now and it wouldn't be a spoiler to the plot yeah well have well, have you got four and a half hours? Well, I've got bad news. They cut a lot of it.

You're joking. Paul, it's great to have you back on the Taskmaster podcast. Obviously, previously, you've been on to talk about an episode in Series 10, which you didn't feature in but now we get to chat to you uh about this series series three uh which you're very much very much part of a big character uh do people still still remember you from from this series i suppose you get a lot of quotes shouted at you i'd imagine that bastard's crying in it yes shouted at me all the time on Twitter have I been blacking up? they've not seen it no

it's weird because that was 2016 and we filmed episodes well season 2 and 3 at the same time mine was season 3 but at that point there'd only been one season so no one really knew what Taskmaster was in terms of a

show and it was time for me to introduce the world to what Taskmaster really is. Ah so you so you see yourself as really unlocking the true potential of Taskmaster like in the first two series no one had really worked out what it was and then as soon as you came along you just distilled the idea perfectly right? Well Sarah and the other contestants were taking it very seriously and trying to win this thinking yeah become multi-millionaires off the back of the prizes yeah i took it a very different direction yes i well you definitely took it a very different direction from winning it um i'd say almost the complete opposite direction uh losing it losing it losing it badly as well i mean fairly consistently

bottom i'd say but then occasionally i mean like we talked about episode three last week uh which is the episode that you won which you would seem genuinely happy with like i'm never sure with you paul when what angle you're coming from or uh where you're going to attack me from you're normally attacking me um uh or or whether you're joking or whether you're being serious or whether you're being sarcastic were you genuinely happy to win to win that episode yeah i was over the moon and as you say ed you can't take me seriously but i never joke the reason i got into this profession was i've always trying to be serious I'm a serious man I'm a very serious individual everything I say is serious but people think I'm joking

yeah constantly so I thought I might as well make some money out of this innit so is it is it infuriating then when you say all your serious things and people laugh well you might as well make some money out of it if that's what happens in life when you're trying to be serious it's like if you're banging everyone you might as well just charge money out of it. If that's what happens in life when you're trying to be serious, it's like if you're banging everyone, you might as well just charge for it. And is that something that you've done as well? May as well do. Right, may as well do. I might start charging.

Yeah, I think you should start charging. I think that would be a lovely extra revenue stream for you. If you charge for banging people, if you charge for banging people at the GAM, what would you charge? Me, personally? Oh, I think, no, I wouldn't feel right in charging. Maybe just expenses, travel expenses. You'd be giving refunds, isn't it?

Yeah, I'd probably hand... I mean, that's why I'd ask for travel expenses and perhaps, like, a hot meal. Compensation. Yeah. All that, yeah. hot meal compensation yeah all that yeah now your other your other uh contestants your contestant friends on on this series when you say friends these contestants let's keep it sorry colleagues uh your colleagues on this uh on this series. When you say friends, these are contestants. Let's keep it contestants. Sorry, colleagues. Your colleagues on this series. Going into the series,

were you worried about coming up against any of them? Did you have an eye on who you think might be your biggest competitor? Well, there were some heavy hitters on that show, man. Yeah. The pub landlord, Al Murray, Dave the Gorman,

Sarah Pasquale, Joe Pasquale's daughter. Yeah. And who was the other one? Rob Beckett. Rob the Bucket. Yeah, he was on it as well. So it was a heavy,

I thought, I'm a dead man walking now so you were going in up up against these people did you have any idea of what what to expect from them or indeed the show well um they're quite regular tv contestants on panel shows and talk shows and stuff whereas i'm more of a recluse I'm like the comedy version of Stanley Kubrick you rarely see me out in public you rarely see me on but you'll only see me

doing live stand up shows because I like to it's quality not quantity and Hollywood films of course and major Hollywood films with Emma Stone and that phone advert and that Sony phone advert. And that Sony phone advert. And

Devils with Patrick Dempsey. Just in the middle of filming season two. I'm a thespian and an actor. Yes. These kinds of shows are beneath me. However, to help out Greg and

what's the other guy? Alex Horne. Alex Horne. I said, I'll do you a favor, mate. Just pay me back one day. I'm waiting for that repayment. Did they not pay you money to do the show? It was really bad money.

It was really bad money. And now I heard the money's gone up because it's in Channel 4. Yeah. I brought it out the depths of depravity when no one watched it. The ratings were in the slums and said, we need Chowdhury on the show to save the show. And I was on it before, like, brown people were fashionable. Yes, of course, yeah.

I've been brown before. You guys have been accepting us and saying, Hey guys, let's get it. You know, like I was there since day one. And you've been brown that whole time. I've been brown all my life. Yeah.

I don't know if you know that. So let's talk about the prize task, Paul. The prize task for this episode is shiniest thing. I mean, let's, let's talk about yours straight away um you brought in a pair of uh shiny balls you said i brought in my shiny balls tell me straight away paul did you pick

these because you just wanted to say shiny balls yeah i did want to say shiny balls because they were shiny balls i think they've got them in my drawer here somewhere i would have got them out if you told me you were going to say this, and I would have got my balls out for you on camera. So this is my point. I think the only reason that you brought those in is because you wanted to make a joke about balls. And they were shiny. Yeah, they were shiny.

I mean, look, straight away, let's say you got the five points, but they were a pair of shiny Chinese medicine balls. But you have them in your house still, right? You still use shiny medicine balls. So it is something that you do. I wear them, yeah, I wear them. Oh, you wear them, I see. Because I always thought they were to move around in your hand

and sort of help with flexibility and help with that sort of thing. But you wear them, do you? Are we still talking about the Chinese balls? Yes. Yeah, because... When I say balls, I'm always talking about these Chinese balls yes yeah because when i say balls i'm always talking about these chinese medicine balls paul at no point do i wish to discuss your testicles me too but they're also shiny okay good and you know that ed so i don't know why you're pretending

you don't know my balls aren't shiny yes i know you do like to polish them so i thought watch but i thought it's the shiniest thing i had in my house at the time. Yeah. I don't think I have anything shinier and they're very shiny. Yes. Shiny as balls. When you move them around in your hand, it's more shiny than Chinese. That's why I won that task. Yeah.

I think you, you definitely, you won that task. Cause I think you just went straight down the line. You played it with a straight bat and you selected the shiniest thing. Whereas everyone else, I think, tried to think around it too much, tried to think outside the box a little bit. So Sarah brought in the single Shine by Take That.

I can see how that works on multiple levels. It's called Shine. It's on a CD, which in itself is shiny. What was your take on that selection, Paul? When you try and go avant-garde with the tasks and um tenuous links start occurring the task master um would question that yeah i thought why not go obvious route yeah sometimes it was best to go obvious route yeah let's get something shiny let's not piss about here.

Yeah. No point pissing about. Yeah. You know what I mean? So everyone's going, oh, let's try this and let's be. It doesn't necessarily have to be funny. Yes.

Yeah, no, I see what you mean. You've just got to do it and hope that the funny comes around it, right? The thing about Taskmaster is be yourself. Yeah. I think that's the most important thing. And it was the first show I'd done in probably my career that I was myself. And I've been found out now.

People thought this was a character I was putting on. Right. But I am actually a very disturbed individual. So I thought that was an interesting effort from sarah i think sometimes it's good to think outside the box i think she got the four points so i feel like that fitted quite well whereas al murray tried to think outside the box and bring in the torch for shiniest thing which yes i understand how that's clever and funny but you've got to make sure the torch is working paul it was a broken torch yeah al didn't

check it and also greg questioned him on if it's shiny or illuminative yeah but i guess you would show i think it's shiny because you it's just a different use of the word shine isn't it so you would shine a torch on something you can shine a light on something. You can, I feel like that would, if it had worked, I think that would have been three to four points. Three to four points. But people do say shine a torch on this. So it is a turn of phrase. Can you shine your torch on?

Shine your torch on this, yeah. Or shine a light. Shine a light, that sort of thing. Or shine your balls, yeah. Yeah, on your shiny balls, exactly. Well, if torch could have worked, you could have shined the torch on your balls and had a little disco.

Yeah, I should have had the balls ready for you here, but it was pointless on the podcast. It's all right, no, it's fine. We can imagine the balls. Dave Gorman went with, I mean, a very Dave Gorman prize to bring in. A high visibility cycling jacket with a light built into it.

And very, I mean, you can tell how much Dave wants to win this watching these prize tasks he's so earnest in the way he presents them and he looks nervous like he's just been sat backstage going i'm gonna here we go this is gonna be the one i'm gonna i'm gonna nail it i'm gonna present this prize and it was i thought it was pretty decent but you know maybe greg smelt the smelt the points desperation on him. It's very Dave Gorman, that. Yeah. You can imagine him being on a bike.

Yeah, he did a whole tour where he cycled to all the gigs, right? So, yeah, it's very in keeping. Dave goes all out, doesn't he? I don't know why he bothers with this shit. Just get a tour driver. Why are you cycling to gigs? Why is this bollocks that people are doing? This is white people comedy, isn't it?

What, the cycling thing? Yeah, all this shit. I concentrate on the gig. So Al Murray failed singularly there and got the one point. Rob Beckett went with the World Cup sticker album. He said there's many shiny stickers in it, but there's not enough. So there's only one, as far as I remember stickers, Paul, there's one shiny sticker per team um which isn't enough shiny if it was if he'd put all shinies in that album then that

might have been a good way of going and that might have been something a little bit different and that might have got the points and also football prizes never do well with greg because he hates football so it was only his football yeah and rob is a big football fan and a big sports fan so it was everything went with each other's personalities i think you know sarah with the music yeah everyone yeah and and myself yeah with the balls yeah which is why i want the task yeah exactly it just fitted so perfectly into your persona. Paul, what have you bought? I bought him my shiny balls. Because he did. I mean, what do you use them for? Just playing with them, innit?

OK. Now, Paul, tell me... I wouldn't normally ask a guest this, but I feel comfortable enough to ask you this. You got the five points there. Occasionally in the series i think greg is overscoring you now and again because he knows that the pre-recorded tasks are coming up and that you won't have amassed many points there and that it's impossible to score score you highly on those so i think he's giving you five here to just get you get you going at the beginning of the episode. Do you know what I mean?

I see what you're saying there. Yeah. And you're insinuating a fix, which is highly contentious and liable-less. Yeah. So I will have you know that my lawyers will be in touch with the Taskmaster podcast if you make such accusations in future. Well, I'm just looking at this episode as an example, Paul, and we'll come to all the tasks individually but so you got five for the prize

task um then uh you got one point for task one um uh and then you got um one point for task two uh and then uh you got you well you're in a team so you got three points uh for task three and then one point for the for the live task so you sort of scored as little as you could on the rest of them. So that just makes me think that Greg sort of imagined that was coming and decided to just give you five at the top just to make sure you didn't feel bad. I'm not sure because Greg I've known since he started stand-up and he knows I'm a very clever man.

But then this changed the perception of thinking I'm a clever man so people aren't sure whether I've played this on purposely like this or I'm playing up to the cameras yeah really like this I don't even know the answer to that no good okay cuz we got we obviously got loads of emails asking that but I need a trained psychologist and a doctor to work this kind of stuff out and if we can get to the bottom of it it would probably help my life let's move on to task one because we talked about we talked about this task last time you're on the podcast but we can we can get more chats in about it i'm sure spread your clothes as far and as wide

as possible at your own expense. You must discard four items of clothing you are currently wearing. Furthest and widest winds, you have 30 minutes. Your time starts now. So your first thought was to not leave the garden.

You dumped your shirt over the fence or the sock over the fence, put something in a tree, and then put a sock on a plane and just sort of threw it. They said, didn't they say throw your clothes as wide as possible? No, spread your clothes. Spread, spread, yeah, spread. And the term spread, I thought about the word spread.

And in terms of spreading, if I'm in my house and I want to spread my clothes everywhere i'll just chuck them everywhere and i played yes yes so you did it like you played at home i suppose the word spread as well if you're spreading something on a piece of toast you wouldn't put some butter in a cab and send it somewhere else would you exactly but in terms of taskmaster you've got to think about scale surely so it's far and as wide as possible at your own expense that's a big clue they're expecting people uh might spend money they might you know get on some transport they might order a cab did you not see that bit when you're reading out the task did you not take that into

account at my own expense yeah so my expense was throwing it as far as wide as possible. Right. At my expense. So it was like you expended energy as well, I suppose. Yeah. I could have got on a plane to New Zealand. In half an hour. Yeah, a bit of time difference because they're 12 hours behind us.

So I could have done that and I still would have done the task and then come back. Why didn't you do that? That would have been amazing. You have 30 minutes and then flown there and put the thing down and said that the time difference meant that you didn't do it at any time at all because they said my expense and I didn't want to spend a plane ticket to do that if they said at our expense I would have won that task but when you're saying my expense and finances are hard see those white people got money they've got big money they're doing big tv shows i'm getting paid like 20 pound an episode i didn't have those kinds of expenses

right so it was the expense thing that stopped you stopped you doing anything rather than you just panicked and threw your sock over a wall yeah when you use the word expense in a task you're done mate okay see that was that was the key thing um right well sarah did uh what she does on most of the tasks which is just start running as good as greg uh as greg surmised um she just she has the enthusiasm of a seven-year-old she just can't wait to run everywhere which is which is great to watch and she ran down the road now you could have done that paul that didn that, Paul. That didn't cost her anything. It didn't cost her anything, but how far did she get?

I didn't realise. I thought, my throws are pretty big. I used to play cricket, so... Well, she didn't do great. She only got the two points. She got 0.02 square miles. She threw something to a river, but then ended up running alongside it so the actual area that she covered wasn't massive but just compare that to you who got 0.001 square miles so she did she did do a fair amount better

than you well if the plane worked if they gave me a working plane that would have got a lot further yeah give me some bollocks plane that they bought from Maplin. You know, I would have some tandy shit. If I had some proper drone, I didn't realise that the expenses on Taskmaster were a £5 plane, they were remote-controlled planes. I would have bought a drone in and put the sock on it, and that would have gone miles on end.

But at that time, Taskmaster had £50 per episode as a as a budget yeah but you can't say if they'd had something then it would it would have been better you could just say well if they had a full working rocket launcher in the shed I could have done better yeah but at that point I didn't know if the plane would work until I took off yeah but the plane wasn't left there for that was it that was there for a different thing whatever it was there for it was used for this task because we could use it at my expense. So that could have been my plane. I lost a plane for this task.

But it wasn't your plane for. And of course a plane's not going to fly if you dump a sock on it. You're basically doubling the weight of the plane at that point. It's never going to start flying. Have you ever been on a plane before? Yeah. Have you ever put your socks in your suitcase and it goes

on the plane? Yeah, but also, Paul, Has it taken off? Has the plane taken off is my question. What I've never done is got a sock, a giant sock that is a ton and draped it over the tail of the jumbo jet. Which is essentially what you did. But it didn't have any internal luggage compartment in that plane if I know because it wasn't a passenger it wasn't a passenger plane

which is why I can't cope with you adding extra weight to it exactly it was a sock plane it wasn't a sock plane it was a sock plane when you put the sock on it but it didn't fly I think you're confusing this more than it needs to be confused the plane's intention was to fly to new zealand with my sock on it oh so that plane was going to new zealand well because in your mind that plane with your sock on it was going to go to new zealand yeah although it didn't have the drone but i would have just flown and flown until my time had run out and it would just keep on and i would have i would have beat el murray but the the bastard started getting

attacked he at his own expense the guy spent money on that task man he did i mean he spent he spent money on the show we call him everyone's been calling him moneybags murray um and also he was at an advantage because he lives nearby so he had local knowledge and access to facilities he hopped in his own car uh you know and there's you know you can't you can't come up against that even if you had a remote control plane that could fly to new zealand in half an hour paul there's no way you're gonna be if i put the plane with the sock on it on top of his car yes i mean that would have been great i mean if you know if you could have manipulated a situation where you got al murray to carry it but you film on different days so it would have been it would have been great. I mean, if you could have manipulated a situation where you got Al Murray to carry it, but you film on different days,

so it would have been tricky. But Al got the five points with his taxis. Sarah ran, as we say, two points. Now, Dave had a bit of a nightmare. This is classic Gorman overthinking. He cut his shirt in two, which did absolutely nothing. And he seemed to say that he could if he could

turn it into one item of clothing but spread across two points then that would give him a wider area but i think i think he panicked and overthought it what do you think paul dave thinks about everything too much and i think cutting a shirt in half was a complete waste of clothing yeah whereas my clothes came back yeah well it was very easy to get them back you could get them back in less than 10 seconds because you just sort of drop them on the floor you say that but a few of them went over the fence yeah that's we don't know where they landed we do i mean you said this on the show paul but we do know where they landed they were just on the other side of the fence weren't they yeah but there was no way of getting around to that other side of that fence unless you climbed over the fence because it was all private property so like if a

tree crashes in the woods or that's the phrase yeah do we hear it no it's a good I mean that is it's a good piece of pop philosophy I wouldn't say it's comparable to this situation at all because you you did i mean that's like saying if you're watching a tree fall in a forest and it falls down you did hear it and and you definitely could that's that's that's what happened with you you just threw a thing over yeah if you don't hear it doesn't make a noise yeah no i know that i studied philosophy i know the thing but i just don't think it's i don't think that's what happened in this situation i the phrase is not specifically not if paul chowdhury throws a sock over a fence does it ever land but you never saw

where it landed so how do you know where it landed i'd imagine someone went and got the sock back for you yeah it never was returned that is. That is not true, Paul. I know 100% that someone would have immediately just hopped over the fence and got that sock back for you. I chucked it hard, so it could have gone pretty far. Yeah, I know you keep saying this, but it's not true. Look, take the one point. It's been five years.

Rob also did very well. Got in a van, went to Richmond, threw a jumper out the window. Didn't seem bothered about... Al, for example, made some of the crew hold on to his clothing at the different points where he left it so he could get it back.

Rob just threw his trousers out the window and was just sat in a van with no trousers on. That's just Rob on a Saturday night. Yeah. He seemed remarkably comfortable with sitting in that van with no trousers on. Oh, I took my trousers off, chucked them out the window.

That's Rob for you, you know. Dave, you used some clothes mules. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I got a bus. Yeah. And then got off the bus leaving a sock. Yeah.

There, so that travelled. Yeah, lovely. All makes perfect sense. You got a round of applause when you got on a bus using public transport. Very impressive. None of this quite explains why you took a knife to one of your shirts. Now, bonus task, Paul. Have the most fun on this bouncy castle.

You have one hour. Your time starts now. You were the only person set this task? Yeah. When you saw this played back, Paul, did you feel betrayed? I felt very betrayed. I felt this was a fix and a humiliation process. And I was bouncing on this bastard for hours. What was I supposed to do? Blow up Bouncy Castle? No, you didn't blow up the Bouncy Castle, Paul. I think you would remember that.

Have the most fun on the Bouncy Castle. You have one hour. And you didn't look like you were having fun at any point. You had some footballs kicked at you and then you got in a sleeping bag and went to sleep yeah fun for me is sleeping right okay i see i see fun is sleep and i thought how can i have fun in this bouncy castle i'm out of here guys i'll see you later isn't fun isn't sleep the best thing about life it is pretty good. It's pretty good. I'm finding that more and more as I get older, Paul, as well,

that I do tend to go to bed a little bit earlier just so I can get a bit more sleep in. Even now I'm thinking I want to go to sleep. Well, that's normal for this podcast. Don't you worry. That's the absolutely standard reaction. What time do you go to bed, Paul? Oh, very late, actually, but I'm trying to get an early night. But I'm jet lagged at the moment because I've just come back from Rome

and Rome is one hour ahead. Yes, so the jet lag must be awful. It's really bad at the moment. It's going to take me at least six months to get used to it. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So, no, 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 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. Task two, Paul. Find out what this gentleman does for a living. You may ask him any question, but you must whisper at all times. The gentleman can only nod or shake his head. The gentleman can only lie.

Fastest wins, your time starts now. Good task, this. This is one of my favorites from this episode, I think. Absolutely love it. Firstly, huge shout out to Hugh, who was the man. I really liked him. I liked his vibe. I liked when he nodded.

He did some fun things with his eyes. He seems like a great chap. He was a good guy, that guy. Yeah. We thought he was related to one of the crew. Yes. One of the production staff. But he was a hard man to break, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, I don't think the aim was to break, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I don't think the aim was to break him. Oh, I think. Did you approach it like a sort of torture interrogation thing? Well, they had cling film around the wall.

It was like a serial killing situation. It does feel like that in there. But no, you certainly weren't. You shouldn't have been trying to break him, Paul. You should have just been asking him questions. I thought you started very well you got to doctor yeah and and then because they wanted a more specific doctor yeah yeah i think that threw you and you got quite angry yeah got very angry at that point because um doctor is doctor in it well doctor is doctor

but of course we know that doctors specialise in various things because if everyone sort of vaguely knew a little bit about everything, then you wouldn't feel comfortable in the doctor's hands. You want someone who is an expert in the area that they're dealing with, don't you think, Paul? Well, I'm with the NHS, so there's no specialists. Paul. It's just a doctor. I'm with the NHSs as well what a coincidence

what i thought you were private these days no i'm not i'm not private no no no no sir you're still nhs oh i'm still nhs baby so paul you uh you went through a lot of different options, yoga instructor, rent boy Dr. Dre and in the end you called him an aesthetic doctor tell me Paul, it's been six years can you say or five years, can you now

say anaesthetist I've been practicing it for six years and anaesthetist it didn't come to mind straight away and i can pronounce obviously quite clearly now in the anesthetist and um you know i learned that and i knew what an anesthetist this was afterwards yes but i mean look doctor you guessed aesthetic doctor which we all knew what what you meant by that yeah but they didn't give me the bastard, did they? They did.

No, I think they said that you guessed it. But the problem is you only got the one point anyway because it took you 42 minutes and seven seconds. We were there for a long time. A long 42 minutes with that guy. He wanted to anesthetise me by the end. Yeah. But I thought, you know what? They're giving him 50 quid for the day make it worthwhile

for him I thought he's going to enjoy himself Rob got the two points so he was the second slowest Paul and he did it in 10 minutes 5 seconds so you really did it four times as long um and rob guessed the

head of the nhs dr pepper all sorts of things and finally got to anaesthetist um we were having a good time me and the doctor you didn't look like you were having a good time you look quite sort of uh quite stressed by the whole thing i'll be honest it was stressful but enjoyable you know one of those enjoyable, stressful situations when you're trying to get... And also, we had a good chat. Did you have a good chat? He couldn't say anything, could he?

Exactly. Sarah got the three points. She got anaesthetist in eight minutes and 31 seconds. She did a good job. Dave was so sure he was going to win this one, I think. And I would have been sure as well because he got to it pretty quickly because he landed on the letter system

and was very lucky that Hugh's job began with A. So it didn't take him long to get to anaesthetist and he did it in four minutes, 21 seconds. Surely you've got to think you've won that but this is taskmaster you can never be sure of anything and al murray got it right in two minutes and eight seconds which was incredible i don't know how i mean al is uh al's a clever bastard isn't it he is is, he is a clever bastard and he claimed that Hugh had soft hands

and that's how he knew but I don't think that's true I think that was just him showboating but what do you think Paul? Because Al wasn't whispering for the first portion of the challenge and that was part of the task that he had to be whispering the whole time. Do you think he deserved the five points or should Greg have been harsher and disqualified him?

Well if the rule is whispering, the ruler's whispering. It's like you saying, as far as wide as possible. Yeah. The same thing should apply in that task as well. Yeah. Oh, so you're saying that if Al got the points, even though he didn't whisper, you should get the points for the clothes task

for not spreading them far and wide. Exactly. I did I did a show with Al Murray when we went up against each other yes was this the antiques road trip road trip antiques road trip and we had to buy some

and I had to really go all out because Al is a clever bastard and but he does break the rule sometimes not just on that task but he takes advantage of his financial status he shouts at people does he he's a bully bastard you know i mean he hits people oh wow i mean we get a lot of exclusives here on the taskmaster podcast but that's probably our biggest one that Al Murray shouted,

bullied and hit people on the Antiques Road Trip. He was... He's a nutcase. Did you work in a public sector job? The government? The council? NHS? Or was you a doctor? I'm not a doctor, Rob. That's me was I a doctor

are you mad did you help people you worked in a care home were you a driving instructor were you a doctor he's a doctor was I a doctor Paul oh for fuck's sake

you fucking bastard let's talk about task three Paul because it, for fuck's sake, you fucking bastard. Let's talk about task three, Paul, because it's a team task. Make the most special effect. You have one hour. Your time starts now. You, of course, were on a team with Al and Dave. Is that who you wanted to be on a team with, or would you have switched them if you could have done?

Maybe would have switched them, but I think it was quite a good collab with a green screen yeah this was good i thought i i really uh can you remember who came up with the idea initially were you involved in the formation of the idea yeah yeah yeah i was very involved with it and uh so we'll do some uses head as a football yeah football. Yeah, it's good. It's very funny. I liked it a lot. Kicked the head right up and the plane made another appearance there. It was high in the sky.

And you know why it was high in the sky? Because it didn't have a sock on it. So the sock came off by that point. The sock came off, yeah. I enjoyed it. I thought it was good. A good use of green screen. Fun idea.

Rob and Sarah made a film called Chasseurs with Rob winking and changing Sarah's shoes. This didn't even feel like a special effect to me. I think pausing the camera, switching shoes, and then starting filming again is not a special effect as far as I'm concerned. It was a strange one because a lot of this was down to the edit for production. So they did a lot of the work for us.

Yeah, yeah. So make the most of the green screen and the stuff and then they can maybe use bits. So I thought they could take more advantage of that. Yes, I mean, that's very true. The team behind Taskmaster are so good and they do a lot in the uh to help you look good and help your tasks come to fruition um and yeah you're probably right they rob and sarah went with a real in the room thing a more practical effect and you guys went with a bit more of a special effect which which was which was the task so i thought the balance of points was good and if anything rob's performance

in in their little film was so terrifying I don't think it deserved any points really it was malevolent, the winking was horrible It was like a French avant-garde art house film wasn't it an interesting take on Rob because that's what Rob's really like

Yeah he winks a lot doesn't he? He's a scary bastard in real life he comes in behind closed he? He's a scary bastard in real life. He comes in, Oh, what, mate? Behind closed doors. The guy's a killer. Some very interesting team dynamics straight away, I thought. Some very sensible suggestions from Dave and Al,

followed by Paul listing terrible films. Big Mama's House, there was three to choose from. I think you misunderstood the task, mate. Special effects, innit? Why are you saying Big Mama's House? Because the same actor played all of the characters. And Martin Lawrence isn't a woman. They're not the same people. It's not different.

It's different in all of them. We watched that together. We didn't have a clue, did we? No, we didn't. We thought it was all real. Yeah, it's all CG. It's very special. You need to watch more foreign films. Let's get to the live task. Wearing a blindfold, cover yourself with sticky notes. Sticky notes must be applied individually.

The person with the most sticky notes still sticking to their body after 100 seconds wins. Now, Paul, I thought... For some reason, I thought you were going to absolutely walk this and he still came last what happened man what happened with the sticky notes i'm not quite sure what happened with this task i think i've erased this one from my memory um what happened with the sticky notes that day i think they didn't stick to me did they well you got i mean you still got 29 so you you only lost you only came bottom by two. Al got 31.

But Rob just absolutely nailed it. He got 45 sticky notes. I think it was just you watch it back, and people are just taking their time, and you can't afford to take your time in that scenario. You just need to be like, unpeel, bang, unpeel, bang, unpeel, bang. You need to be constantly moving and constantly putting sticky notes on. I think you were just too chill, Paul.

A lot of mine fell off, though yeah that's that's the issue and I think it was depending on what clothing you were wearing yeah I think did you have denim on that day a denim shirt maybe yeah and it just kept on falling off so every time I put the stickers on it fell off and I think I had more and then when they did the count bits and they weren't counting the ones that I actually was fixed there because they should have counted before the end of the task because then they started counting, things were falling off me. Oh, yeah. So they should have taken a photo at 100 seconds rather than...

Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. So you should have won that. I should have won that. It's like the finishing line of a race. Yeah. You don't then see the guy another 100 meters down the road and say,

Oh, no, you didn't win this bit, but you were that bit. Where was I at that point? It's a very, it's a very, very good point from you. Unfortunately, Rob took home

the five points there, but it wasn't enough to win Rob the episode. Dave won the episode with 17 points. Al on 16 points. Rob on 15. Sarah on 14

and you on 11 sadly there Paul 11 points for you bottom as per leaving you bottom of the series by

by 9 points with one episode to go so at this point you must be thinking I'm probably not going to win this well it would have been a big turnaround it would have been a big turnaround.

It would have been a huge turnaround, unheard of really. Were you comfortable with being last at that point? Were you taking it in your stride or were you finding it frustrating? It was a mixed bag of emotions there, you see. Because I thought someone had to take a bullet for the team by yeah by bringing entertainment to the show right so sometimes when you take a bullet for the team you're actually doing a service to the whole production so you decided that going in you thought i'm going to be the entertaining one i'm going to take a bullet and i'm going to come last

i took a lot of bullets for that series. Yeah, you did. I took machine guns. I took so many bullets that the actual series got nominated for a BAFTA. Yeah. Because of the bullets I took. I took more bullets than Rambo. It got nominated for most

bullets, didn't it? The BAFTAs. Yeah, it was more violent than Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. bullets didn't it the bafflers yeah it was more violent than commando with adolf schnager um we have some emails paul uh from listeners uh they um they're in They're interesting emails. For example, this one from Louis. My question for Paul, what the hell, man? Is that the question? Yep, what the hell, man,

and are you doing okay? Those are the two questions from Louis. What the hell, man? Question mark. Yep. And are you doing okay? No, of course I'm not doing okay. What kind of question is that?

I mean, he knows the answer. Why is he asking? If he knows the answer is badly, then he's asking a silly question. Yeah, so that's your answer to it, is it? Badly. Yeah, very badly. Love it, thank you.

Dear Paul and Ed, I'm a huge fan of the show and loved you both on it thank you very much ethan my questions for paul are are there any unaired tasks that you did badly at and glad weren't aired and what was the task you did well in that you wish was aired i don't know paul if you remember any of the tasks that were unaired we did so many tasks and there were some great tasks we did that weren't aired yeah most of them i won actually oh that's annoying it's frustrating it was very frustrating because i'd won the tasks that weren't aired and um i think if they aired them i would have won the series yes no that makes sense so do you remember what any of those tasks were can't remember him there's so many tasks we did but you won them how many tasks were there in the episode that was series in the series they were about well there were five five episodes I'd

say between three and four tasks a show so I'd say anything between 15 and 20 yeah and we shot around two three hundred tasks. Wow! And so they were about 180 that were unaired. They didn't make it. I reckon they could have probably rolled out another season just with my tasks. More than one, yeah. And you definitely would have won. Yeah, there's

a lot of gold sitting in that edit suite. Cutting room floor. And maybe we should talk to them. If I sign them off, we could release them. Yeah. Cutting room floor. And maybe we should talk to them. If I sign them off, we could release them. Yeah. And people will see who the true Taskmaster was in season three, who the true revolutionary was.

I was the Che Guevara of Taskmaster. So you're saying that you did so well on the unaired task that you are the actual Taskmaster. People don't realize that. Yeah so well on the unaired task that you are the actual Taskmaster? People don't realise that. Yeah. Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He's a good novelist, but you just didn't see it in the film. Yeah. Yeah, it's the edit. It's all about

the edit. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That's all you saw. You thought idiot, serial killer, maniac, psychopath. But underneath it, maybe he wrote 10 good books before you went into the Overlook Hotel. Yeah. Oh, we've got one more email, Paul.

This is from John in Tampa in Florida. And Ethan was from Tennessee. We've got a lot of US listeners. My question is for Paul Chowdhury. I've heard Greg say on a couple of podcasts, probably including the taskmaster podcast uh that you and he were having a meal and the server asked if you wanted still or sparkling water apparently you replied with which would you recommend and greg said he

doesn't know whether you were in character or being genuine and he went on to say either way it was one of the funniest things he's ever witnessed so i was wondering if you could once and for all tell the world whether you were being serious or not. Do you, and also my added question, is that something you always say when people say still or sparkling water? I say different things. And that was a very serious question.

I'm not sure. Some reason Greg finds it funny when I say or do certain things when you're out or talk, but wouldn't you ask the waiter what they would recommend if they offered you still sparkling no because i've had both of them before and i know i know what i like so and i i don't think there's much differentiation between waters have you had them before at that particular restaurant no so if i hadn't had them before at that restaurant i think i don't i still don't think i'd ask the waiter which most would recommend. But most restaurants have similar meals, okay?

And you ask the waiter what they'd recommend. Why don't we do that with the drinks? What do you mean most restaurants have similar meals? Let's say you go to a restaurant and they'd have meal of the day or recommendations. Yeah. That should go for beverages as well and water. Very soft water in certain parts of the country and interesting now we're onto something and when you go to Scotland it's very you can drink out the tap where it's in

London you'd find a pube in it now I drink out the tap in London Paul is that am I doing the wrong thing drinking pubes in pubes in it. I'm drinking pubes. That's the problem. You get the water softened, put some salt blocks in the house or put a filter in your system or use one of those, I'm not endorsing it, but Brita filters or something. Yeah. And you filter your water.

It eliminates pubes and shit stains in your water. Shit stains, awful. I probably asked him what he'd recommend because I wasn't a big fan of shit-stained pube water. Yeah. I thought about that afterwards. I thought this became a thing that Greg was saying, you know. Yeah, I think Greg might have said it on Off Menu,

which is another one of my podcasts, which is a very funny story. But now I understand it's all about not wanting to drink pubes. Yeah, what's this Off Menu podcast about then? It's about food, Paul. Is it? Yeah. We chat about food? It's about food, Paul. Is it? Yeah. We chat about food.

It's me and James Acaster. I know you know about this podcast because you've interviewed James Acaster on your podcast. He mentioned it. Yeah, he mentioned his podcast on my podcast. Yeah. And I acted like I knew what it was.

Yeah. I have to admit, because that's what happens when you get a guest on your podcast. Oh, right. I'm a big fan, mate. I'm a big fan. You've got to pretend.

Yeah, sure. And I said, look, get me on that. But I'll be honest with you, I've never heard this podcast. I know it's one of the biggest, most downloaded podcasts of all time in British comedy history. But I've got shit to do, man.

No, fair enough. But that's that's a good opportunity we should uh we should tell people who are listening to this that you've got a podcast called the podcast yeah paul chadry podcast and it's an interview podcast you've had james a caster on who else have you had i'm a james a caster ian lee coldy Ian Lee Goldie the list goes on the list goes on it does go and check it out A-listers and it's a very serious deep philosophical podcast

great podcast and we get into I want to get you on it Ed but you never real and serious you're always joking around that's a very interesting that's a very interesting point from you, Paul, that I'm never real and I'm never serious. I'd say I'm real and serious 14% of the time.

People want to know who the real Ed Gambler is. Who is the man behind the facade and behind this mask? It's a defence defense mechanism isn't it well look out for me on that but in the meantime uh do go and listen to paul's podcast uh paul uh you may remember this from the last time we did this uh you've got to now rate the podcast between one and five points you are the task master in this situation you can give your podcast experience between one and five points what do you want to give it last time I think I gave it of three no I think you gave it a one last time to be one let's give it let's give it a three point eight nine four three point

eight nine four that messes with the average somewhat but we'll take it but we can go three point in a fall because I think I've managed to get a little bit more out of it. Ah, okay. So you're thinking of this as if you're hosting it and trying to get something out of me. And I've justified some of my actions in the series, which has taken six years to come to fruition. Yeah.

No, I agree. I agree because we had the plane to New Zealand. And in the first episode I did on this podcast, what did we discuss? We discussed a new series. We were discussing series 10 at the time, yeah. So people were thinking,

why is he not talking about the shit he did? Why is he talking about these bastards in the new series? Yeah. All right, there, I'll throw this out. You know what we do,

we talk about... Johnny Vegas, yeah, your brilliant Johnny Vegas impression, exactly. Everyone's become a superstar from that season because it was on Channel 4. I was on Dave.

Well, good luck getting some of that money back. And thank you very much for coming on the podcast again. We may well see you on a future episode and hopefully we can bump up to 3.894 to maybe a five or something. And I can give you some tuition on stand-up please thank you paul i look forward to it paul chowdhury thank you very much ed gambler thanks man well there we are what a lovely chat with paul i mean as always we sort of got off track uh on quite a lot of occasions there uh wasn't necessarily all about that episode or all about Taskmaster,

but it's always fun to chat to Paul. And I mean, as per, I'm no closer to understanding whether he's joking or not most of the time. Paul is welcome back whenever he likes to come and talk about Taskmaster. If you want to talk to us about Taskmaster, you may have noticed there were emails there

that came through. You can email us with questions for our future special guests about any Taskmaster you may have noticed there were emails there that came through uh you can email us with questions uh for our future special guests about any Taskmaster episode any task whatever you like it's taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com do get in contact because next week we're talking about series three episode five which is actually the final episode in series three because it's one of those short series uh but we will be proceeding onwards then with series four so as many questions you like about what's coming up there uh check out task master on youtube they've got a youtube channel that's very good some brilliant compilations on there go into the task master store pre-order the book buy some merch you can't have enough

task master in your life don't forget to listen to Paul's podcast, the podcast. Buy tickets for my tour. I'm on tour. The show's called Electric. Go on edgamble.co.uk for tickets. Please come and see me on tour. It'll be fun. And you can come up to me afterwards and ask me Taskmaster questions.

If you can find me, I tend to get in the car pretty quickly. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. Goodbye. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything.

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