Taskmaster review: In today's dark, dark world, this may not be the show you want, but it’s definitely the show you need
Crikey, but the news is a trial these days, what with climate armageddon, wars, world leaders who are either crazy, or ill, or both, politicians on the take and many, many more dark and foreboding stories. Which is why it's a bit of a relief that Taskmaster (Channel 4, Thurs, 9pm) has returned in all its ludicrous, clever, hilarious glory.
It has now reached its 22nd series, and while the format hasn't changed, it still retains the capacity to surprise.
It's a beauty of the show really, that within the fairly rigid confines of the show – five comics, actors and TV 'personalities' are given silly things to do and Taskmaster Greg Davies scores their efforts from one to five – the action can go in so many different ways.
The first prize task of this series, for example, in which each contestant brings in an item on a theme and the winner of the show gets to take them home, was for 'the best droopy thing'.
As a result, you got a wilting plant from Richard Ayoade, a Droopy soft toy with all the stuffing taken out of it (Matt Lucas), while Peep Show's Isy Suttie brings in a pair of tights filled with watery oats.
This was her mum's remedy for eczema, in case you were wondering.
All of which garners wither praise or withering put-downs from Davies, telling Suttie: “Oh yeah, your mum's an 18th century witch, isn't she?”
And so on with the tasks, in which they must put a golden apple on a golden plate, a task which involves a journey through a tunnel while handcuffed to the show's creator Alex Horne.
“Is this Narnia?” gasps Suttie, in wonder, as she emerges from the tunnel amid Greek columns.
Meanwhile, Davies can already deduce Ayoade's reluctance to fully commit to the show's demand for a certain type of lateral thinking, as he treats the whole thing with “absolute contempt”.
A later task, teamed with comic Chloe Petts and Lucas, in which they must move an entire bed from one room in the Taskmaster house to another – without looking at each other or saying words of more than one syllable – he accuses the whole thing of being “an absolute fascist regime”.
Suttie, teamed with ventriloquist and comic Nina Conti, meanwhile, is a having a lovely old time, the pair inventing an entirely new lexicon before having a nice little lie-down.
At first sight, you imagine the budget has gone up this series, what with the tunnels and the columns and so on, but you soon realise this is a kids' play tunnel and it only stretches a few feet from the shed in the Taskmaster garden and the columns are made from polystyrene.
But that doesn't matter, because the richness comes from the imaginations of Horne and his fellow task-setters, and the willingness of the participants to make idiots of themselves.
Ayoade's deadpan, pseudo-intellectual persona surprisingly looks like it's going to work well here, as he will always fight against the silliness of it all, making him look the silliest of the lot.
“I have trauma-wiped the whole thing,” he tells Davies.
Meanwhile, Suttie looks like she's having an absolute whale of time, and Petts – apparently a long-time fan – is childishly excited by the whole thing.
Meanwhile, you get things you can only get on Taskmaster – an argument about the semantics of tableware, an offer of sex in exchange for points, Horne being “frustrating as a presence” – which means the show always teeters on the edge of chaos.
It's a terrific achievement, a show that hides its intelligence behind a wall of silliness, a show that's all about winning but in which no one really loses, a show in which the contestants are constantly criticised but always offers warmth and collaboration.
In short, with the world as it is now, it may not be the show you want, but Taskmaster is certainly the show you need.