Characters / Taskmaster

These are the people who have appeared on Taskmaster. Spoilers ahead.

Also, while we're identifying these performers as "characters" for the purposes of this listing, remember that they are actually real people appearing as themselves; edits should therefore be kept civil. It's fine if someone was/wasn't your favourite contestant, but try to temper those feelings when applying or editing tropes.

If you're looking for the "characters" sheets for the New Zealand and Australian versions of Taskmaster, click here or here.

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Main Cast

The Taskmaster

Greg Davies

Appears in: Every UK episode, "An Intervention." (Taskmaster (NZ), Season 1 Episode 7)

"I'll be watching that like a fat hawk."

The title character, Greg ostensibly sets the tasks the contestants have to complete every episode, and judges their efforts, usually out of 5 points.

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• As You Know: After Richard’s attempt at the yoga balls task, Alex sought out Susie Dent’s advice on whether his interpretation on the task was allowed. When Greg hears this, he clarifies she’s from Countdown, despite the fact that everyone on the panel (minus Doc Brown) would have known this as they are all frequent contestants on spin-off/crossover 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. It’s clearly for the benefit of audience members who aren’t as familiar with British TV shows.
• Berserk Button:
  • He gets genuinely rankled by Alex's introductory sketches as he doesn't really get that style of humor. This played a part in the development of their abusive on-screen relationship.
  • He's not a fan of football and will mark down football-related prize submissions simply because they annoy him.
  • He doesn't like being made to feel awkward about his height and will penalize contestants who bring in small items for prize tasks. In Series 4, he praised Lolly for bringing in an enormous bean bag, saying that there aren't many size-appropriate things he can easily purchase. Unfortunately, Lolly misread the situation and made a quip that Greg took badly and he knocked her down in the rankings.
  • He seems to get genuinely irritated by low-effort prize tasks especially.
  • Greg does not like it if a contestant lies about carrying out a task for charity. In the high-five a 55-year-old task in "The Pie Whisperer", when Tim Key lies about filming for Comic Relief, Greg threatens to put Tim in last place unless he donates to Comic Relief.
  • Certain amounts of deception in general can annoy Greg when they're at his expense. In Season 7's "The Perfect Stuff", he marked down Jessica Knappett's submission for "Most Exciting Thing Starting with 'G'" (a Taskmaster programme that Greg had signed himself) partly because she had falsely led him to believe he was signing it for her father.
  • Greg considers tea such Serious Business, he disqualifies Josh for adding milk first. Though this could also have just been a joke at the fact that the tea was supposed to be made in a mug, not what was clearly a wheelbarrow with a mug handle poorly attached to the side.
• Blatant Lies: When introducing Alex, Greg often claims with a straight face that Alex "recently confided" in him a socially unacceptable opinion, such as thinking teachers are overpaid or that Alex's wife doesn't pull her weight at home.
• Brief Accent Imitation: On the odd occasion, Greg relishes putting on accents to roleplay hypothetical situations (e.g. Rob Beckett or Kerry Godliman's London or a generic Yorkshireman).
• Butt-Monkey: He's usually the one teasing the guests when they perform badly, but notably ended up on the receiving end when Rhod Gilbert was on the show, armed with some very unflattering images of Greg and his mother. Though he got his own back; there are reasons Rhod only came third in that series.
• The Cameo: He appeared in an episode of Taskmaster (NZ) during the prize task, which was to bring in “the worst thing to give to the Taskmaster”. He berated Jeremy, the NZ Taskmaster for giving the contestants too much freedom to have fun with and to rein them in a bit more.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • When accusing a contestant of shady conduct or hidden agendas, he will often start by saying "I put it to you, that..."
  • He also has a tendency to use the phrase "Keep it light" in response to contestants bringing up something grim or depressing.
  • Contestants claiming that a particularly obviously disastrous attempt was all their own idea or doing will often be greeted with an amusedly sarcastic "No way?!"
  • When contestants portray an odd or shallowly written character in their attempts, Greg will invite them to "dive down into the narrative".
• Character Development: Greg's Taskmaster persona becomes increasingly cruel and egotistical as the seasons progress, less likely to humour Alex's gags, and dismissive of other people's opinions (including fans'). Greg's relationship with Alex also becomes more abusive from Season 3 onwards, with a sexual and then (more rarely) romantic edge as time goes on.
• Character Tics: Whenever he's particularly disappointed — particularly if a contestant is caught cheating in a task, or an entire line-up is disqualified — he's prone to slouching in his chair and taking off his glasses, often while rubbing his forehead or temple. He also occasionally takes off his glasses in the later rounds of live tasks that involve him, particularly in guessing games where the contestant in question has previously outfoxed him.
• In live tasks that require his involvement, he'll often let out a scream of frustration after making a guess incorrectly.
• The Gadfly:
  • If a contestant is particularly competitive, he'll often tease them to provoke rants and outbursts in the studio.
    Greg: But think about the spirit...
    Ed Gamble: It's not about the spi— [Realizes what Greg's doing] You know it's not about the spirit!
    [Greg waggles his eyebrows knowingly at the camera]
  • There is arguably already a certain arbitrariness to the Taskmaster's decisions to begin with, but if he gets the sense that a particular contestant is getting a bit overly competitive and that making a particular decision will genuinely irritate said contestant, expect that decision to be made gleefully, and on some occasions even borderline orgasmically. Naturally, the more genuinely competitive contestants tend to suffer this.
  • He's also cheerfully admitted that he makes several decisions purely to piss off people who watch the show then proceed to moan online about the decisions he's made.
• Gratuitous French: Especially in earlier series, if someone scores zero or gets disqualified, he'll occasionally announce "nil points".
• Hidden Depths: Greg admits on the Taskmaster podcast that he finds scoring the tasks quite stressful, despite his tyranny and swagger in his role. He is also of course in real life a much nicer person than the Taskmaster persona he puts on.
• Hypocritical Humor: Greg does often tease older contestants and joke about them becoming senile (such as Hugh Dennis or David Baddiel), never mind that he is usually a few years younger or even the same age (as is with Lee Mack).
• Large and in Charge: He's 6' 8" (2.03 m) tall and is the man the contestants must try to appease. Best demonstrated with James Acaster who made numerous attempts to challenge him: he let one slide, finding it to be Actually Pretty Funny, but pulled him aside and intimidated him with a quiet, intense chastising when Acaster made an off-the-cuff insult towards him in one episode, and culminated in holding him upside-down just to prove that, contrary to James' belief, he absolutely could.
  Greg: Is there any part of you that wants me to hold you upside-down now, to make sure you didn't have a good time back then?
  James: You couldn't hold me upside-down.
  Greg: Yes I could.
  Jessica: Oh yeah. Yeah, he could. HOLD HIM UPSIDE-DOWN! HOLD HIM UPSIDE-DOWN!
  Greg: (Proceeds to do exactly that with absolutely zero effort as James struggles and screams)
• No Sense of Personal Space: When it comes to bullying or humiliating his Assistant, Greg has zero inhibitions about getting into Alex's personal space, such as screaming directly into Alex's ear as a demonstration of his "best noise." He only kept his distance from Alex (most of the time) from Series 10 to Series 12, but that was due to circumstances beyond his control.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: His Midlands accent tends to get more pronounced when he tries to speak while cracking up with laughter.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He'll sometimes take pity on struggling contestants and judge them more leniently so they won't come last in a task or an episode.
  • For all his seeming arbitrariness and trolling tendencies, he does overall try to be fair for the most part. For example, in a task requiring the contestants to "erase an eraser", the otherwise mild-tempered Joe Thomas was genuinely angry when it looked like he was going to come last despite having gone to painstaking effort to wear down his eraser after pretty much all the others simply flushed it down the nearest toilet, which he viewed as a low-effort and uncreative "wanky workaround". Greg does mark him last based on his time but acknowledges that he has a point about the injustice of the situation by granting him three bonus points, meaning he technically comes second.
  • In general, he's often more than willing to take outside factors into account when scoring task attempts. One particularly striking example occurs in series 4, where an intended task was for the contestants to convince three chickens to stand on a mat. Unfortunately, an outbreak of avian bird flu necessitated the contestants do so with dogs instead... with the exception of Lolly, who performed the task with chickens as intended due to filming her attempt prior to the outbreak. She predictably performs badly, coming in fourth place, but given the added difficulty of her task Greg awards her with two bonus points, boosting to her second place.
  • During one task in series 14, contestants are tasked with writing and singing a song to the tune of a piece of classical music. Following Sarah's attempt, she reveals that she found the task legitimately upsetting due to verbal abuse she suffered at the hands of an ex-partner regarding her singing ability. While he would usually remind contestants jokingly to "keep it light" if they delve into darker territory, he's not only genuinely aghast at the situation, he awards her five points for the task and tells her ex to fuck off.
  • While his persona often sees him insulting contestants for the sake of comedy, he always does so in a joking and friendly manner, and on the rare occasion where he takes it too far he'll do his best to make amends. On one occasion where he genuinely upset Katherine Parkinson by insulting her collection of homemade masks, he later admitted that he felt genuinely bad about it. During her attempt to complete the season's final task ^note  To hang all of a mannequin's clothes on a nearby clothes rack without stepping out of a square on the floor to stand, Katherine's solution was to lie on the ground in an attempt to reach it, which she managed. After some deliberation he allowed her attempt to stand, in part due to her not stepping out of the square (she ensured that both of her feet were within it at all times) and in part as an apology for his actions. ^note Even better, she won the full five points for the task.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Zig-zagged. He is happy to hear out a contestant's reasoning and award them for creative solutions, but will also penalize them purely for annoying him.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Greg's default attire is an all-black suit, trousers, and shirt ensemble. In later series, he leaves the top button of his shirt undone. Though it's notable that his socks tend to undermine the effect as they're usually quite loud and garish.
• Slouch of Villainy: As the Taskmaster who looks down in judgement on the competitors, he typically adopts this pose whilst seated on his throne.
• Stern Teacher: This side of him occasionally comes out, notably by telling off Nish Kumar for a lazy task attempt and James Acaster for calling him a pussy, both men being visibly put back about 15 - 20 years into feeling like a naughty student. On the podcast, Greg said that both of these were absolutely sincere reversions to his schoolteacher instincts.
• Straw Misogynist: During the prize task round of Series 7 premiere "The Mean Bean," Greg score Jessica and Kerry's prizes the lowest and second-lowest amount of points. While awarding these points, he references a conversation that he had backstage with Jessica in which she mentioned that her dad had accused Greg of unfairly penalising women contestants:
  Greg: And what's his name?
  Jessica: Peter.
  Greg: Peter, looks like it's fucking true, doesn't it?
• Take That, Audience!: Greg has no qualms about telling off the audience or making judgements that they vocally disagree with:
  • In "A Wind-Dried Puffin," Mark was given his own special task of sending a cheeky anonymous text to Greg every day for the next five months. Mark was given a special phone for the task, but the texts went to Greg's actual number. Mark spent an inordinate amount of time and effort composing the texts, but he only sent 148 out of the requisite texts, and Greg, annoyed by the daily texts, decides not to award any bonus point to Mark.
    Greg: [Noting his annoyance of receiving anonymous cheeky texts every day for five months] But honestly, I have got 5 months of irritation bubbling up here, and the fact that I am not going to give you a single point for that—
    [Audience boos and groans]
    Greg: [addressing the audience] You can kiss my arse, all of you.
  • In "The Fastest Duck," Greg awards the 5 points to Rylan for fitting the largest object through a doughnut without breaking it for two reasons only; to annoy Nicola, who had stuck her doughnut on a cactus arm, and to annoy the viewers, whom Greg believes will react (predictably) unkindly.
  • By Series 12, this has turned into open hostility; his opening monologue to the eighth episode is basically a lengthy rant about his critics on social media who accuse him of occasionally making the wrong decision, how he doesn't, and how they'd better be commenting via a decent VPN service otherwise he'll track them down and pounce on them from nearby trees while dressed as a crow.
  • Amusingly, an Early-Installment Weirdness is that Greg occasionally modifies and moderates some of his judgements in earlier seasons when the audience reacts poorly, often with some Self-Deprecating Humor about how needy he is for popular approval. Apparently this wore off fairly quickly.
• Tall Is Intimidating: Sometimes comes into play. Case in point, in "OLLIE", when James Acaster made a flippant insult at him, Greg stood up and took James aside for a quiet but stern talking to, with James clearly terrified the whole time.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Greg's time as a teacher gives him authority, but occasionally comes up in more specific ways: from giving Nish and James "teacher talks" at the back of the stage to questioning Aisling and Sally about whether or not they sneezed. In "Twelve Blush Majesty Two", the live task has him guess the contestants' facts through lip-reading, a skill that he likely acquired from working with Deaf and hearing-impaired students.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: If contestants try to appeal to his emotions to gain more points, he won't hesitate to mark them down for their attempted manipulation.

The Taskmaster's Assistant (aka Little Alex Horne!)

Alex Horne

Appears in: Every UK episode, Every USA episode, “Everyone is Just a Teal Dress.” (Taskmaster (NZ), Season 4 Episode 3)

"All the information's on the task."

Guz Khan: What I would argue is that this show and possibly your role wouldn’t be the same without him.

The Taskmaster: Can I tell you, you’ve just blown it.

The Taskmaster's assistant, he appears at the house to ensure the smooth running of each of the tasks set and later judged by Greg.

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• Accidental Pervert:
  • Greg and the contestants sometimes twist (either intentionally or accidentally) the wording of tasks to make Alex seem like a deviant. Such as when Aisling Bea read out a task to give Alex a special cuddle and immediately reacted in disgust to the sexual implications.
  • During a game of hide and seek, he opened a closet in search of Mel Giedroyc and reached inside without looking.
    Greg: The first question I've got is for Alex, and my question is: did you accidentally feel Mel's boobs?
    [Alex looks sheepish; nods]
    Mel: There was a driveby. Both of them. And possibly in the Pennyfield area as well.
  • This tends to be played for rather ironic laughs, as another rather frequent refrain (both in the show and alluded to in the podcast) is that Alex in general tends to be rather bashful and easily embarrassed when confronted with matters of sexuality, in particular concerning women and their private areas, thus making the occasions in which he accidentally comes across as this rather more glaring.
• Aside Glance: He does this a lot at the camera during tasks, usually to express confusion at a particular contestant's line of thinking.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Alex's persona, despite being the creator of the show; he didn't feel that he had the natural authority to be the Taskmaster.
• Berserk Button: Downplayed, since he never really loses his cool about it, but he seems to have a bit of a thing about being spoken to impolitely. During a task, if a contestant barks an order at him his response will often be a somewhat pointed "Please?", and his Gadfly tendencies (as discussed below) tend to particularly assert themselves whenever a contestant starts throwing their weight around and treating him like a bit of a dogsbody. It's often made clear that he's the Taskmaster's assistant, not theirs, and his willingness to help them will depend partly on if he feels like it, partly if it won't risk giving the contestant an unfair advantage and partly if they show him an appropriate amount of respect. Which may be somewhat ironic considering the many times that contestants have also gotten him to do something unpleasant or embarrassing, which he's apparently perfectly willing to do so long as they ask him nicely.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Alex occasionally demonstrates he can be very cutting in his remarks, such as when he insulted Claudia Winkleman's tan in New Year Treat II. In Champion of Champions 3, Sophie Duker asks that she be put down as part of a task and this led to Alex providing a long stream of very personal attacks on her overall performance in Taskmaster and resulted in genuine hurt feelings.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Compared to Greg, he is far more frequently the target of the guests' ire, like the several times Rhod Gilbert has undressed him, Liza Tarbuck making him sit on a cake with his bare bum, getting sworn at by Lisa Lampanelli, or constantly getting ignored by James.
  • Greg constantly abuses Alex in the studio from about Series 4 onwards.
• Character Catchphrase: Whenever he is asked a question about a task, expect him to respond: "All the information's on the task."
• Characterization Marches On: He became popularized as a Nice Guy and an Extreme Doormat who will do almost anything Greg and the contestants ask him to do with little hesitation nor reaction. Starting around Series 10, he became more open about his amusement and annoyance towards contestants while also becoming snippier and more willing to push back on contestant requests (especially if they're curt with him).
• The Comically Serious: His general role is to act as the deadpan observer of the ludicrous efforts of the contestants, and so much humour tends to come from his dry, serious reactions to absurd situations. One particular example comes from the "entertain this toddler" task, during which his interactions with Nell, the toddler in question, come off like he's giving her a job interview.
• Complexity Addiction: The tasks he’s written for the series began getting quite a bit more complex by Series 7, including more clauses to complete or avoid and adding parts to the whole task. Lampshaded by Ed on the podcast, who theorises that Alex wants to avoid contestants outthinking the task like Richard did with the yoga ball task. It was also Lampshaded repeatedly in “Run Up a Tree to the Moon” when Greg and Lee note that the tasks have gotten lengthier and the latter needed to re-read the task because he had already forgotten the first half of it.
  PRIZE TASK: Most shocking thing that’s bigger than a cat but smaller than a pig.
  Greg: What’s with the whole cat-pig thing?
  Alex: So they know what sort of size thing they need to bring in.
  Greg: ... People say I bully you but I think it’s deserved.
• Dull Surprise: Zigzagged. Alex occasionally participates in short films made by the contestants and his performances do range in quality. On the one hand, Greg calls him out for shamelessly mugging the camera in Katherine Parkinson's upside-down film. On the other hand, during Sophie Duker's emotional recreation of the dinosaur extinction, his "screams" as the dinosaur dad are done in a monotone voice.
• Extreme Doormat: Alex will do just about any degrading thing the contestants command if it is in line with the task, including eating dog food. He also lets Greg belittle him in every studio segment.
• The Gadfly: A low-key version, but Alex occasionally gives passive-aggressive comments to the contestants during the recorded tasks, including deliberately unhelpful answers to their questions (e.g. the standard "all the information is on the task"). Mark Watson has joked that he now has PTSD hallucinations of Alex saying "how's it going, Mark?" whenever he is struggling with something.
  Jamali: Can I go and get stuff?
  Alex: All the information is on the task.
  Jamali: Oh you're being sarcastic. Okay, man.
• Jerkass Ball: As “Qrs Tuvwxyz” during the Taskmaster Hotel task, he’s a lot more short-tempered and demanding of the contestants.
  Susan: I prefer Alex.
• Loose Lips: Greg's "Strawman Political" introductions of Alex (see below under Straw Misogynist and Strawman Political) tend to begin with Greg declaring Alex to be "a man who once confided in me that [X horrifically retrograde political opinion he supposedly holds]". To the point where one really has to wonder why Alex persists in revealing his hideously reactionary viewpoints to a man who will not hesitate in the slightest to broadcast them to the watching nation.
• The Man Behind the Man: Alex is the original creator of the program and executive producer; as such he's actually the one writing the tasks set by the Taskmaster, a fact which is occasionally alluded to during the program.
• Mathematician's Answer: Occasionally uses these to avoid giving extra information to contestants.
• Mr. Fanservice: In "It's Not Your Fault," Greg asks Alex to adopt a Reclining Venus pose while splayed across his chair and recapping the events prior to the ad break. It appears to work for the contestants in the room.
• Nice Guy: Tim Key has said that he thinks the pre-recorded tasks work so well because Alex is so easy to get along with, so he can strike up good chemistry with all the contestants.
• Not So Stoic:
  • He tries to maintain a deadpan persona throughout the show, but there are times he can't help but crack up at contestants' actions. This usually happens when a plan goes badly wrong, and Alex hides his face behind his clipboard.
  • Alex will usually eat the disgusting foods contestants prepare for him with little to no reaction, to the extent that he barely hesitated before biting into a hot toothpaste pie in Series 1. But in 'Oatmeal and Death', Alex is clearly close to vomiting when eating the blended slurry, and has a genuinely pained expression.
  • Alex is clearly having the time of his life watching the team of three's attempt at the riddle task in 'The Customized Inhaler', at one point falling off his chair due to laughing so hard.
  • Greg lampshades in "Shoe Who" that Bridget's attempt at the first pre-recorded task is the first time that Alex has been visibly frustrated with a contestant's incompetence.
  • In "Dafty in the Middle", Alex is forced by Munya to repeatedly throw tennis balls over the Taskmaster House. Alex does it enough times that he hurts his shoulder, while Munya is sitting still waiting for the balls. Finally Alex whispers "fuck's sake" to himself after Munya again yells at him to throw harder.
• Oh, Crap!: After James Acaster suddenly calls Greg a "pussy" in front of the entire studio, Alex can be seen and heard nervously trying to pull Greg back, worried that the situation would escalate into a full-on confrontation. Luckily, Greg found a way to defuse the tension with humor while also putting James in his place.
• Pet the Dog: For the most part, he'll be vague and try not to step in during tasks unless it's an explicit part of the task or if it's just basic requests that won't offer a meaningful advantage (such as acting as a second pair of hands if a contestant needs something held while taping it or doing some fetch and carry if a contestant is against the clock)^note or he's straight-up bribed (*cough* Al Murray *cough*). However, he's willing to help contestants he feels are genuinely struggling, such as David Baddiel from Series 9 (who asked in nearly every task) and Katherine Parkinson of Series 10. This is partly because he doesn't believe it will affect the final score much.
• Pungeon Master: Alex frequently makes puns, with varying success. Sometimes this involves tasks, such as in series 5 when he tasked Sally Phillips with giving him fish-based puns after slipping a number of them in previous conversations, or in series 10 when the contestants had to name American states and he gave them clues by making puns out of the states.
• Straw Misogynist: Not really, but a lot of Greg's introductions of him claim that he holds a lot of retrograde views of women, such as a fear of them being allowed to vote.
• Straw Political: Similarly to the point above, many of Greg's introductions which don't somehow revolve around Alex's supposed hatred of women suggest that he possesses reactionary political views which would seat him comfortably within the alt-right, such as a complete contempt of nurses and primary school teachers, a belief that climate change is "a hoax perpetrated by 'liberal pussies who don't know how to party'", and even support for apartheid.

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Contestants

And here's the lovely frame they appear in if you are so interested.

All the contestants are alphabetized based on their first names, which is how they're seated in order on the show.

• Series One^note Frank Skinner, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty, Romesh Ranganathan, Tim Key
• Series Two^note Doc Brown, Joe Wilkinson, Jon Richardson, Katherine Ryan, Richard Osman
• Series Three^note Al Murray, Dave Gorman, Paul Chowdhry, Rob Beckett, Sara Pascoe
• Series Four^note Hugh Dennis, Joe Lycett, Lolly Adefope, Mel Giedroyc, Noel Fielding
• Series Five^note Aisling Bea, Bob Mortimer, Mark Watson, Nish Kumar, Sally Phillips
• Series Six^note Alice Levine, Asim Chaudhry, Liza Tarbuck, Russell Howard, Tim Vine
• Series Seven^note James Acaster, Jessica Knappett, Kerry Godliman, Phil Wang, Rhod Gilbert
• Series Eight^note Iain Stirling, Joe Thomas, Lou Sanders, Paul Sinha, Sian Gibson
• Series Nine^note David Baddiel, Ed Gamble, Jo Brand, Katy Wix, Rose Matafeo
• Series Ten^note Daisy May Cooper, Johnny Vegas, Katherine Parkinson, Mawaan Rizwan, Richard Herring
• New Year Treat I^note John Hannah, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Nicola Coughlan, Rylan Clark-Neal, Shirley Ballas
• Series Eleven^note Charlotte Ritchie, Jamali Maddix, Lee Mack, Mike Wozniak, Sarah Kendall
• Series Twelve^note Alan Davies, Desiree Burch, Guz Khan, Morgana Robinson, Victoria Coren Mitchell
• New Year Treat II^note Adrian Chiles, Claudia Winkleman, Jonnie Peacock, Lady Leshurr, Sayeeda Warsi
• Series Thirteen^note Ardal O'Hanlon, Bridget Christie, Chris Ramsey, Judi Love, Sophie Duker
• Series Fourteen^note Dara Ó Briain, Fern Brady, John Kearns, Munya Chawawa, Sarah Millican
• New Year Treat III^note Amelia Dimoldenberg, Carol Vorderman, Greg James, Mo Farah, Rebecca Lucy Taylor AKA Self-Esteem
• Series Fifteen^note Frankie Boyle, Ivo Graham, Jenny Eclair, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Mae Martin
• Series Sixteen^note Julian Clary, Lucy Beaumont, Sam Campbell, Sue Perkins, Susan Wokoma
• New Year Treat IV^note Deborah Meaden, Kojey Radical, Lenny Rush, Steve Backshall, Zoe Ball
• Series Seventeen^note Joanne McNally, John Robins, Nick Mohammed, Sophie Willan, Steve Pemberton

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Others

Fred (The Swede)

Appears in:" Little Denim Shorts" (S01 E05), "Fear of Failure" (S02 E01), "A Pea in a Haystack" (S03 E01), "Meat" (S04 E05), "Residue Around The Hoof" (S05 E04; picture only), "Your Tuper Super" (S13 E08)

A Swedish man who took part in several tasks in the early series. He was formerly a substitute percussionist for the Horne Section, Alex's band.

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• Bilingual Conversation: In Series 2, the contestants had to get to know him, but could only get answers spoken in Swedish. Katherine Ryan found a workaround by asking a friend to speak to him in Danish, thanks to the two languages being similar enough for the two to share a conversation.
• Mr. Fanservice: More than one contestant has expressed that they find Fred attractive.
  Tim Key: I wish I'd kissed him. If I had my chance again, just go and blow on his lips.
• Once a Season: Appeared once a series for the first five series.
• Put on a Bus: He was slowly phased out after Series 3 as he'd gone back to Sweden. He appeared via video chat in season four and only as a printed image for part of a task in Series 5 as a tiebreaker. Afterwards, he disappears entirely from the show.^note He left show business to become a house painter and decorator.
  • The Bus Came Back: By popular demand, he makes his long-awaited return for a task in Series 13, Episode 8.
• Title Drop: Provided Series 2's first episode's name, "Fear of Failure".

Rosalind

Appears in: "Their Water's So Delicious" (S05 E08)

An ordinary woman who the contestants have to write a song about.

• The Comically Serious: She adopts this persona during Mark & Nish’s introduction during the “Taskonbury” Festival.
  Alex: Hello, Great Britain!
  Rosalind: (flatly) Hello.
  Alex: How are you all doing out there?!?
  Rosalind: We’re fine, thank you.
• “The Reason You Suck” Song: Aisling, Bob, and Sally’s song “Quite Good, Considering” is filled with the trio insulting poor Rosalind based on what little they know of her, topped by a memorably profane chorus.
  Products Of Conception: ♫ Rosalind’s a fucking nightmare! ♫
• Sticky Fingers: One aspect of her personality that Aisling repeatedly mentions during her band's song "Quite Good, Considering" (a.k.a. "Rosalind's a (Fucking) Nightmare").
• The Stoic: Rosalind remains mostly straight-faced during both songs and their introductions, which unnerved Mark.
  Mark Watson: …and all that time, absolutely no expression on her face!

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