British series:
Series: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen
Specials: New Year Treat | New Year Treat II | New Year Treat III | New Year Treat IV
New Zealand series:
Seasons: One | Two | Three | Four
Australian Series:
Seasons: One
David Baddiel
"People who know me well will tell you I’m a very unpractical man."
"A lot of these physical challenges, it's like we've set you a tricky thing to do, and then we've given you, personally, the extra challenge of being David Baddiel."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian known for his double act with Robert Newman, and later Frank Skinner.
- Butt-Monkey: One of the show's defining examples. David is hopeless throughout the season, and is repeatedly (good-naturedly) mocked for his inept attempts.
- In one task halfway through the series, Alex refers to David coming fifth as "the usual".
- Cloudcuckoolander: David established himself as one very early on. For instance, one of the tiebreakers originally involved the contestants lassoing Alex. David decided to attach lots of wooden spoons to the lasso; and his attempt was so surreal that the tiebreaker was then shown as a proper task instead in "Another Spoon".
- Fish out of Water: David is known for biting commentaries that are well-researched and meticulously written. Being put on the spot and forced to improvise was alien to him, leading to some very awkward and weird solutions to tasks.
- The Gadfly: His bumbling aside, David demonstrates an ability to intentionally get under Ed's skin and make Ed visibly irritated in the studio.
- Hidden Depths: David is normally an intelligent comedian, who has written several books, but under pressure his mind dovetails into bizarre thinking.
- Non-Action Guy: David cemented himself as one of the more physically incapable contestants, and mentioned in one recording how his friends hold a similar view of him. Alex let slip that David asked him for help in nearly every task.
- Out-of-Character Moment:
- David has a moment of rare ingenuity out-thinking a task's wording in episode 7, when he cracked an egg from its shell while still atop a chair, thereby "releasing" it as the task required.
- He also does uncharacteriscally well in a physical challenge in episode 6's live task, where he comes second sliding glasses across a bar.
Ed Gamble
"I've got three sensitivity levels! And I'll be honest, I'm on my top fucking one right now!"
David: The thing I’ve noticed is that it really matters to Ed to win this. It’s coming there I think: that desperation.
Ed: I don’t think it’s desperation, I think it’s just... dedication.
Click to see Ed in “The Alpine Darling” Spoilers!
A comedian known for hosting the podcast Off Menu with James Acaster. He is the host of the official Taskmaster podcast.
- Ascended Fan: There is a reason that Ed went on to host the official companion podcast. He's acknowledged on several occasions that he was a big fan of the show even before appearing on it, which in large part fuelled his already competitive nature.
- The Bus Came Back: In the Series 15 episode "Trapped In A Loveless Marriage", Ivo Graham calls Ed during the "single breath" task. On the podcast, Ed reveals that after he'd greeted Ivo, all he heard was a lot of heavy breathing.
- He later reappeared in the Series 15 finale “A Yardstick for Failure”, where he and James Acaster can be seen briefly during one of the surreal establishing shots of the house, hiding in the dome and posing at the camera. Evidenced by their outfits, it was filmed while they were hiding out at the house during Celebrity Hunted.
- Competition Freak: Ed has admitted that he is an extremely competitive person, albeit not to the extent that it sours the atmosphere of the show. Ed was however extremely satisfied that he beat his friend Rose in all the Tiebreak tasks.David: You could sense Ed's desperation.
Ed: DEDICATION!- This often comes through in the podcast which he hosts; he is very quick to point out issues with Greg's scoring, "unfair" advantages contestants may have had in completing the tasks, and points where he would have probably lost his temper had he been a contestant facing these decisions himself. Since he tends to approach the tasks from the perspective of how he'd be feeling if he was completing them and facing such judgements himself, this can lead to situations where he can start to get irate about decisions made regarding episodes of the show he wasn't even in.
- Could Say It, But...: Whenever Ed has one of the New Zealand contestants as a guest on the podcast, he’ll occasionally encourage his (mostly UK-based) audience to watch the NZ episodes… somehow. And for New Zealand listeners, they’re readily available on TVNZ’s catch-up service.
- Determinator: One of Ed's defining traits:
- The final task in "Think About The Spirit" has a rule that if the contestant messes up any of the seven tasks, then they must start all over again. Despite his frustrations, Ed was the only person who followed the rules and started all over again when he made a mistake.
- His attempt for the duck task in "The Alpine Darling". He decides to construct a slide using a series of pipes to get the duck into the pond — except, if the pipes weren't falling apart, then the duck was getting stuck somewhere down the slide. Ed doesn't give up for one and a half hours only to get so frustrated that he cuts the duck in half and buries it in the ground.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Ed gets a mention in Series 5, when he helped Mark Watson steal a pair of Greg's trousers.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: More than a few non-UK viewers were angry after watching the trailer to the Series 10 official podcast, which revealed that Ed was the Series 9 champion. The UK was one of the only countries to show Series 9 at that point.
- Rage Breaking Point:
- During the judging of Series 9's final pre-recorded task, he becomes infuriated when Greg appears to be willing to let the other contestants slide on disqualifying mistakes while he followed the rules to the letter. He calms right back down when he realizes Greg was deliberately needling him to get a laugh.
- He's also irate when Greg judges his impersonation of the horse from the board game Buckaroo as inferior to the original because Ed, being a conscious human capable of deciding when he is going to "buck", lacks the randomness that the game possesses.
- Serious Business: Similar to his friend James Acaster, Ed takes any unfair scoring against himself seriously.
- Tacky Tuxedo: His task outfit for Champion of Champions 2 is a '70s style blue tuxedo with a frilled shirt and orange bowtie.
- Trash the Set: It can be difficult to notice, but the Taskmaster House's front is missing some bricks during Ed's final pre-recorded task. This was because he kept missing during the bowling portion of the task and hurled the bowling ball harder and harder until he started smashing bricks into powder. He had to be told to take it easy so the production wouldn't be responsible for a more serious repair.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With Greg, though to a lesser extent than Rhod. The two are good friends outside of the show (Ed has acted as a supporting act to several of Greg's stand-up tours) and Greg clearly enjoys needling Ed with the possibility of unfairly marking him down.
Jo Brand
"I knew we were against the clock and I didn't give a fuck."
"I will point out that Jo Brand is the first person in Taskmaster history to be too lazy to even read the task out."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian who is a regular guest on QI and Have I Got News for You. She wrote and starred in Getting On, and she is the host of The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice.
- Boring, but Practical: Jo purposefully didn't go for outrageous outfits like other contestants, instead going for something comfortable.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Jo is clearly an intelligent contestant, but she's upfront about how she doesn't care about winning, and strongly dislikes putting in physical effort for tasks. Greg even notes how Jo will stand still and think through a task until she can find a clever way of doing it that requires minimal exertion. At one point he even marvels that she seems to give up part way through reading the task itself.
- Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Jo announces that she needs "a quick wee" in the team task in "Think About The Spirit". In the studio, Greg points out that she's the only contestant ever who has gone to the toilet mid-task while against the clock.
- Crazy Enough to Work: When tasked with coming up with a timing method to boil the perfect egg, she instructed Alex to call her as she left for the day and sang "Jerusalem" to him over the phone with a beep at the end to let him know time was up. And it worked!
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She is the only contestant to tell the audience to (jokingly) fuck off when they let out a sympathetic "aww" at a disqualification.
- She also tells Greg to take one of his pity points and shove it. (He then gives her two pity points.)
- Unfazed Everyman: She was bemused by the tasks set for her, did things at her own pace despite the ticking clock, and nonchalantly dismissed tasks she knew she wouldn't win. In episode 3 of the official Taskmaster podcast
, Jo said that this behaviour of hers is a remnant of her time as a psychiatric nurse, and that she used to have to deal with truly pressing situations on a regular basis, so the tasks and the show's stakes didn't raise any real sense of urgency from her.
Katy Wix
"Are you kidding? We are not alike at all."
Alex: Can I just confirm your tactic here Katy?
Katy: Just have fun!
An actress known for her role as Daisy in Not Going Out, and Mary in Ghosts (UK).
- Comedic Sociopath: A low-key version:
- Katy usually didn't abuse Alex more than most contestants, but she was the only one who thought to use Chinese Water Torture on him as an egg-timer. Alex described the experience as genuinely unpleasant, particularly as it was outside so the water was freezing cold.
- Katy tells Alex to tell someone if he's being bullied after Greg abuses him. Alex tells her, and Katy hits him with, "Why are you telling me? I don't care."
- Deadpan Snarker: While she isn't nearly as loud and bombastic as the other members of the panel, when she does speak, she comes in for the quiet kill.[After Jo reveals her prize entry of a poorly-knitted wool sweater made during a period of severe depression]
Katy: Did you follow a pattern?
Jo: ... ''ish''.
Katy: For trousers?
[The cast and audience erupt in laughter] - The Quiet One: Katy revealed on the Taskmaster podcast that during the studio recordings, if she wasn't feeling confident about saying something, she would speak quieter and pretend that she was having a conversation with Rose. This backfired on her when the production team later told Katy that they turned up the volume of her microphone during the edit.
Rose Matafeo
"Would you believe I’m single!"
Rose: Every good shid (shed)...
Alex: *laughs*
Rose: Alex, don’t you start!
Alex: It’s funny when she says it. It’s so silly.
Rose: Thank you for colonising us by the way. Really appreciate that.
A New Zealand comedian, actress, and TV presenter whose 2018 stand-up show, Horndog, won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show.
- Competition Freak: A downplayed example; Rose's competitiveness was not obvious on the show, but she and Ed have admitted their genuine rivalry in their series, despite being good friends in real life. According to the podcast, after Ed beat her in the tiebreaker for the final episode of the series she made a point of finding out whether or not the production team deliberately chose a tiebreaker task in which Ed won, only to learn that Ed had beaten her in all of them. At least, that's how Ed spins it; Rose herself insists that she was merely informed of this fact by the producers and didn't badger it out of them.
- Face Palm: She has a habit of hiding behind her hands after presenting a lacklustre prize submission and waiting for Greg's disdain.
- Funny Foreigner: A downplayed example; most of the jokes about Rose being a New Zealander revolve around her accent and New Zealand being incredibly underpopulated. In fact, her odd claim that there's a fish poster in the shed of every New Zealander actually became an Easter Egg, and semi-recurring task element, in the NZ adaptation of Taskmaster.
- Hidden Depths: She got to display her musical talents at a few points, with the Serenade Yourself and Write Lyrics To The Taskmaster Theme Song tasks being notable examples.
- Ms. Fanservice: She attempts this by submitting a semi-nude photo of herself placed inside a snow globe for a prize task. She only invites mockery from Greg, however.
- You Say Tomato: She gets teased about her New Zealand accent, particularly how she pronounces the word "shed" as "shid".Rose: I don't really have a shid, or access to a shid [the others are openly laughing], or friends with a shid, or—
Greg: What about a shed?
Rose: Why, what's funny about a shid?
