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
Iain Stirling
"I'll see you in Champion of Champions!"
"Not everybody’s as dysfunctionally competitive as you are, Iain."
— Paul Sinha
A stand-up comedian who used to be a presenter on CBBC, and provides the voiceover for Love Island.
- Competition Freak: Iain was the most competitive contestant in his series by far, to the degree that it made him unpleasant to work with as he realized after watching a team task in "The Barrel Dad".Paul: Not everybody’s as dysfunctionally competitive as you are, Iain.
- Depraved Kids' Show Host: A mild version. Stirling has won a BAFTA for his work as a children's television presenter. His run on Taskmaster was punctuated by a lot of sweary shouting.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Throughout Series 8, he repeatedly demonstrates a hot temper that gets set off easily both in pre-recorded tasks and during studio segments.
- I Hate Past Me: Nobody on the show dislikes their on-screen persona more than Iain, as shown in “The Barrel Dad” and “Aquatic Sewing Machine”.Greg: You don’t like “Bossy-Boots Iain”, watching him back, do you?Iain: Just shouted at a woman and ran into the kitchen!
- Pet the Dog: Iain helped a clearly struggling Paul during the stage task in "Stuck in a Mammal Groove".
- Pride: Watching Iain on the show is at times practically a masterclass demonstration of the perils of hubris. While he's far from the only contestant to not do as well in certain tasks as he'd hoped, a common recurring theme is that he is one of the few who tends to adopt a rather boastful and confident-to-the-point-of-arrogant approach to the show, to the point where he at several points expressing a hope to appear on a future Champion of Champions episode — which makes his inevitable failures even more delicious to watch. Witness his attempt at making a Mentos-Coke volcano, which after much effort and one of the aforementioned boasts about the Champion of Champions, results in a rather pathetic amount of bubbles around the top.note Or his attempt at finding all the hidden "pink ladies", which he succeeded in doing and could have walked away from as a victor had he not then felt the need to "showboat" by also revealing what was under one of two remaining hiding places — only to pick the one containing the green egg that meant an automatic disqualification.
- Serious Business: His desire to win is quite blatant - at one point he says he will be joining the first five previous winners in the Champion of Champions special.
- Tempting Fate: He mentions wanting to come back as part of a future Champion of Champions special more than once in one episode alone.
- Took a Level in Kindness: He notably mellows out as the series goes on.
- You Say Tomato: In the studio, Greg and Alex like to point out his unique pronunciations of words like chutney, baby, and crisps. At the start of one pre-recorded task, he even says that he learned that very day that he has been mispronouncing the word "sandwich" as "SANG-wich."
Joe Thomas
"I mean I’m very easily affected by guilt anyway, so I mean I could probably just go in now, and just apologise for just the way I’ve lived my life."
"Again, you confound me, you know? You just look like you're having a lovely time, just running in the wind, shouting, and you end it with a phrase that I would expect to read in a novel about Russian gulags."
— The Taskmaster
An actor best known for starring in The Inbetweeners.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Joe was one of the more mild-mannered contestants, to the extent that he wasn't even that angry after Sian was caught cheating in the team task in "Aquatic Sewing Machine", which disqualified both of them. He eventually loses his temper in response to the other contestants' efforts in the first task in "Clumpy Swayey Clumsy Man".
- There's also in his performance in the task to do the worst thing to Alex and then apologise for it. While not stooping to the level of the female participants, Joe does sing a song celebrating Alex Horne's supposed death, up to and including calling his murder "evidence for the existence of god."
- Cloud Cuckoolander: He doesn't immediately come across as weird, but it becomes more and more apparent that he operates on a different wavelength. During the series, he can be seen keeping his eyes squeezed shut while speaking to others, going off on strange tangents, or just fading out of conversations altogether and wandering off. On the podcast, Sian comments on how awkward it was to interact with him on team tasks, prompting Ed Gamble to cackle and say that Joe is like that with everyone.
- The Eeyore: Joe's seemingly-depressed demeanor throughout the tasks is constantly remarked on.
- Mr. Fanservice: Enforced by Ian Sterling. When the contestants had to chose a costume for each other, he chose a boxer costume for Joe which was the most revealing.Iain: I'd like to see his chest.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: After hearing Alex read the “make the best album cover” task on a vinyl record, Joe starts goofing around with the record, first pretending he’s a DJ, then pretending that he’s playing the record in reverse to reveal a Satanic message.
Lou Sanders
"Mummy!"
Click to see Lou in “The Alpine Darling” Spoilers!
A stand-up comedian and actress who is a regular guest on The Unbelievable Truth.
- Frilly Upgrade: Lou wears her jumpsuit again as her task outfit for Champion of Champions 2, now with the addition of a gold-coloured sash tied around her waist, and the letters "COC" on the back.
- It Amused Me: When tasked with doing something bad to Alex and apologizing for it, she starts off by smashing a water balloon onto his head. It wasn't the bad thing, she just did it because it was funny.
- More Deadly Than the Male: For the task where the contestants had to do something bad to Alex and apologize, the male contestants did fairly minor things that could be easily brushed off. Lou, on the other hand, messed up Alex's car and, by way of "apology", passed his real phone number to telemarketers and pushy organizations, which, according to Alex, had a long-term impact that he was dealing with even months later.Lou: Which means, more points for Lulu~!
- Tempting Fate: Lou's desire to win was pretty clear when she showed off her jumpsuit with "Series 8 Champion" on the back.
Paul Sinha
"I don't have the legs for this"
A standup comedian, professional quizzer, and former GP best known for being one of six Chasersnote on The Chase.
- Determined Defeatist: Has a set of physical limitations (such as an injured shoulder) that prevented him from being as good as certain tasks as he should be. Nevertheless, he still gives it everything he has.
- Fingore: Paul accidentally grated his finger when preparing cheese dust for Alex to taste. Alex may or may not have consumed some of his blood.
- Fish out of Water: He's a professional quizzer who performs comedy routines based on unexpected interconnecting threads he's discovered thanks to his extensive general knowledge. He was clearly out of his comfort zone in situations where he had to come up with lateral-thinking solutions or take part in physical tasks, not helped by the fact he had a serious arm injury that made movement difficult during taping. Sadly not long after filming it would also be discovered that he was suffering from Parkinson's disease, although Paul was good-natured enough to note on Twitter that he couldn't blame his performance on that alone.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Often tries to do as little effort as possible, noting that some idiot would likely get disqualified.
- Self-Deprecation: He frequently pokes fun at himself and his poor overall performance, so much so that whenever somebody else is disqualified outright, he shouts "Yes! 4th place!"
- The Smart Guy: Subverted. Unlike Richard Osman, Paul's cleverness didn't translate so well at solving tasks on the show, and Greg jokes that his poor performance on this program may lead to his firing on The Chase.
- Whole Costume Reference: He’s dressed for the prerecorded tasks in an outfit inspired by Arthur Dent.
Sian Gibson
"I've realised that it's embarrassing for a middle-aged lady to like glitter and princesses as much as I do."
An actress best-known for her collaborations with Peter Kay.
- Blatant Lies: When tasked with taking an inflatable ball around the world and shooting video evidence for it, she shoots clips with Romesh Ranganathan talking about how nice it is to be in one country and another while they are clearly on the set of The Reluctant Landlord.
- The Bus Came Back: In a way. In Series 10, Johnny Vegas brought in custom Lego minifigs made to look like their characters from the Jason Cook comedy mystery films.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: In "Aquatic Sewing Machine", the teams had to catch balls of varying colors in varying containers, with certain balls being only to be allowed to be in each container (except green balls, which had to be ignored). Sian's entire team got disqualified as they had tried to discreetly add in red balls into one of their containers, and was embarrassed to be caught red handed by the camera.
- Cute, but Cacophonic: Sian elicits a high-pitched squeal when she expresses excitement. When she objects to Greg's scoring of her powerful pinky moment with one of these squeaks, Alex actually flinches and has to plug his ears.
- Height Angst: Sian, who is 5'-0", expresses her unhappiness with some of the tasks in "Stay Humble" for being heightist, namely the task where the competitors have their wrists put through a loop that is attached to a bucket suspended in the air and they have to get as much sand from that bucket to a second bucket.
- More Deadly Than the Male: For the task where the contestants had to do something bad to Alex and apologize, the male contestants did fairly minor things that could be easily brushed off. Sian took it much further by photoshopping Alex's head onto a nude photo and used Alex's phone to send it to Greg, who proceeded to share and discuss it with Alex's wife to Alex's continued humiliation.
