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
Greg: "Watching your delight at a small umbrella being lowered on some fishing wire made me feel fatherly towards all of you. And then, when you further went on to be so excited by the £50 that you had to spend, I felt that you were all my weird children."
Judi: "Oh Daddy!”
Ardal: "It’s called Stockholm Syndrome…”
Ardal O'Hanlon
"Will Taskmaster be happy?"
"I was under the impression that you were playing a character in Father Ted."
—The Taskmaster
An Irish comedian and actor best known for playing Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted, Thermoman in My Hero, and DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise.
- Actor Allusion:
- After an incompetent task attempt, Greg quips that he thought Ardal looked like a vicar who stops by to help but makes things worse.
- In "The 75th Question" for the 'hold a meeting with 8 versions of yourself' task, he arrests himself for 'embezzlement...and murder' in a performance reminiscent of his role as DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Whilst the first few episodes seem to be setting Ardal up as the series' inevitable last-placer, later episodes show he's more than capable of putting in a strong performance, particularly "Having a Little Chuckle" where he wins by an 8-point margin.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A non-serious, Played for Laughs version - Ardal is charming, friendly, and just a genuinely lovable guy, so it seems to take each live audience by surprise when he begins gently tearing down his fellow contestants' efforts.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Complains that his memory foam mattress cannot remember him, and compares urban foxes to jazz drummers trying to score heroin.
- The Gadfly: Ardal has a tendency to gently nitpick his fellow contestants' attempts, especially if he knows that his own attempt is just as bad, if not worse than everybody else's.
- Hidden Depths: When tasked with learning Swedish in 15 minutes, he reveals — to the shock of everyone — a halting fluency that would have been impossible to achieve in the time allotted and even sings a Swedish drinking song. He reveals that he'd gone on holiday to Sweden some time previously and had made a point of hanging out with locals and trying to learn the language.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: For the live task of "Shoe Who", Ardal manages to roll his tire in a way that knocks over most of the dolls on stage in a single go, eliminating Chris in the process while leaving his own two dolls standing.
- The Nicknamer: In his video tasks, he refers to Greg as "TM" to the latter's delight.
- Noodle Incident:
- The first task in "Heg" is to show off. Ardal says that he has an idea, and he runs off to the house. When he returns, his hair is covered in glitter, and Alex remarks that he had been gone for 14 minutes. Nobody during the task or in the studio asks Ardal what had happened during those 14 minutes.
- It happens again in "It Might Be Wind", during the 3rd task. While behind the shower curtain, Ardal takes off his trousers for no discernible reason. When questioned in the studio, he has absolutely no idea why he did this.
- You Say Tomato: He greatly amuses Greg with his pronunciation of "mirror" which, due to his Irish accent, comes out as "murr".
Bridget Christie
"Stopcock. Stopcock. Stopcock. Stopcock..."
"It's a rare moment in the series where Bridget is the voice of reason."
—Alex Horne
A stand-up comedian whose 2013 show A Bic For Her won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sometimes seems to have a completely unique angle on the tasks, the 'route one' approach seemingly not even occurring to her. This can pay off, like with the pedometer task.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: One of the show's defining examples. Throughout the season Bridget seemingly has one foot out of reality.
- Consistent Clothing Style: Every one of her studio outfits have at least one Western element to them, whether subtle or not, to allude to her main task outfit where she dressed as a Wild West gunslinger.
- Epic Fail: Does so badly in the "find the shoe Alex is thinking of" task in "Shoe Who" that she clearly frustrates Alex with her incompetence, which no other contestant managed in twelve preceding series.
- The Gadfly: An inadvertent example. She doesn't mean to do it, but she's demonstrated a tendency to drag tasks out while rambling nonsense to the point where The Stoic Nice Guy Alex becomes visibly irritated.
- Heroic BSoD: During the "find Alex's phone" task, she ends up lying on the ground in despair, clutching a garbage bag of plush toys and plaintively banging a saucepan with a spatula.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: For the high-five Alex task, she decides to play chicken with the clocknote and high-five him as it ran down to zero, only to make contact a second too late and end up disqualified.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: She wears the wacky outfit for her series, dressing as a Wild West gunslinger in a Whole Costume Reference to Lee Van Cleef in For a Few Dollars More. It works surprisingly well with aviators and a luchador mask that Bridget adds for the duel task. In addition to this, she revealed on the Podcast that all of her studio outfits have at least one Western element to them.
- Jerkass to One: While she's more commonly irritating Alex inadvertently through either sheer incompetence or rambling nonsense, she does occasionally grow irritated with his unhelpfulness, and wastes no time telling him off.
- Mood Whiplash: Her Laika scene took the audience by surprise with how solemn a note it ultimately struck.
- Older Than They Look: Bridget was in her fifties during shooting, but could easily pass for someone twenty years younger.
- Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: When reading a task, she sometimes includes the line separating the task from the rules.
- Sanity Ball: Despite her astonishing incompetence at certain tasks, in the cocktail task in "Heg" she is the only contestant on her team — in some cases, the only contestant at all — to think of doing very obvious things like bend at the knee to pick up the task, walk straight into the caravan to avoid being obstructed by her headgear, and pick up things in her hands rather than using the pickup claws. Alex lampshades the contrast with some of her other efforts.Alex: It's a rare moment in the series where Bridget is the voice of reason.
- Silly Walk: In the "record the highest number of steps on this pedometer" task, she appears to not understand how pedometers work and initially tries a ridiculous high-kicking motion which Greg likens to the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- Too Clever by Half: In the task to put as many rubber ducks into the basket of Alex's bike, she's the only one who realizes she can remove the basket from the bike, and by doing so becomes the only contestant to successfully get every duck in the basket. However, she disregards the stipulation that she can only hold one duck at a time, having come to the conclusion that there must be a trick. It isn't, and she's disqualified for her efforts.
- Too Much Information: Whilst describing her prize submission in "Heg", she segues into a tangent about how she once needed to have labour induced and that the doctor's struggles to break her waters made a sound similar to the one her submission makes. Greg buries his face in his hands as she goes on and on.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: "Best" is an exaggeration, but she's been friends with the Taskmaster for over seventeen years, and they're prone to bickering over points - most notably in "Having a Little Chuckle", during the prize task (Most Surprising Thing From Their Wardrobes), when she presents an antique kimono she purchased for him as a gift before learning it was worth thousands of pounds. He immediately challenges her over why he never received his gift, with her claiming that she hasn't had an opportunity to give it to him over the past seventeen years and him countering that he lives in London and that she had multiple opportunities to give it to him. Nevertheless he gives her the full five points since, while he was surprised for the wrong reasons, he "was" nonetheless surprised.
Chris Ramsey
"No Way!"
"Chris Ramsey enters tasks like a bouncy, happy puppy."
—The Taskmaster
A comedian and actor who starred in the sitcom Hebburn. He co-hosts the podcast Shagged Married Annoyed with his wife.
- Achievements in Ignorance: For the find-the-ducks task, he happens upon one of the ducks even before he finds the task envelope.
- Ascended Fanboy: Subverted. Given his aptitude for the tasks and swiftly getting into the lines and tropes of the show, many considered him to be this, including on the official podcast. He reveals that he actually stubbornly refused to watch the show until he was asked to be on itnote .
- Epic Fail: Episode 8 has a task, involving wearing the longest hat and shoes, that is clearly meant to be an arts and crafts one. Chris takes it at face value, and instead hunts for the biggest actual hats and shoes available.
- The Gadfly:
- Vents his frustration with Alex's task by spraying him with a garden hose while Alex is tied to a chair.
- Shuts down Judi's complaints in Episode 4 about her competitors' interpretation of a task with "all the information is on the task". He then fingerguns Greg and Alex.
- Genre Savvy: Deliberately soaks Alex with a garden hose, just because he knows it's the sort of thing Greg likes. Greg ruefully notes afterwards that he no longer gives bonus points.
- Graceful Loser: Chris's enthusiasm for the show carries on even when he loses, and is usually quick to congratulate whoever wins. After Sophie beats him by seconds in Episode 2 on the maypole challenge, he reaches over to give her a fistbump.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: While blindfolded, he manages to hit his target (a maypole) with a ping-pong ball on his first attempt.
- Keet: Very excitable, high-energy, and lovable.
- Oop North: He speaks with a distinct Geordie accent, with Greg noting it gets stronger the more excited he gets. Particularly notable in how he says "Noh wééé!" and "coukbouk," and Lampshaded when he chose to enter the latter in the "item that sounds funniest when you say its name over and over again" prize task.
- The Unreveal: He promises to reveal the contents of the briefcase he brought in for his first prize task. However, he opens and closes the case at the end without showing the audience what, if anything, is inside.
Judi Love
"I am Queen Zafufu and I do not take part in these things."
"[To Alex] Write down Judi Love: Incredible Bullshitter."
—The Taskmaster
A comedian who is a regular panellist on the talk show Loose Women.
- Achievements in Ignorance: While looking for ducks in the lab, she happens upon one that wasn't a part of her task but had been placed for a previous cycle and hadn't been taken down. Since the discovery was in keeping with the rules, it was included in her final tally.
- Awesome Ego: While often not the best at the tasks themselves, she can definitely back up a lot of her boasts, such as performing to crowded venues, being able to sing, and her ability to borrow dogs.
- Blatant Lies: If Judi is to be believed, the island of Jamaica apparently contains four-legged birds, frogs that are bigger than ratsnote , and the 2 in the number 20 is written more like a 3 there.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Sometimes has excellent performances in the tasks, but is very happy to get Alex to do as much of the work for her as possible. Justified with the live tasks, as she was training for Strictly Come Dancing at the same time and reportedly very tired and sore during the studio recordings.
- Catchphrase:
- Judi addresses everyone as "babes." Alex doing an impression of Judi amounts to him just saying "Hiya, babes!"
- Many of her attempts at bullshitting her way through a poor performance in the task begin with the phrase "In Jamaica..." to try and persuade Greg that what is clearly wrong in the UK is perfectly acceptable there.
- Didn't Think This Through: For the live task in "Heg", everyone points out that Judi just needs to knock over Sophie's tower to win the episode. Sophie even goes so far as to donate her boots to give Judi every advantage. Unfortunately, Judi unthinkingly flings her last boot at Ardal's tower instead and taking herself out of contention for the lead.
- Epic Fail: When tasked with high-fiving Alex third out of the five contestants, she completely misunderstands the task and charges ahead to go first — completing the task in just 20 seconds and making it impossible for herself to win.
- Insistent Terminology: She insistently calls a Rubik's Cube a "ruby cuby" and cows as "moos".
- Failed Dramatic Exit: When Judi gets disqualified from the "find the red balls" live task after pulling out a rubber duck, she turns around and tries to storm off, only to find herself unable to walk due to the sleeping bag she's zipped into. She has to settle for standing still and looking angry.
- Sassy Black Woman: Definitely. She is argumentative on almost every decision Greg makes (even positive ones), is unapologetically loud and tries to be the center of attention, and really dislikes losing.
- The Unintelligible: Averted in "You Tuper Super". Despite sticking her tongue out like everyone else in the licking task, it is still perfectly possible to understand what she is saying. This does not go unnoticed by Alex, who replays a clip of her clearly saying "for fuck's sake".
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Downplayed. It's not a phobia, but Judi reveals in "Shoe Who" that she really does not like touching other people's shoes, especially the soles. Every time she is seen handling shoes, she is always wearing gloves.
Sophie Duker
"I think I had pandas in my cooch when I was climbing that tree."
Alex: She looked cool and powerful throughout... that’s what she said.
Greg: Oh, that’s what she said.
Click to see Sophie in “Spider in My Pocket” Spoilers!
A stand-up comedian and writer.
- Bait-and-Switch: For her duel with Alex, she and Alex initially approach each other armed. Then she drops her weapons and declares that they'll have a rap battle instead.
- Death Glare: Shoots Alex these increasingly while playing Guess Shoe, particularly when he says she isn't acting as exasperated as the task requested.
- Determinator: Sophie eats her entire edible sculpture in Episode 7 after she is given the surprise task, despite using 100 grams of butter in it. After she leaves the room she immediately regurgitates it. One episode later, she remains within the rather disgusting tongue task for a full 26 minutes, only leaving when she has run out of stuff to lick.
- The Generic Guy: Heavily downplayed. When Alex is called upon to do an impression of all this series' contestants, Sophie is the only one whom he can't come up with a distinctive Verbal Tic or tone of voice to imitate - much to her annoyance. However, she does have her own quirks, such as her fascination with death, sharp wit, and millennial lifestyle. It's more a case of everyone else in her series having a more defined personality.
- Nightmare Fetishist: She has a subtle fascination with death, that worms its way through some of the creative tasks.
- Prone to Tears: Is close to tears at least three times over the course of the series. And a fourth time once she wins.
- Screaming Woman: In the cocktail task in "Heg," she inexplicably spends a substantial amount of time standing at the caravan door, dropping items, and shrieking in alarm each time.
- Scully Box: She stands on a platform for her duel with Alex to make herself look more intimidating.
- Sex Is Good: Sophie seems to be rather sex-positive, frequently making lewd and saucy jokes yet without judgement or immaturity.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Spends much of the sixth episode discussing Alex's death.
