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
Doc Brown
"Forget about memory lane, I travel down Attitude Avenue"
A rapper, actor, and comedian.
- Didn't Think This Through: In the finale, Doc Brown laments this is a flaw he only realised after taking part on the show, which is then compounded by his refusal to deviate from his wrong choice.
- Failed a Spot Check: When tasked with moving items to a trolley across a small river, Doc failed to spot two bridges across the river on either side of him.
- Fingore: For his nursery rhyme music video, he rips off a rubber glove to show off a bloody finger. In the studio, he explains that some of it was real blood because he'd had to shoot multiple takes of him punching the fish he was rapping about and the scales cut into him.
- Nice Guy: Greg found Doc's £20 gift, of the apparatus needed to play a game Greg made up with his sister and childhood friend, quite touching. Doc had come across a description of the game from one of Greg's interviews, so he clearly did some research.
Joe Wilkinson
"Please don't take it away from me"
A comedian who is a frequent guest on 8 Out of 10 Cats, and the related crossover show 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After throwing a potato into a hole but getting narrowly disqualified because the tip of his shoe touched the disqualification area, he literally got down on all fours and begged the Taskmaster to let his attempt stand and subsequently win him the full five points. It failed.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He decided to impress a mayor by buying him 42 Callipos, a six-pack of beer, and also threw in £15. When he made a music video for a nursery rhyme, his attempt involved him standing in front of a green screen and mangling the lyrics to "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" while singing in a monotone to absolutely zero musical accompaniment.
- Limited Wardrobe: Joe wore a brown suit not only for all his pre-recorded tasks, but also for all the studio recordings as well.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Put his own strange twist on this on the eat-an-egg-the-fastest task. Knowing that other competitors would rush through the task, he decided to put together an "artfully" designed plate of food and eat it all at a leisurely pace. Since Katherine didn't finish her egg though, it meant Joe managed to get two points instead of just one despite his lack of speed.
- Time-Passage Beard: Unlike other contestants, whose looks remain fairly consistent across episodes, the length of his hair and beard noticeably change from task to task, making it possible to guess which block each task was shot in.
Jon Richardson
"I charge people to come and see me. I can't do that now."
"And once again, Jon Richardson is in the lead despite having the littlest legs."
— Alex Horne
A comedian best known for his appearances as team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: He becomes the little guy when he is paired with Richard for team tasks.
- Butt-Monkey:
- In "Welcome To Rico Face", Jon had to carry out four short, one-minute long tasks that had been set for him by the other contestants.
- Jon's height is also made fun of in the studio at least once an episode.
- Hidden Depths: For a comedian who has established a persona that exaggerates his mild-mannered nature, Jon's music video for "Three Blind Mice" is surprisingly disturbing.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: He was so mortified by his attempt at impressing a mayor that, when the video clip was being shown in the studio, he was genuinely moved to leave the room until the clip had ended.
Katherine Ryan
"People don't know how smart I am"
"But Jesus Christ, if for the sake of a entertainment show on Dave, Katherine Ryan is prepared to fuck her own family up, yeah she's gonna get the 5 points."
— The Taskmaster
A Canadian comedian and actress.
- The Bus Came Back: Katherine filled in for Katy Wix, when she was ill, in the studio segments of "Bready Bready Bready". She also returned for the first Champion of Champions special.
- Continuity Nod: Katherine refers to Greg as "your Lordship" during the stage task of her Series 9 appearance.
- Gaslighting: Greg accuses Katherine of doing this when she describes Katy Wix's fake elongated tongue as "realistic", when it clearly had hairs on the side.
- Genre Savvy: Katherine played to Greg's ego by buying him a faux-lordship in the £20 gift task, a strategy which usually pays off in tasks.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When tasked with eating an egg the fastest, she assumed the other competitors would simply eat the egg raw and decided to forfeit because she couldn't bring herself to do the samenote Alex notes this as one of the very rare occasions that a contestant declined to attempt a task.
- The Smurfette Principle: Katherine was the only woman in her series. She was also the only female contestant in the first Champion of Champions special, although this is justified since she was the only female winner from the first five series.
- The Unfettered: Willing to damage her family's bonds to win a task in the first Champion of Champions special.
Richard Osman
"Your time... starts...now"
"Four comedians and frequent guest presenter Richard Osman."
— The Taskmaster
A TV producer, presenter, and author who is best known for co-presenting Pointless.
- The Big Guy: He's one of the tallest people to ever appear on the show, rivaling The Taskmaster himself!
- Big Guy, Little Guy: When he is paired with Jon for team tasks.
- The Cameo: Plays a surprise role as the deliveryman in Series 7 (like Al Murray, Richard lives near the Taskmaster House), when James has him deliver a task to Alex in a "dramatic" way.
- Commonality Connection: A few of Richard's submissions in the studio are linked to darts, which he knows Greg is also a fan of.
- The Gadfly: When tasked with buying a gift for the Taskmaster, he used the money provided to make several long-shot bets that came through. He then donated the winnings in Greg's name to a Ugandan charity that cares for abandoned children and had them shoot a heartfelt thank-you message to guilt Greg into placing him first.Greg: Oh, man...it's tough...because we all know I should put Richard first!
Richard: Can I say, to make it easier for you, the gift has already been given and it's done its good and I'm very comfortable being in third place.
Greg: Yeah...but, it makes me look like a shit, doesn't it?
Richard: They'll be so excited when they find out their £250 has come from a lord. - Genre Savvy: As a television producer himself, he approached tasks thinking of what sort of tricks and twists he'd throw at contestants to make segments more entertaining to try and avoid some of the traps that Alex and the Taskmaster team set for the contestants.
- Richard is the first contestant to really draw out saying "your time starts now" to give him extra moments to think, a trick later contestants (like known fan James Acaster) copy.
- Nice Guy:
- Richard advocated in favour of Joe during the notorious Potato Golf disqualification. Ironically, it backfired when Richard's support made Greg more in favour of taking Joe's 5 points away.
- During the series' final challenge (an in-studio race to see who could put on a pair of gloves, eat a whole banana, correctly put on a tie, and clap all the while doing it), Katherine made the point that she was at a disadvantage as, being a woman, she had less experience using ties than the men on the stage. Once Greg admitted that the criticism was valid, Richard immediately improvised by re-reading the instructions in a way that would "move one comma", so now the contestants had to "eat a whole banana correctly" and "put on a tie" any way they saw fit.
- The Smart Guy: Richard's often the one to use Loophole Abuse to his advantage, such as carefully reinterpreting the task to suit his plan or not reading out the final line of the task ("Your Time Starts Now") until he has a better idea of what to do, or even starting on a part of the task before he's actually read it out (i.e. inflating a mattress he thought might be useful for completing a task but discovered it was irrelevant to the completion of the task). Greg even labelled him as the "most cerebral" of Series 2's line-up in the finale.
- For the challenge to 'put the 3 exercise balls on the mat on top of the hill' Alex Horne cites
Richard's idea to bring the mat to the balls instead of vice-versa as a great example of a contestant outsmarting the challenge and nailing the task. - In the Taskmaster Podcast, Greg discusses an escalating arms race between the contestants and Alex: the latter has to come up with increasingly careful and complex instructions to stop the Genre Savvy contestants (who will have probably have seen prior series) finding loopholes in the tasks' wording. In doing so he names Richard as the contestant who started this trend, by being the first one to really exploit a task's wording to his advantage.
- For the challenge to 'put the 3 exercise balls on the mat on top of the hill' Alex Horne cites
