Taskmaster: Another lesson in British institutions

The first “game show” ever to air took place in 1938, in the United Kingdom. It was called Spelling Bee, and consisted of a live enactment of said game. However, this ground-breaking first was notably short-lived, and ran for five episodes at most before ceasing production. Despite this commercial failure, the precedent had been set, and game shows soon grew strong in anglophone spheres on both sides of the Atlantic.

Perhaps the most important knock-on effect of game shows' popularity was the launchpad they created for what we now call “panel shows”: game shows with celebrities, now broadly stand-up comedy vehicles where the points scored hardly matter at all. John Lloyd might be seen as the catalyst for this revolution, given his executive role in the creation of – among others – the News Quiz, QI, and Have I Got News for You. The contemporary panel show bears stark resemblance to its modern game show relatives, such as Take Me Out, Big Brother or even Eggheads. The notion of competition is almost entirely ignored, and the panel show instead focuses on an oft-forgotten yet vital component of the British psyche: making light of the serious, stiff-upper-lip world depicted across this sceptred isle.

And yet, there is one programme that appears to exist in the middle of the Venn Diagram of panel shows and game shows: a programme that appeals to both the dour, comforting, pub-quiz-simplicity of the original game show and the wit of the panel show. That programme is the latter-day legend, Taskmaster.

Taskmaster is, however subtle it may seem, an appeal to the British canon of the game show. The style of slapstick humour, the renewed importance of points and the performance of live tasks all act as a homage to the original style of game shows that has gone out of fashion. The general tongue-in-cheek theme of the show is also something that played a front-and-centre role in early game shows. While some latter-day panel shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown also take the biscuit, they remain rooted in conventional games, in this case Countdown; meanwhile, the very spirit of Taskmaster is rooted in the absurd. Or is it?

Taskmaster is another example of the banality present in British cultural institutions like Top Gear, as I’ve discussed before. A large part of the humour in Taskmaster comes from how average, day-to-day activities are made more interesting; notable examples might include “Destroy this cake in the most exciting way” or “Do the best dance to a mobile ringtone”. The humour in Taskmaster rests on distorting otherwise straightforward events, as opposed to going off the wall immediately. The programme’s pre-recorded sections are set in a facsimile of a British detached house, rather than some lavish pseudo-institution such as Lord Sugar’s Canary Wharf offices or the Bake Off Tent.

Taskmaster also seeks to appeal to the normative British lifestyle more generally: the design of the live set draws heavily from ornate theatre style, and the sheer notion of a Taskmaster and his humble servant puts one in the mind of a British aristocrat. From a decorative caravan to a jam-packed shed to a pointless weather vane, the set is built of British stereotypes. But who’s to say if this is what contributes to the programme’s appeal? The recent American reboot of the show forgoes these stereotypes, but these aren’t the reasons why that version is markedly inferior. Moreover, Greg Davies increasingly ignores the decorum one would expect of the master-servant relationship. Davies is not the one writing the tasks; they are all Alex Horne’s idea (with occasional input from the gem that is Tim Key).

Perhaps the value of Taskmaster is linked to the way that the stereotypical game show has changed since the days of old that Taskmaster appeals to. Adventures in nonsense such as the X Factor and I’m a Celebrity have taken the contemporary game show formula to its natural conclusion of appealing to the lowest common denominator and generating economic profit in the meanwhile. That’s not to say that Taskmaster isn’t occasionally crude, but at least it maintains an element of artifice; the amusement is considered and thoughtful, the result of comedians carefully engineering funny situations. This a different standard to forcing the famous to eat a knob at night; it doesn’t devalue the medium, but actually opens it up to a new direction. Taskmaster’s opening “prize task” is a good example: giving contestants points for best fulfilling the brief of things that the winner gets to take home (usually frivolous and silly).

The upshot of all this is that Taskmaster gives us something to appreciate about ourselves. It appeals to that banal kind of nationalism that doesn’t do anyone any harm and reminds us of the witty banter that stems from a light helping of sarcasm and a heavy bout of considered nonsense. When the world is increasingly globalised and cultural trends are lost beneath hegemonic spectacle, it’s valuable to have something like Taskmaster: innovating through two staid formats to create something entirely new and novel.