New Taskmaster series

There's nearly always one I just can't take to. Last time it was Lucy.

My favourite is Jenny Eclair because she had such enthusiasm for the game and the challenges. I've always loved her and good to see she is as I imagined.

My favourite show where I liked all of the players was the very first one. After that there was always one I felt a bit meh about.

@Wheretogo123

Acaster series is probably my number 1

numbers 2, 3 4 are the Mike Wozniak, Bob Mortimer and Hugh Dennis series.

I've heard of 3 of them. Which is about standard for the Channel 4 series. And is great. Because I've discovered some people I've found fantastic. Mike Wozniak for example, never really paid attention to him before but he was fantastic.
They don't need to be massively well known, a couple of recognised names (Steve Pemberton is a huge name really) and then some smaller names works. The less well known tend to be some of the funniest. And even when they aren't, there's plenty to carry the series through.

I think this will be a brilliant line up. Agree that my favourites often end up the people I didn't know well beforehand. My least favourite series was series 6 which arguably had some of the bigger names in Russell Howard Liza Tarbuck and Tim Vine but it didn't gel for me.

What's everyone's favourite line up out of interest? I loved the James Acaster/Kerry Godliman/Jessica Knappett/ Rhod Gilbert/ Phil Wang series, and the Bridget Christie/Judi Love/Ardal O Hanlon/Sophie Duker/Chris Ramsey one.

I agree. It's so refreshing to see a show without the likes of Kathleen Ryan or Romesh Ranganathan!

I have never watched a badly cast season of Taskmaster, so even if I don't always recognise them, I trust that the show creators know what they are doing. As PPs have said, some of my favourite cast members have turned out to be the ones I hadn't heard of before. Plus, most of the "familiar" comedians tend to be over-used on other shows, so it's really great to have a platform for lesser known talent!

What's wrong with Sandi Toksvig, @ChedderGorgeous?

I didn’t recognise any of the names but I recognised two out of five faces when I googled. I agree they are running out of people, in the first few series every contestant was very well known.

JOANNE MCNALLY – Irish stand up apparently

Has been on "Alan Davies - as yet untitled" and "Backstage with Katherine Ryan"

True that 😁

@Quebeccles I think @ChedderGorgeous mainly likes panel shows on R4. Oh, and Hancock’s Half Hour. Maybe the sketch shows in the Friday night slot, but that’s just a guess on my part.

@ChedderGorgeous you didn’t hear Steve Pemberton on The League of Gentlemen when it first started out, on Radio 4? It was a big success there before it moved to TV. And 'Inside No. 9' has been going ages now (brilliantly).

Do you like Radio 4 @ChedderGorgeous ?

You’re not alone OP. I recognised Steve Pemberton’s face when I googled but the name meant nothing to me. Never heard of any of the others.

If Tony Hancock was on this series it would be a ratings winner.

Sophie Willan wrote Alma's Not Normal, a comedy on BBC based on her life growing up. Her mum was a heroin addict, and for a time she was a prostitute. She then went into comedy and won a BBC Comedy award.

The thing is though, surely if it's mostly only the old stuff you like, or i think you mentioned comedians who play big venues, so who have been around quite a while and less need to do TV shows like this, then surely you have usually not heard of most of the taskmaster contestants. (Ok perhaps one or two per series would fit that category - Dara, Julian Clary, Jo brand etc). Which is fair enough. But I think people are just questioning it because you were so amazed you didn't know them that you started a quite annoyed sounding AIBU.

But anyway, it's quite nice to think how wide the comedy scene is. And I'm with you on liking radio 4 for comedy, albeit not the oldies so much. Do you like the John Finnemore stuff? He's one of my comedy heroes so I'd love to see what he'd make of Taskmaster, but can't see it happening (and he would definitely have lots of people saying Who? when announced!)

Anyhoos. I know nothing about British comedy. Nada. But I do love me some Taskmaster.

Ah well @ChedderGorgeous , Live at the Apollo is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Maybe that’s something that you can look forward to instead.

I give up, you claim to listen to radio 4 comedy
... clearly you don't Sophie W has written a comedy called "Sophie Willand guide to normality"... as has Nick Mohammed it's called "detective Sergeant Nick Mohammed" the clues are in the names.
NM was in Ted Lasso as one of the main characters Nate and written intelligence staring him and David Schwimmer.

Steve Pemberton has been in a huge amount of stuff on the TV over 25yrs. If you've never seen the League of Gentlemen then you really need to watch it. It's one of the funniest, cleverest and most twisted comedy shows ever made.