New Taskmaster series

[ChedderGorgeous]

AIBU to have never heard of any of the contestants on the new series ? I love taskmaster so trust they have picked a line up that "works" but my god they seem to have run out of people who are in any way famous.
Had to Google the whole cast. From what I can see :
JOANNE MCNALLY – Irish stand up apparently
JOHN ROBINS - Seems to be a Freddie Mercury impersonator who doesn't look anything like him. Also 5live presenter ?

NICK MOHAMMED - Mr Swallow??!
SOPHIE WILLAN – stand up it seems STEVE PEMBERTON - used to be in 'Benidorm' which I have heard of but hate.

Anyone else scratching their head?

It was superb - one of the best bits of comedy I’ve seen.

Just watching Champion of Champions and remembered Mae Martin also someone I hadn’t known before but loved on TM

Conversely, I liked Richard Herring from the 1990s and didn't love him on Taskmaster.

John Robbins is brilliant. His show with Elis James on 5live is a great listen, highly recommend. They will definitely be mining this thread for content however. Elis will be counting up how many people claim they've never heard of John.

When is it on 5live ? I listen to morning show and drivetime every day and have never heard of John Robins !

And once again, Google is your friend:

The Elis James and John Robins show is a weekly radio show presented by British comedians Elis James and John Robins. Formerly broadcast on commercial radio station Radio X, the show now airs on BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday afternoons from 2:00pm–4:00pm.

Looks like Google hasn't been your friend here sadly ! According to bbc website they no longer have a live show 🙄

... but you could have Googled the name of the show and you would have got the link to their podcast

I mean you did a Google and you were wrong ! I thought the whole point of the thread was that we could just have a conversation? If you were in the pub and someone asked you a question would you say "you could just Google it" 😂

If you're a comedy fan at all then you really should have heard of Steve Pemberton and Nick Mohammed. I know the other 3 but they are definitely not as 'successful'....but taskmaster is always great for introducing new talent

I guess it depends on what type of comedy you like ! From the chat it looks like I really need to look beyond Benidorm and check out some Pemberton's work.

I wonder if AH has been keen for JR to it for a while.

Im a big fan of the Elis James and John Robins podcast - I hope the new format doesn’t change it too much.

I was wondering if perhaps League of Gentlemen was before your time, but now you've said you liked Richard Herring's comedy.
I just remember spending the late 90s/early 2000 being freaked out by people doing Papa Lazarou impressions. How did it pass you by?!

You're missing out if you haven't heard of them.

The only person I've not heard of is Joanne McNally.

I do love British comedy though, some great TV and comedy from the others. It'll be a great series.

Wtf! And of them all I love Sophie Willan. She has written BBC tv and radio comedies.
So sharp, I have seen her interviewed by Lemm Sissay which was just brilliant. (Or was it the other way round? Either way excellent.

I am so looking forward to this because she will be the loose cannon one.

They are all good solid performers, writers and have been around for years.
Honestly pull up a seat I think it should be a good one.

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.

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.

Never heard of those shows. Who is Mr Swallow then ? I love some of the old classics on R4 extra - round the Horne, Hancock's half hour, as well as things like, I'm sorry I haven't a clue. The news quiz I used to like before the current presenter and before Sandi Toksvig. I don't love the more modern radio 4 'sitcoms'. Clare in the community bored me to death !

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.

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

I mean I did actually like that when it was Jack Dee but so mediocre these days.

You could get into some good British comedy through Radio4 extra if you wanted.

I don't think "Comedy" is just one set of people that you should or shouldn't know. I like lots of comedy that maybe you don't know about. Anyway, I agree taskmaster is great at getting the combinations of contestants right most of the time so looking forward to it.

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!)

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.