Joel Dommett / Taskmaster S21

Why did you want to do Taskmaster?

I've always wanted to do the show. Over the last five or six years, people have known me primarily as a presenter, but I've never stopped doing stand-up. I love being a comedian, and I love being part of the comedy community in this country. Taskmaster is one of those brilliant shows that brings people back together to what we all started doing in the first instance and what we love doing. Hopefully it's nice for the viewer that they get to see a slightly different side of me.

Are you keen to do more stand-up?

Yeah, I've never stopped touring because I'm fully aware that stand-up got me to this point in the first place. When you're working on telly shows and doing different stuff, it's very hard to know what you're good at sometimes, because no one really tells you what they think. It's a bit like, “Yes, sir.” “Great stuff.” 

Stand-up is that beautiful thing where you know immediately whether what you're doing is right or wrong. It can be frightening to a lot of people, but that's cathartic to me, to have that immediate feedback. If I'm feeling anxious or stressed about filming a show, I go and do some gigs, and I genuinely always come back feeling better, unless it's a bad gig. It reminds me I'm good at something. It brings me back to the original reason why I started this in the first place.

I love the camaraderie of comedians, which is so important for this show. When we gig, we hang out with other comedians, and this show is just like a fun gig in that way. We chat in the green room about comedy and you catch up with people you haven't seen for ages, and I've been talking to people who've done it before like Nish Kumar and Ed Gamble and James Acaster and Rob Beckett: all these people I started out with and know from stand-up. It's just been lovely.

How did you get on with doing the tasks: any surprises there?

I always knew I was enthusiastic. I think the enthusiasm overshadows the thought. I get so excited by the idea of what's about to happen that I don't think. It's the opposite to someone like Kumail, who is thinking laterally, looking for loopholes, thinking about the language. He’s thinking, ‘How do I win this?’, where I'm just thinking, ‘This sounds so fun. Let's go!’. There was one task that involved walking up some stairs and I got very excited and said, ‘I can totally do stairs!’, but obviously there was a bit more to the task than that.

When I'm reading an autocue as a presenter, it doesn't go in as a thought. It goes in my eyes and straight out of my mouth and completely bypasses my brain. I get so used to things going in my eyes and straight out my mouth, that I’ve forgotten how to think for myself. Thinking is not my strong point. That's now my Instagram bio.

Tell us about your outfit and your skateboard.

I thought I’d use the skateboard more, but a lot of the time it was a hindrance, to be honest. They told me I could skateboard at the Taskmaster house. That's the only bit of skateboarding I did in the entire series!

What was the thinking behind the outfit?

I wanted to look cool. There's nothing cooler than clean leather. There's also nothing hotter than filming in the height of summer in a full black leather outfit with very tight trousers. We’d spend about ten hours filming and then two and a half hours trying to get the trousers off. It was like the scene from Friends. I called Ross Geller for advice about whether to use talcum powder or grease. 

Let’s talk about your fellow contestants, starting with Kumail.

I loved having a genuine superhero sat next to me. I work out, but he makes me look so unfit. His face is so Hollywood. Every time he looks at the camera, you melt away. He has mystery, where I give everything away immediately. There’s no mystery to me.

You were a little bit obsessed with him.

I still am. Imagine going from a Marvel franchise to a Channel 4 franchise. It’s brilliant. You’ve got this incredible cast — Kumail, a Hollywood legend; Armando, a legend of television who’s won Emmys; Amy, who’s won the Edinburgh Comedy Award; Joanna, who’s won multiple BAFTAs –and me.

Stop it right now. Say something nice about yourself.

I think I won a coconut on the coconut shy once. 

What did you think of Joanna Page?

I didn’t know what her vibe was going to be, because she’s a very funny actress but she’s not a stand-up. Sometimes you don’t know how actors are going to be, because you don’t know them as real people. As soon as she opened her mouth, I thought, ‘The entire country is going to love her’. She’s adorable and persuasive. With that incredible Welsh lilt, it’s like she’s singing a song to Greg. She also talks a lot. I don’t know how they’re going to edit her because there’s no break in her talking: she talks for three minutes without taking a breath.

And Amy?

She’s so funny. I know she’s been doing it for a while, but I think she’s going to lead the next generation of comedians. She’s brilliant, beautiful, and no one has a bad word to say about her. I’m really excited to see where she goes and what she does next because it feels like we’re at the start of what we’re about to see from her. More than ever, I think we need comedians like her who are delightfully silly. She’s very clever too, but very silly and funny.

It feels like pure, daft comedy might be having a resurgence.

Comedy is cyclical. It turns with the political nature of things. It’s become more divisive in the last five years, more political, and when that happens there’s often a reaction where the other side gets sillier. That silliness is coming back. You just have to look at how much Bob Mortimer is on TV! This show is such a wonderful space for silliness and playfulness. It’s unbelievably important for comedy. There are no other shows like it for new comics to make their mark and build an audience.

When I started, there were so many shows you could go on, like Live At the Apollo which was huge, and loads of panel shows, but a lot of those aren’t on anymore. A few years ago you could start out on small shows and build up and get a new audience. Taskmaster is basically the only show now that you can go on as a new comic, make your stamp, sell some tour tickets and start your career. It’s fantastic. To have a show where you can have Amy alongside someone like Armando, who’s been doing this for years and started the careers of people like Ricky Gervais – that’s bananas. And we all have a common goal, which is to make people laugh at silly tasks.

And finally, tell us about Armando.

He’s a delight. He has a physicality that makes me laugh. You don’t expect someone like that to be so physically funny, but he’s not afraid to get stuck in. He’s an incredible creator of amazing shows that we all know and love, and an amazing writer, but I thought he might be stiffer, more straight. Having said that, we’re complete opposites in that I get so excited, and he’s more like, ‘Right, I’ve done that, what time’s lunch?’.  

What’s the WhatsApp group like?

I was in charge of setting it up and I knew I had to think of a really fun name for the group, so I had a massive panic about it. I nearly went with Taskmaster Series 21 which I thought would be funny in its banality, but that would have been terrible. Then I nearly went with Sexy Legends. In the end I panicked and went with TASKMASTER COOL PEEPS all in capital letters. But I can edit it, right?

How did you get along with Alex in the tasks?

There was one task which I did with Alex and it came across as homoerotic. It was a hot day, so I took my top off which meant he had to take his top off because of the task. It didn’t make much sense that we had our tops off. He’s got a surprisingly hairy chest. And back, in fact.

Greg said he can’t believe you’ve actually got a baby.

Absolutely. I agree, it’s mad that I should be allowed. I wonder whether it's actually quite helpful, though, because I'm not his dad, I'm his friend.

Did you learn anything about yourself on Taskmaster?

I enjoyed it so much. This show is beautiful: it plays to everyone's sensibilities, no matter who you are. It plays to all your strengths. I've realised my vibe on this show is enthusiastic and stupid, and that is absolutely fine.

Who would you recommend for future series of Taskmaster?

I’d love to see Alison Hammond doing it. It would be complete chaos. She has crazy energy and would throw herself into everything. She’d wear a fun outfit, she’d be brilliant. She does live TV too so I think she’d have a similar energy to me, being enthusiastic.

ends