Taskmaster turns absurd filmed tasks into a game show — format sold into 106 countries

In 2010 Horne asked fellow comics to complete a daft task every month — 'deposit money in my bank account, most wins' — and Mark Watson's £200 funded his Edinburgh Fringe show. Broadcasters rejected it as risky because it broke the panel-show template, until Dave commissioned it in 2015.

Make the 'homework' the show: comics film themselves attempting absurd tasks like painting a horse while riding one, then a tyrant host scores the footage.

Most tasks are filmed in a West London house, then scored in studio by Greg Davies as 'the Taskmaster'. Horne writes each task like a joke's opening line and lets the comics supply the punchline; Avalon then sold the format worldwide for local versions.

From Dave in 2015 to Channel 4, where it is one of the channel's youngest-skewing shows — nearly a quarter of viewers aged 16–34. The format has been sold into 106 countries, with 920+ episodes commissioned outside the UK and 1.9M YouTube subscribers.

Taskmaster began in 2010 as a private game: with a new baby keeping him away from the Edinburgh Fringe, Alex Horne sent fellow comics a daft task every month and reviewed their filmed attempts on stage — 'deposit money in my bank account, most wins' was the first, and Mark Watson's £200 funded the project. The Fringe shows were fun but unwieldy, so Horne halved the comics for a second year.

His management company Avalon saw a TV show, but broadcasters could not picture it — it was not a panel show, had no weekly guest rotation, and needed a narrative arc across a series. UKTV's Dave took the risk, and the first series aired in summer 2015 with Greg Davies as the all-powerful Taskmaster scoring filmed attempts at absurd briefs like 'paint a horse while riding a horse'. Horne describes writing tasks as coming up with a joke: 'I write the opening line and get a better comedian to write the punchline.'

The formula travelled. Channel 4 picked up the series in 2020; by then the programme and format had been sold into 106 countries with 140 episodes already produced outside the UK. By 2025, 13 countries were making local versions and more than 920 episodes had been commissioned abroad, while the official YouTube channel had grown past 1.9 million subscribers.

The filmed tasks are the show, so studio time is only scoring and reaction — cheap to produce and full of surprises.

Tasks are near-language-free and culturally light, so any market can localize them with its own comedians.

The tyrant-host frame puts the comedy in the scoring, not the gameplay, so the format never depends on a game being funny.

Keeping the same contestants for a full series created a narrative arc no other panel show offered — the differentiator UKTV's commissioning team saw.

A format can export when the gameplay is the content: tasks need almost no language or context, the judging frame gives the comedy structure, and local versions only swap the personalities.

Taskmaster became Channel 4's international hit: in 2024 it was among the channel's five most-streamed shows and one of its youngest-skewing, with nearly a quarter of viewers aged 16–34. The main show won Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs and kept earning nominations, while spin-off Junior Taskmaster took Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards. Local versions run in New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Portugal and more, with new Dutch, Icelandic and Estonian series announced in late 2025.