What’s the key to the success of the TV show Taskmaster? Is it the batty challenges devised by its creator “Little” Alex Horne? Or is it the pleasure of watching half a dozen top comedians struggle with them? Judging by the centrality of Taskmaster to current live comedy (UK tours are now routinely booked off the back of an appearance on the show), the latter is not insignificant. But Taskmaster: the Live Experience is banking on the former.
In a repurposed warehouse in Canada Water, London, the show’s world has been recreated so you too can be involved – undertaking a series of gimcrack tasks, in contest against friends or strangers, with not a professional joker in sight. (Well, OK, a few were in sight at the launch event, hitting the free bar. But I don’t think they’re a fixture.)
There are two versions of the game (“unique experiences”) available: Absolute Casserole and Melon Buffet. Turning up for a 6.45pm timeslot with my 10-year-old son in tow, we are assigned to the green team and Melon Buffet. Before the game begins, there are a few interactive challenges in the bar area, to get us into the tasking groove. We then enter the Taskmaster house, or a facsimile thereof, where Horne halloos us from a video screen. He introduces us to our real-world MC, “Little Little Alex Horne”, who, tablet in hand, will lead us through five tasks and tot up our scores.
It is, in other words, Taskmaster meets escape room, save that we’re not working as a team, we’re competing against one another. Our first task is to predict how many times a rubber ball will bounce on a table. The next is to select, in a room full of steampunk detritus, the right switch to illuminate a particular bulb. At the penultimate stage, we compete to construct towers from garden bits and bobs, and balance an egg on top.
In that challenge, Little Little Alex’s measuring stick seems to malfunction, denying victory to clearly the highest tower – unless my eyes were deceiving me. What happened next was worse, as, after task four, five winners were declared, and the rest of the group separated into also-rans. Fair enough, if the group were 12-strong – which seems to be the number this event is set up for. But our group numbered six, meaning only one player, a boy roughly the same age as my kid, was singled out as the loser. And teased as such by Greg Davies’ and Horne’s avatars – a sequence that certainly won’t have been filmed with child persecution in mind.
I’m sure the boy in question will, rubber ball-like, bounce back; the experience as a whole is an enjoyable one. Fans of Taskmaster will surely savour this lovingly recreated interactive version, which I’m happy to recommend to anyone planning a party or a puzzle-lovers’ soiree. But there are still kinks to iron out. Our game was rounded off with one final, battle-of-the-champions challenge – which went askew on my visit, as the real-world task got out of synch with its pre-recorded commentary. Our contest ended more with a squib than a bang – leaving me uncertain how much pride I can attach to winning this inaugural night of Melon Buffet. Is it really a victory when so much confusion attended my tie-break triumph? Reader, if I can book a live UK comedy tour off the back of it, you won’t catch me caring.
