British series:
Series: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen
Specials: New Year Treat | New Year Treat II | New Year Treat III | New Year Treat IV
New Zealand series:
Seasons: One | Two | Three | Four
Australian Series:
Seasons: One
Charlotte Ritchie
"What's the situation?"
Alex: Charlotte's hiding from you.
Greg: Why? It's not like she's done yet another performance on a children's TV show.
An actress who is best known for her roles as Oregon in Fresh Meat, Barbara in Call the Midwife, and Alison in Ghosts (UK).
- Butt-Monkey: Regularly teased by Greg for being endearingly dorky.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: She reacts with fear when a large mouse comes toward her and remains uncomfortable even after realizing it's a remote-control device.
- Excited Kids' Show Host: Greg jokes several times that though Charlotte may be damaging her acting career by appearing on Taskmaster, her demeanor during tasks is perfect for children's TV. She eventually just leans into it, accepting that this is how she'll be remembered as a contestant.Charlotte: [Opens a task] Pop!
Sarah: Pop?
Charlotte: Well it's sticking now, I might as well embrace it. - Facepalm: Prone to covering her face when watching a VT if it shows her in Excited Kids' Show Host mode, due to a combo of embarrassment and avoiding eye contact with Greg.
- Identical Stranger: In the podcast, her resemblance to Margot Kidder is noted a few times.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Charlotte self-consciously makes a boob gag in the series finale, which Greg criticises for undermining the kids' show host career he's been building up for her.
- Tempting Fate: During the batter task in "Absolute Casserole", Charlotte picks up the largest battered object and then talks about how she hopes she isn't about to bite into a piece of leather. Hidden inside the batter was a leather wallet.
Jamali Maddix
"I’ll take three points."
"If you win the series based on this technique, it's gonna be a hollow crown."
— The Taskmaster
A stand-up comedian known for his VICELAND documentary series Hate Thy Neighbor.
- Bad Boss: Jamali's dynamic with Alex. Jamali often sends Alex to fetch items rather than get them himself, all the while jokingly berating Alex as the creator of the tasks. Alex in turn asks Jamali pointless and irritating questions to clarify the latter's instructions.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Jamali sometimes uses his strength to smash things open, stomps on props and supplies, or uses a hoover to extract jelly from a bottle.
- Character Title: The series 11 finale "Activate Jamali" is the first episode in Taskmaster history to feature a contestant's first name in the title.note
- Cutting the Knot: When Jamali had to say the word "metronome" between the beats of a metronome while eating poppadoms, he just recorded himself saying "metronome" several times on his phone, then played it on repeat while serenely eating.
- Did Not Think This Through: For the plate moving task, he realized he could use the tablecloth to fashion a makeshift sack. Unfortunately, he neglected to secure the cloth properly and earned himself a three hour penalty.
- The Gadfly: One of Jamali's defining traits during the series.
- He doesn't seem to mind being ranked low for his attempts. However, he's also more than happy to nitpick other contestants' attempts to try and drag them down to the bottom alongside him.Jamali: Come down to the bottom with me!
- Jamali is also clearly unafraid of needling Greg and getting under his skin, including repeatedly pretending that he doesn't really know Greg or his work.Jamali: You sit there on your custom-made chair and you look down on the little people, and you know what? We're not having it anymore. Wearing black, looking slimming, we get it, alright?note
- This gets turned back on him by Alex, however; he seems to view Alex as his assistant and has a tendency to (somewhat brusquely) order him about, which will then prompt Alex to ask irritatingly pointless questions or find reasons to dither in fulfilling Jamali's instructions, irritating him.
- He doesn't seem to mind being ranked low for his attempts. However, he's also more than happy to nitpick other contestants' attempts to try and drag them down to the bottom alongside him.
- Genre Savvy: Jamali was the only one to open up the battered wallet after stamping, which gave him a list of answers to the rest of the task.
- Hypocrite:
- He goes after Charlotte for breaking the three-metre distance rule set for the rat-catching task, ignoring the fact that he did so himself.
- He needles Greg for wearing an all-black ensemble despite the fact that he also wears an all-black outfit for his pre-recorded tasks.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: Jamali rivals only Greg in tongue-in-cheek abusing Alex. In 'Mr. Octopus and Pottyhands' he even says "He's a punk, I genuinely don't like him".
- Rule-Abiding Rebel: In a team task where Jamali and team are asked to vandalise a wall:Jamali: "Is it cool if I just start fucking it up?"
- So Proud of You: As Series 11 progresses, Greg increasingly praises and expresses fatherly pride in Jamali's abusive tendencies towards Alex, culminating in calling him "my boy" in the finale.
- Water Source Tampering: In Episode 7, one of the tasks says, "Quaff the Ribena." Jamali asks if it's got tap water, and, upon confirmation it does, refuses to drink it. When asked why, he says, "They put chemicals in the tap water." When asked who, he says, "The government. I'm not saying it's the Illuminati, but I don't drink it." Greg drops the subject.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In Episode 6, Jamali stomps on something as hard as possible in four separate tasks and proceeds to win the episode as a result.
Lee Mack
(Mouth full of poppadom)"I've got a BAFTA!"
"Even in victory, you can't resist giving [Alex] a bollocking."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian best known for his role as team captain on Would I Lie to You?, and for his sitcom Not Going Out.
- Butt-Monkey: In "Slap and Tong", Greg enjoys an unflattering clip of Lee trying to catch falling jelly with his tongue so much that he plays it on repeat.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Greg complimented Lee for his utter lack of care when weighing Alex's head and feet for a task, including roughly drawing on his bare thighs with permanent marker (which left a mark for two weeks) and dunking Alex's head in ice-cold water, a method described as "scientific and brutal".
- When Lee makes a blind Mike tumble backwards in a golf bunker through poor instructions, Lee starts audibly laughing while admitting he shouldn't.
- Competition Freak: Among the cast, Lee was the most likely to start arguing over the nuances of a task. This is because his kids are huge fans of the show and he'd promised them that he wouldn't come in last.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lee enjoys the odd one-liner at Greg's expense in the studio.
- Did Not Think This Through: He has a habit of carelessly making disqualifying mistakes during tasks and obliviously carrying on, ending up with no points as a result.
- Dude, Not Funny!: He was angered when he bit into an egg during the "identify the battered item" task, as he told production ahead of time that he's vegan but they didn't respect his dietary restriction.
- Genius Ditz: Lee was definitely not a cerebral contestant, but he was the only one in his series' line-up who thought of a (relatively) scientific and precise method of weighing Alex's head and feet in the finale. He weighed pots full of water on the scales, had Alex dip his body parts in each of them to displace the water, then weighed the emptier pots. Most of the rest of the cast basically tried to guess. Alex revealed on the podcast that Lee had an advantage over the other contestants in that he had once performed a similar task on the show Duck Quacks Don't Echo which he himself presents.
- Gilligan Cut: In Episode 9's task to build a tower (out of poor materials such as cardboard tubes), Lee mocks any contestant who would use plastic toy bolts as an idiot. A cut later he is using them himself.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: He wears a star-spangled jacket and cape patterned after Evel Knievel's jumpsuit. He also has a matching helmet that he wears on occasion.
- Oop North: Greg and Lee enjoy characterising Lee's attitude towards Alex in the pre-recorded tasks as that of a stereotypical abusive Northerner farmer berating the incompetent younger staff.
- Rube Goldberg Device: When building a mousetrap, he creates an elaborate chain that involves a tennis ball traveling down a chute to be struck by a cricket bat into a plunger which knocks aside a sled to drop the Taskmaster Tub onto the mouse.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Unlike most contestants, who wear the same outfit to maintain continuity, Lee wears a variety of outfits under his Evel Knievel jacket, or removes the jacketnote .
Mike Wozniak
"What you can't take away from me is that I had an absolutely lovely day."
"You’re a very strange man."
— The Taskmaster
Click to see Mike in “Activate Jamali” Spoilers!
A comedian and actor who is best known for starring in Man Down, Small Faces, and Beef and Dairy Network Podcast. He also won the inaugural 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival program "The Taskmaster".
- Ascended Extra: During the 2010 “The Taskmaster” show, existing footage shows there was little interaction between Alex and the contestants, who mostly sat quietly on the stage. Mike didn’t really have the time to shine until his appearance in Series 11.
- Butt-Monkey: Got singled out to fart on camera and ended up spending hours trying to pass gas, only to pass a Hemorrhoid.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: His beverage of choice is milk. While this doesn't seem strange at first, he reveals that he drinks pints and pints and pints of it every day, an amount that would make most people sick.
- Catchphrase: Has two time-based ones, “Tick Tock, It’s ______ o’clock” (or alternatively the other way around), and “(it’s) _______ time.” On the podcast, he said he was a little dismayed rewatching his episodes and didn’t realise how frequently he used them.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: When creating a haunted house, Mike created a carnivorous house that attempted to lure Alex by promising him puppies covered in treacle. And that's just one instance of Mike's eccentricity, not accounting for the strange language he used during the series.
- Continuity Nod:
- His solo fart task from "Absolute Casserole" has been bought up in subsequent episodes. In "An orderly species", Greg mentions his task in the introduction to the show, and it gets another mention after watching Mike's attempt at the aircraft safety announcement task. At the start of "Activate Jamali", when the contestants are introduced by their best noise over the series, the sound of his fart is used.
- After revealing his heavy milk-drinking habit in “The Lure of the Treacle Puppies”, Mike claims he goes on night trips to a local newsagent for more milk in “Activate Jamali”.
- Determinator: Mike is the first contestant to vault the garden fence, in an attempt to retrieve his helium balloon after it floated away in a task. His efforts paid off, as he recovered the balloon and secured second place with a more careful attempt.
- Dissonant Serenity: Greg frequently notes that Mike's calm, unflappable demeanour can be somewhat unexpected and even unsettling in the face of the unusual and bizarre tasks he is assigned, leading to the accusation that he is some kind of robot or alien being disguised as a human who has somehow wandered into the show not realising that it is actually out of the ordinary.
- Important Haircut: Shaves his hair into a mohawk for the prize task in the finale.
- Mythology Gag: One of Mike’s prize task submissions was a rather inappropriate glass statue that got destroyed on the way to the studio by the post office, a gag he reused from the original Edinburgh Festival show when it was an allegedly massive ice statue that the post office failed to stop melting on the way to the show.
- Nice Guy: Mike is consistently soft-spoken, polite and friendly, including doing things such as knocking on doors before entering a room and saying "Excuse me," "Please," and "Thank you" (which many contestants don't bother with) during pre-recorded tasks.
- After having to do the plate-moving task outdoors in rather heavy rain and getting soaked to the skin, he makes a point of very pleasantly assuring Alex afterwards that it wasn't his fault, prompting Greg in the studio to note in amusement that Mike would probably react with understanding good-humor if he was being eaten by a tiger.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Always wears a suit and tie to both the studio and the pre-recorded tasks though it's also noted that he's wearing the same outfit throughout the show.
- Submissive Badass: Mike admits he enjoys the tasks partly because he just likes being told what to do.
- Title Drop: More often than not, his bizarre quotes and turns of phrases will make their way into the episode titles including, but not limited to, “It's Not Your Fault”, “The Lure of the Treacle Puppies”, “Premature Conker”, the memorably named (but
incredibly squicky in context) “Absolute Casserole”, "You've Got No Chutzpah", and "An orderly species".note - Too Clever by Half: In episode 9’s task to build and topple a tower, Mike is the only one to realise that the podium he stood on was actually a box containing a collapsible ladder. Unfortunately, he didn't realise that he could turn the ladder upside down to make an extremely stable tower. Instead, he used it to make a taller but particularly precarious tower by balancing cardboard on top, which then collapsed during both toppling attempts.
- The Unfettered: He states on several occasions that he will complete any task handed to him no matter what and backs it up by continuing to attempt several tasks past the point most other contestants would have given up.
- As noted by Alex, Mike was the first Taskmaster contestant to vault the garden fence, when he chased a helium balloon that escaped from the Taskmaster House and began floating over the nearby golf course. Somehow he retrieved the balloon and made a second attempt at the task.
- It’s his reason for dislodging a haemorrhoid during a farting task, and this was hours after initially receiving the task.
- Has a haircut and sports a Mohawk for the final Prize task for “Something that makes you look tough” which he kept for the whole episode.
Sarah Kendall
"I can't take on Greg, he's awful."
Sarah: Who's Picnic Girl?
The Taskmaster: You're Picnic Girl.
Sarah: I'm Picnic Girl?
The Taskmaster: You're Picnic Girl!
Click to see Sarah in “Spider in My Pocket” Spoilers!
A stand-up comedian and actress from Australia who created and starred in the ABC / Sky UK series Frayed.
- Boring, but Practical: For the plate moving task, she went with the sensible option of carrying a small number of plates over multiple trips. She tried making it more exciting by skidding her wheels and saying "Life's for living!" but, in the end, conceded that her attempt was very straightforward.
- Dark Horse Victory: She was a distant third in "It's not your fault," but managed to eke just ahead of Lee and Mike in the episode score when everyone else became distracted trying to sabotage each other during the studio task.
- "Eureka!" Moment: In a team task to transport a bag of salt between two tables, Sarah actually gets wide eyes when some of the powder she's throwing gets in her mouth, and she realises it's a decoy bag of sugar.
- Genre Savvy: She knew humiliating Alex would get her good scores, so she put make-up on his face when she was supposed to do something impressive under the table with one hand.
- Oh, Crap!: Sarah is mortified when she accidentally fires a staple at Alex's face while messing around with a staplegun.
- Sadist: When tasked to create a Russian Doll meal, Sarah dismissed the idea of inserting a raw lime in it on the grounds Alex would have to eat it. She then realised who she was talking about and changed her mind.
- The Unintelligible: When tasked with creating an in-flight safety demonstration using a language or accent other than her own, Sarah opted to alternate between gibberish and screaming because she can't speak another language or speak in a different accent.
- Wild Hair: Her voluminous hair is remarked upon from time to time. In fact, she claims that the most frequent question she gets regarding her time on the show is how she takes care of her hair.Lee: With all that hair, I wouldn't risk (standing on) one leg. You're top-heavy!
