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
Hugh Dennis
"I can't even remember doing that task!"
"You will not see a more tragic sight in any care home across the land."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian and actor best known for The Mary Whitehouse Experience, The Now Show, Outnumbered, and for being the permanent panelist on Mock the Week.
- Affectionate Nickname: Mel calls him "Desky". She claims that when they were at university together, he was a much more dedicated student than most and always at his desk.note
- Butt-Monkey:
- Judged the most harshly out of Series 4's competitors, with Greg often unwilling to consider his interpretation of the rules.
- Many of Greg's jokes with Hugh centred around implying Hugh had some form of age-related dementia.
- Greg also considered his Prize Task submissions to be, almost without exception, awful.
- Medal of Dishonor: For a prize task where he needed to bring in the most-boastworthy item, Hugh brought in a medal he was given for being the worst player at a football tournament.
- Odd Couple: When paired together with Mel. He takes on the morose counterpoint to Mel's perkiness.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Greg and Alex comment on his tendency to use blades (knives, scissors etc.) in his attempts, making jokes that Hugh's actually a psychopath.Hugh: I need some knives. Hehe.
- Too Clever by Half: Hugh was the most likely contestant in his Series to try to out-think the task, but too often his attempts to work around the wording edged into outright cheating.
Joe Lycett
"Oh my God, I feel so alive!"
"Like someone choreographing a ballet, then coming out on stage afterwards and taking a shit."
— The Taskmaster
A stand-up comedian and television presenter.
- Butt-Monkey: In "Look at Me", all the contestants had to draw a painting of Greg from a distance, but Joe also had to do it while smiling with increasing enthusiasm every thirty seconds. Greg described his faces as "sixteen lovely smiles and four difficult poo faces".
- Genre Savvy: Faced with an unopened task and a jar of mayonnaise covered in vaseline, Joe correctly guesses that the task is to open the jar. So he opens the jar then the task, completing the tie-breaker in zero seconds.
- Running Gag: If a task brings him to near the Taskmaster House's entrance, he'll run over to give the large portrait of Greg a quick kiss.
- Sticky Fingers: He has a habit of putting unused task items in his pocket and walking away.
Lolly Adefope
"Camouflage, camouflage, camouflage"
"She doesn't really give the tasks any thought, whatsoever."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian best known for her character comedy and for starring in Shrill, Ghosts (UK), and Miracle Workers.
- Black and Nerdy: For one prize task, she brought in a certificate congratulating her for being able to do GCSE Maths while still in primary school.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: When tasked with bringing in the greatest amount of money, she pulls out an envelope with £2,000 in genuine cash, far and away outstripping her nearest competition.
- Her attempt for the best handshake was a regular handshake where she also gave Alex £20, along with painkillers and chewing gum.
- Butt-Monkey: She accidentally ended up taking on a harder task by herself as she needed to herd chickens onto a mat. However, there was an avian flu outbreak after her attempt, so her competitors got to work with dogs, which were much more cooperative than the poultry she had to deal with. Greg awards her plenty of bonus points as a result.
- Crippling Overspecialisation: Downplayed. Lolly excelled in prize tasks, winning four, coming second place in two, and coming in third place in two. This leaves her with the highest adjusted score in prize tasks of any contestant in Taskmaster history, scoring 85% of the potential score. However, her score in other tasks was more volatile, with Lolly willing only one episode and coming last in the series, albeit only four points behind fourth-placer Hugh.
- The Cutie: Easily one of the cutest and most lovable contestants in the show's history, Lolly seems endlessly good-humoured and cheerful, and in her tasks often made a point of taking a cute option, such as using a cake to create a heart of adding a moral about friendship when asked to choreograph a dance, or sponsoring a sheep for a prize task. Epitomized in the final live task, to draw the median duck, where she makes a point of writing a heartfelt message saying that she'll always treasure her memories of her time on the show.
- The Gadfly: During the Hide and Seek task, Lolly called Alex to taunt him, sending him photographs of what she claimed to be her current location but were in face her on a beach and her as a child.
- Greg: You've hidden yourself in time!
- Genius Ditz: A nuanced example.
- Lolly tends to have amazing ideas, but her one flaw is that she tends to do them as fast as possible, often without thinking the action through. Greg lampshades this in "Spatchcock it" when she tries to fit a camel through a small gap.
- In the Hide and Seek task, she hid for a whopping 23 minutes - ten times as much as Mel's second place attempt. She was so successful in attempt she had time to call Alex on the phone to taunt him during the task.
- Lolly is also (as of the Series 10 finale) the contestant who scored the highest percentage of her maximum potential score in the Prize Tasks, at 85%. This contrasts with her poor scoring in the rest of the tasks, leading to her coming in last.
Mel Giedroyc
"Ooooh, brilliant!"
"Mel Giedroyc is officially nice."
— The Taskmaster
A comedian who came to fame with her double act partner Sue Perkins, and gained global attention for presenting The Great British Bake Off.
- Briefcase Full of Money: When tasked with bringing in the greatest amount of money, she decided to bring in a briefcase filled with Monopoly money, with a single layer of genuine money on top.
- Did Not Think This Through: She has this reaction when Alex points out how much actual money she spent to buy enough Monopoly sets to have enough fake money to fill a briefcase.
- Easter Egg: Mel wore the exact shoe she used to squeeze lime out of for the first three episodes, with the intention of wearing it for the entire series. On the podcast, she claimed she intended to stash the shoe in her caravan between the stage episodes, but that a costume designer likely got annoyed when they noticed what she was doing and stole the shoe.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: For the most part, Mel used only the mildest of exclamations on camera (while everyone else was bleeped at least once during the series). She did end up up repeating "Bollocks!" to herself in frustration at having to try and hide a huge inflatable ball in a flat football pitch in under five minutes.Alex: You may not have heard it, but she also used the word "heck".
Greg: Oh my god! "Heck"? Of course, that's Mel's equivalent of...
Alex and Greg: Mega cunt!- Precision F-Strike: After being like this the whole series, she dropped one during the very last task, to everyone's astonishment:Greg: Your aim is to draw the third-biggest duck, 'cos that's the median duck.Mel: But I don't know what fucking size everyone else is going to draw!
- Precision F-Strike: After being like this the whole series, she dropped one during the very last task, to everyone's astonishment:
- Innocently Insensitive:
- During one task where they have to paint a portrait of the Taskmaster, Mel's running commentary while painting was not completely flattering about Greg.Greg: [repeating Mel's comments] "He's got hair, hasn't he? Mean eyes. Big 'ole mouth. Quite pallid, isn't he?" [...] What's your problem mate?
Mel: [while facepalming] I'm really sorry! I can't look you in the eye! - Before her VT for the exotic sandwich task, Mel allegedly told Alex that she was going to do something that would "blow [Greg's] tiny mind."
- She also accidentally falls into this when she challenges Noel Fielding's ability to win the "biggest splash" task, which is contrasted with a clip of Noel suggesting he believes Mel will win. Noel, naturally, took mock-offense in the studio:Noel: That was sad, wasn't it? When they said "who's your best friend?" and I said "Mel!" [Mel begins to look mortified] And then they went "who's your best friend, Mel?" and she went "Not Noel."
Mel: He... he often wears things like feathers. And in my mind's eye, I saw a big old... splash, and a sort drowned... feathery...
Noel: Crow.
Mel: And that worried me.
Noel: Tell you who it won't be; that twat who dresses like a crow.- Ironically, Noel did go on to win that task.
- During one task where they have to paint a portrait of the Taskmaster, Mel's running commentary while painting was not completely flattering about Greg.
- Odd Couple: When paired together with Hugh. She's cheery and bubbling with ideas while Hugh is a bit morose and less enthusiastic.
- Nose Shove: Wound up with an M&M up her nose during the task that provoked her Oh, Crap! moment.
- Oh, Crap!: One task was to create an "exotic sandwich". Mel used an entire loaf of white bread, a jar of chocolate spread, and a variety of sweets and chocolate bars to create a dozen-layered monstrosity which she said evoked a Japanese pagoda. She was then handed another task. "Eat your sandwich. Fastest wins."Mel: Oh, gang...
- The Pollyanna: It eventually got pointed out just how cheerful she is throughout the show, prompting Greg and Alex to try and do something to break her spirit. They failed.
- Running Gag: She almost always ripped the wax seal from the task and stashed them in a front pocket for an unknown purpose. It was never brought up in the show why she did this, though she mentioned to Hugh she was going to melt them down. note
- Womanchild: In general, Mel displays a childlike eagerness and enthusiasm for the tasks throughout the series, leading to plenty of this kind of joke being made at her expense:
- One of her prize task entries were a series of medals she won for exhibiting her pet guinea pigs. When challenged, she sheepishly admitted they were won when she was forty-five and not a child, as Greg had suggested was a more appropriate age for owning guinea pigs.
- Other prize task submissions include a trio of stuffed felt peas in a pod and a chair from a doll's house, all introduced by Mel with a high-pitched, squeakily giddy tone... which never fails to get right up Greg's back.
- Her sandwich in the "make the most exotic sandwich" task was basically what can only be described as a diabetic nightmare, filled with various forms of chocolates (including chocolate oranges, M&Ms, Turkish Delight, Kit-Kats and so forth). Greg summed it up in the scoring as "only exotic if you're five".
Noel Fielding
"Why didn't you stop me, then, you dick?!?!"
"It's not a real thing, though, is it?"
"Right, and you don't like flights of fancy, Noel, do you?"
— Noel and The Taskmaster
A comedian known for absurdist and cerebral comedy like The Mighty Boosh.
- Agent Peacock: He performed his tasks wearing a yellow boiler suit with a skeleton painted on the front and silver cowboy boots.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Inevitably given his absurdist sense of humour.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Noel stopped the timer in episode two's team task, disqualifying his team when they would have won if he'd played honestly.
- Hidden Depths: He surprised everyone with his athletic abilities and surprised himself with how competitive he got.
- Oh, Crap!: When tasked with making an exotic sandwich, he decided to tie two pieces of bread onto Alex's head and have the man do an exotic dance. Then he opens a second envelope telling him to eat his sandwich...
- Older Than They Look: For team tasks, the cast was divided between "the parents" and "the children", with Noel in the latter group, despite being closer in age to Mel and Hugh than his teammates Joe and Lollynote .
