The 20 Best Players in Taskmaster History (So Far)

Taskmaster, perhaps more than any other game show on the planet, is about Vibes. Yes, there are points awarded to each contestant, and yes the winner of each season gets to take home a trophy, but the best Taskmaster players are the ones who can merge their competitive spirit with a genuine sense of fun and personality. Some players succeed simply by succeeding, but others succeed through sheer force of presence.

To be clear, there’s never been a bad Taskmaster contestant in the original U.K. version’s 20-plus-season run so far, the latest of which wrapped up this week. Everyone brings their own commitment to the game, their own approach, their own persona, and they all manage to entertain. But to be a truly great Taskmaster player, you have to be willing, at all times, to be both a competitive legend and an absolute fool, sometimes simultaneously. The players below represent exactly that kind of performance, the Taskmaster Hall of Fame through 21 seasons and counting.

20.

Sophie Duker (Series 13)

While Greg Davies is the title Taskmaster, Alex Horne is the more active of Taskmaster’s two hosts when it comes to the players. As the “Taskmaster’s Assistant” and mastermind behind the whole series, Horne is on hand for every single task, which means each player develops their own rapport with him, building an impromptu comedy duo in the process. Over the years, some players have chosen to make this rapport vaguely, hilariously antagonistic, and while players like James Acaster may have been the trailblazers in this respect, Sophie Duker elevated it to an art form. The series-13 champion wasn’t deliberately malicious toward Alex (other players rolled that dice and won, as we’ll soon see), but she was constantly needling him, whether chasing him around a tree while he rode a bike or developing a series of “icebreakers” meant to bring them closer together. A great player of the game, yes, but an even better player of the Taskmaster’s Assistant, making their segments together constant fun.

19.

John Robins (Series 17)

Along this journey we’re going to meet a lot of Taskmaster players who either simply aren’t good at the tasks they’re assigned or care more about personality and fun than actually completing things according to Alex Horne’s pedantic rules. Winning is not the entire point of the show, after all, but sometimes a player comes along who is simply so tapped into the spirit of Horne’s games that they can’t help but dominate. John Robins, the series-17 champion, is, in this way at least, the Platonic Ideal of a Taskmaster player. Whether he’s showing off his impeccable skill at darts or reading between the lines of each task to find the perfect loophole, he just simply gets it, and he does it all while being affable, charming, and clad in a Freddie Mercury jacket. He wasn’t the first dominant player on the show, but so far in Taskmaster history he’s been the most dominant player while also being one of the most lovable.

18.

Rosie Jones (Series 18)

“Basically, I’ve always got to smile, ’cause when I don’t smile, people think I’m dead,” Rosie Jones said during one of her studio segments on Taskmaster series 18. It was meant to be a joke about her cheerful demeanor, and a dig at the way the world views disabled people (Jones has cerebral palsy), but it also turned out to be a mission statement for her entire tenure on the show. Sunny, wild, and often disarmingly horny, Jones brought both an unassuming competitive energy and a sublime strangeness that made her a fan favorite. For one prize task, she brought in her own coffin, complete with honkable boobs on the lid. Another time, she proposed a dual enema session with Taskmaster Greg Davies. But perhaps the defining moment of her time on the series came when she was paired with the much more serious Jack Dee for team tasks. In one of the most beautiful visuals in the show’s history, Dee sat next to Jones, his head stuck in a painting of a naval officer, while Jones wore a hot-dog costume and exclaimed, “It’s Captain Jackie and the Hot Dog!” Other Taskmaster players wait entire seasons for moments like that, and they never come, but Jones took every opportunity to put her stamp on the weirdness.

17.

Joe Wilkinson (Series 2)

Taskmaster was a weird show from the start, but Joe Wilkinson might have been the first Truly Weird contestant in the show’s history, and he still ranks as one of its funniest. Perhaps his most famous moment on the show actually came at a point of failure, when he thought he’d nailed an attempt to toss a potato into a golf hole in a single try, only to find in the studio segment that his foot had brushed against the boundary Horne set up, rendering him disqualified. The ability to win on Taskmaster is important, but the ability to lose in spectacular, devastating fashion is arguably even more vital to succeeding as a player. Wilkinson proved that with the potato-in-the-golf-hole task, then underlined it spectacularly in a task in which he was meant to eat a raw egg as quickly as possible. Rather than trying to gulp the slimy thing down, Wilkinson went into the kitchen and prepared an extravagant breakfast for himself, complete with Dr Pepper to wash it down. When Horne pointed out how long he took, Wilkinson simply replied, “Took a hit on that one, mate.” That’s how you play Taskmaster, folks.

16.

Daisy May Cooper (Series 10)

Taskmaster is an infuriating game. It’s a blast to watch, sure, and former contestants often talk about how much fun it is to play, but in the moment, when Horne’s stuck them with a particularly complex task, some players completely melt down. The trick, then, is to melt down in a way that’s not just entertaining to an audience but deeply relatable. By that metric, Daisy May Cooper is one of the most successful players in Taskmaster history, known for two things: laughing until she couldn’t breathe and screaming until she couldn’t breathe. She was an extraordinarily committed player, as she proved in a task when she had to scarf down watermelon with the breathless enthusiasm of a child, but she was also committed to expressing every single emotion that occurred to her at any given time. Her signature moment on the show? Screaming her chosen catch phrase of “I love this!” (it was part of the task assignment) each time she tried, and failed, to make a cocktail as quietly as possible. The resulting cocktail was simply named Fuck Sake, a perfect distillation of Cooper’s delightful approach to the show.

15.

Mathew Baynton (Series 19)

Like John Robins, Mathew Baynton is one of the most dominant players in Taskmaster history, winning his series against a talented field by 15 points, but that’s not the only reason he’s on this list. It’s tradition on Taskmaster for each player to pick an outfit to serve as their competition uniform, the thing they wear for every single task at the Taskmaster house (they can wear whatever they want for studio segments), which helps to define their approach to the game. Baynton, like a true competitor, arrived in track-and-field gear, complete with extremely small running shorts that showed off his long, lean legs. That meant that any time he was given a task that involved getting on the ground, or stretching really far, we all got a (blurred) peek at … well, Mathew’s Bayntons. It’s a quick laugh, sure, but it’s also emblematic of how Baynton played the game. He showed up to compete, and he committed utterly even in moments of personal embarrassment, whether he was flashing the camera or, clad in a robe and a wig, playing stern schoolmaster to Horne’s meek student.

14.

Josh Widdicombe (Series 1)

Watching the first series of Taskmaster is interesting in hindsight because it’s basically an extended version of Alex Horne’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe performance that started the whole thing. No one’s quite sure how long it’ll last, and everyone’s trying to craft something memorable that’ll set the tone. Nowhere is that more evident than in the performance of the show’s first-ever champion, Josh Widdicombe. In just six episodes (early seasons were shorter), Widdicombe managed to run the gamut from successful watermelon binger to wheelbarrow tea brewer. His best moment, though, and the one that set the tone for the whole of the series? That came when the first group of contestants were asked to buy the best present for the Taskmaster for 20 Pounds, and Widdicombe came back to the studio and revealed that he’d gotten the name “Greg” genuinely tattooed on his ankle, all for the sake of a game show still in its infancy. Doesn’t get more Taskmaster than that.

13.

Lou Sanders (Series 8)

Lou Sanders entered Taskmaster series eight in a pink-and-red jumpsuit that preemptively declared her the winner, and she made good on that called shot through ten episodes of whimsical mayhem. Depending on the tasks written for any given series, it can be extremely difficult for a player to lean hard into the game’s strangeness while also remaining quite competitive, but Sanders pulled it off. She’d do deeply weird stuff like pushing a brick into a bowl filled with water, rubber ducks, and plastic babies, but she’d also find ways to win in spectacular fashion, like the time she threw a frying pan from one end of the Taskmaster live task stage to another with flawless accuracy. Her way of thinking through the tasks was singularly goofy and brilliant and produced some of the most quotable moments in the show’s history, including the brilliant question, “Will he notice me if I’m a bin?”

12.

Mae Martin (Series 15)

Some people walk in the door on Taskmaster and you just know they’re going to be incredible contestants because they’re so exuberant and bold in their approach. Others come in a bit quieter and prove over the course of a series that few have ever understood the assignment better. Mae Martin fits squarely into the latter category while also emerging as one of the most relatable players to ever take the Taskmaster stage. Soft-spoken, unassuming, and possessed of an anxiety that any gifted and talented kid trying to do adult stuff will recognize, Martin threw themself into each task with an unexpected, wild ambition. They did a mentalist routine with Alex, played the drums with a ball on a string, and shot a marble all the way down the hallway of the Taskmaster house with a single breath. Their creativity was boundless, and their humor and heart through the whole thing was infectious. When you watched Mae Martin, you simply wanted them to do well, and they did very well, as the series-15 champion trophy proved.

11.

Ed Gamble (Series 9)

Clad in a Canadian tuxedo and brimming with enthusiasm and a competitive spirit that often verged on the combative, Ed Gamble clearly came into Taskmaster wanting to win, and his sheer desire to do well produced some of the show’s most enduring moments of testy hilarity. Consider, for example, his approach to one of the most diabolical tasks in the show’s history, in which players were challenged to complete seven different sub-tasks without any hint of the correct order. While other contestants managed to find the right rhythm, Gamble absolutely didn’t, and his attempt to still finish the task in spite of everything is absolutely comedy gold. Throw in a live task in which Gamble absolutely loses his mind over the distracted performance of his teammate David Baddiel, and you’ve got a portrait of a deeply invested player who knows how to wield his own exasperation for maximum laughter. Plus, he clearly adores the show and went on to host the official Taskmaster podcast.

10.

Rhod Gilbert (Series 7)

Rhod Gilbert, partly thanks to his comedy style and partly thanks to his preexisting relationship with Davies and Horne, came into Taskmaster ready to do battle, and he did not disappoint. Lots of contestants antagonize Alex for fun, but few dare to relentlessly prod both Alex and Greg in the span of the same show. Gilbert did both, constantly searching for loopholes in every task, making Alex dress up in bikini bottoms, and most famously, bringing in the same photo of Greg in his underwear for prize task after prize task. It’s a display of cheerful ribbing and occasional self-sabotage unlike any other in the history of the show, and it’s capped off by what might be the best prize-task reveal of all time. After weeks of antagonizing Greg with underwear pictures, Gilbert, tasked with bringing in the “creepiest thing,” revealed that one night he’d gone to Greg’s house, hidden in the closet, then filmed the Taskmaster sleeping. No other player has ever gotten away with so much, which makes Gilbert a Taskmaster legend.

9.

Fern Brady (Series 14)

Fern Brady walked into the Taskmaster house dressed like a stripper from Mars, then walked straight into the hearts of every fan of the show. How? Simply by being Fern Brady. Every single episode in series 14 saw her coming up with another instant classic quote or moment, whether she was giving the entire series a tarot reading, dying laughing during a simple “Snort, Raspberry, Whistle” task, or dropping remarkable one-liners like “Did I meet these potatoes before?” In some tasks, like the one in which she composed and performed lyrics based on the show to a piece of classic music, she absolutely shined. In others, she was the most relatable person in the room, like the time she had to watch herself back on the monitors, failing miserably at a simple timing task, and could only respond, through tears of laughter, “I feel like I don’t know what’s real anymore.” That summed up the show pretty succinctly.

8.

Guz Khan (Series 12)

Guz Khan almost won Taskmaster series 12, finishing just one point behind eventual winner (and incredible player) Morgana Robinson. He was good at the show on a basic competitive level, but his wider appeal came from the sense that he, at any given point, had no idea what he was doing to rack up points. He spoke to Alex as though they were teammates, blaming him when things went wrong and praising him when things went right, building one of the best rapports between player and Taskmaster’s Assistant the show has ever seen. That particular dynamic reached its apex in a task, featuring some amazing eye-acting from Khan, in which he had to hit a roaming Alex with a ball, and responded to that challenge by simply shouting Alex’s name over and over until he got a response. His crowning achievement, though, came in a moment of absolute tanking when, during a team task in which he had to communicate with Robinson and fellow player Desiree Burch via walkie-talkies, he couldn’t stop talking about the “revelations” he was having with his end of the task. It all culminated in one of the best non sequiturs the show has ever produced: “Who the fuck is Veronica?!” That alone makes Khan an all-timer.

7.

Kerry Godliman (Series 7)

Series 7 remains one of the best lineups of players in Taskmaster history, and Kerry Godliman beat all of them with a relentless, surprisingly endearing no-nonsense attitude. Did she pick the most straightforward, and therefore sometimes less creative, way to do each task? Maybe, but when you combine her success rate with her catch phrase — “Bosh!” — it’s a winner every time. She won a task to perform the best quick costume change with a simple philosophy (“Velcro is key!”), drew a beautiful circle by simply realizing she could walk out into the snow, and perfectly re-created the game of Tetris not just by mimicking the mechanics but also acting out the frustration that comes from a pileup of blocks. She just lowered her head and charged through, becoming one of the best and most charmingly cheerful players in the game along the way.

6.

Sam Campbell (Series 16)

Sam Campbell might not be the strangest player in Taskmaster history — that honor might go to his series mate Lucy Beaumont, honestly — but he is undoubtedly the strangest player to ever win a series, and that makes him a first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure. Sometimes he seemed deeply at odds with the very concept of the show, at one point asking Alex, “Don’t you have other things to film?” when a task was taking too long. Other times he threw himself into the pure madness of it, as when he made a stranger call him “Dr. Cigarette” to win a nickname competition. And then there were the times when he was just irrepressibly himself. The best example of this was a prize task in which he was asked to bring in the best thing to see after a drumroll. Campbell triumphantly shouted “Cobalt!,” then told a completely unrelated story about planes flying too low in his native Australia. When Davies asked him where he got the cobalt, Campbell just replied, “online,” then explained that he told the story about planes because “everyone was telling stories.” Never change, Sam Campbell.

5.

Mike Wozniak (Series 11)

One of Taskmaster’s most appealing qualities lies in its ability to upset the stereotype of British people as buttoned-down, restrained people even when it comes to humor. Mike Wozniak, compulsively clad in a suit and tie, absolutely fit that mold when he entered the show and brought a good-natured, just-get-on-with-it approach to his tasks. But a show like Taskmaster changes you, and over the course of the series Wozniak’s restrained demeanor frayed, then fell away, as he threw himself into tasks like farting as quickly as possible, carrying plates while riding a hoverboard, and, most famously, giving himself a full mohawk when tasked with bringing in the thing that made him look “the toughest.” It’s no wonder that when the show got a kid-focused spinoff called Taskmaster Junior they asked Wozniak to be the Taskmaster’s Assistant. He’s got Alex Horne energy on both sides of the show, and it’s delightful to watch.

4.

Noel Fielding (Series 4)

Of course Noel Fielding would be good at Taskmaster. The Mighty Boosh veteran and Great British Bake-Off presenter has made a career out of blending the weird and the accessible into one lovable package, and that made him perfectly suited to a show still in relative infancy when he joined an all-star series-four cast. He quickly proved just how good he’d be at the show with a dead-on combination of whimsy, creativity, and impish delight, doing everything from shrinking himself down to hide in a bunch of bananas (digitally, of course) to “beautifully” destroying a cake by putting a camera in the washing machine, shoving the cake inside, and turning it on. His best moment, though, came in a task when he was asked to make the “most exotic” sandwich, and he responded by tying a piece of bread to either side of Alex’s head. When the follow-up task asked him to eat his exotic sandwich, he simply scarfed down some of Alex’s hair. Is it surprising to see Noel Fielding do any of these things, given his career? Of course not. Is it an absolute delight and one of the best marriages of talent and venue ever conceived on British television? Also yes.

3.

Jason Mantzoukas (Series 19)

Much like Survivor, Taskmaster has evolved from a show full of people learning as they go to a show in which fans of the series’ history can become players themselves. Jason Mantzoukas, one of the few North American players so far, is the finest expression of that phenomenon yet. A superfan of the series who requested a spot on the show, Mantzoukas came in perhaps hoping to win but more importantly, hoping to embrace his personal motto of “Destroy, Dismantle, Engulf in Flames.” He embodied this ethos in his very first task, where he prefaced everything else he did by asking if he could climb on the roof (he couldn’t) and kept it going through ten weeks of absolute comedy bedlam. He knocked cameras over and proudly shouted, “I care nothing for your cameras!” He got past Taskmaster contestant Aisling Bea to send in a plaster cast of her breasts for a prize task. He still tried to get on the roof even when they told him he couldn’t. And most impressively, in a task where he was meant to place something in an unexpected place, he used Taskmaster alum Nish Kumar as a body double and hid himself (nude, of course) in a cupboard. A fan of the show who became one of its greatest, and most destructive, players, Mantzoukas set a new bar for maximizing chaos.

2.

Liza Tarbuck (Series 6)

Liza Tarbuck has a devilish streak a mile wide, and she let it show spectacularly during her time on Taskmaster, eventually capturing the series-six crown through a mixture of charm, practicality, and pure devious invention. For one task, in which she was meant to both wear a hat and arrive back at the Taskmaster house at a prescribed time (she did not have access to a watch), she simply wrapped her own scarf around her head and went for a pleasant stroll. In another, she made a dot-to-dot drawing of male genitalia, then explained that it harkened back to signage for Roman brothels in an effort to inject some deeper meaning into what was basically just a funny picture. She also managed to … Okay, look, if you’re a Taskmaster fan and you’ve read this far, you know exactly why Liza Tarbuck is ranked this high: She’s the legend who got Alex Horne to sit his bare ass down on a cake. She was good through the whole show, but she could have done only that and still been a Hall of Famer.

1.

Bob Mortimer (Series 5)

There is a case to be made that Bob Mortimer is the funniest person on the planet or, at the very least, the funniest person in the United Kingdom. From Last One Laughing to Would I Lie to You? to Travel Man and beyond, he brings his Weird Cool Uncle persona to bear on a concept and crushes it every time. He’s so funny he can make even the usually stoic Richard Ayoade burst into spontaneous laughter, and all of this adds up to one spectacular Taskmaster player. His skills as a competitor and creative thinker allowed him to defeat an extremely talented series-five cast to claim the trophy, but as is so often the case with Bob Mortimer’s comedy, it’s the little things that make it all extraordinary. Yes, you can watch him break an apple in two with his bare hands, but you can also sit back and listen as he regales Greg and Alex with a story about the time he wanted to fill a ferry up with “gallons of piss” as a way of resolving a “dispute,” or listen to him whisper “Rosalind’s a Nightmare” in an almost seductive way during the greatest Taskmaster task of all time. He’s capable of big, bold, unforgettable ambitious performances, but he’s also a guy who can make you burst out laughing with nothing but a wink or a well-timed retort. He’s the King of Taskmaster players, simply the best to ever do it.