JAMES ACASTER, JESSICA KNAPPETT, KERRY GODLIMAN, PHIL WANG, RHOD GILBERT
Thursday 5 July 2018 The double BAFTA nominated and Broadcast Award winning comedy game show is set to return for its seventh series with 10 brand new episodes this September. Greg Davies, the almighty Taskmaster, once again makes himself comfy on his majestic throne, painstakingly polished by his sidekick and assistant Little Alex Horne, as he welcomes a new host of brazen contenders for the latest series of the international hit show.
Setting perplexing challenges, the Task Tzar will preside over the inspired genius, or utter ineptitude of a new host of comics, each scrapping for his fleeting and often fickle respect, praise, and points. Record breaking stand-up James Acaster (Netflixs Repertoire), comedy writer and actress Jessica Knappett (E4s Drifters), actress and stand-up Kerry Godliman (Channel 4s Derek), internationally acclaimed comedian Phil Wang (BBC Twos Live At The Apollo, Daves Unspun with Matt Forde), and renowned Welsh comic Rhod Gilbert (BBC Twos The Apprentice: Youre Fired) are the new line-up battling for a chance to win the most prestigious title in showbiz, and possibly the world, and be crowned a Taskmaster Champion.
Series seven is the second installment of a four series commission marking Taskmasters growing success for UKTV. Following the two-part special, Taskmaster: Champion of Champions in 2017, series six launched with its biggest overnight to date of over 700K and quickly consolidated to over 1.1 million viewers. Taskmaster remains the biggest show on UKTV Play with over 7 million views.
Taskmaster is one of the top UKTV Original commissions on Dave having been crowned Best Entertainment Programme at this years Broadcast Awards (beating Strictly Come Dancing, Im A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Love Island, The Voice UK, and All Round To Mrs. Browns), receiving a 2017 BAFTA nomination for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme followed by a 2018 BAFTA nomination in the same category, a 2017 International Emmy nomination for Best Non-Scripted Entertainment, as well as previous nominations for RTS and Broadcasting Press Guild Award.
Since its inception, an increasing number of other countries have developed their own versions of Taskmaster, including Comedy Central in the U.S. (starring Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster), TV 2 in Denmark, VTM in Belgium, TVE in Spain, and two series on Swedens SVT channel. The format is also in development in five additional territories while the finished programme has been sold to New Zealands TVNZ and UKTV in Australia.
Taskmaster, produced and distributed by Avalon Television, series six, seven, eight and nine of Taskmaster have been commissioned by Hilary Rosen, deputy director of commissioning at UKTV. Executive producers for the series are Alex Horne, Richard Allen-Turner, Rob Aslett, James Taylor, Jon Thoday, and Andy Devonshire (The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off), who also acts as series director, and Hilary Rosen for UKTV. Andy Cartwright is series producer.
__
What the press have said about Taskmaster Funny, revealing, and glorious...Caitlin Moran once wrote that the comedy panel game is one of the glories of British TV. A new one shone bright last night
***** Andrew Billen, The Times
Brilliantly madcap comedy game show
**** Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
Fabulously unpredictable
**** Mike Ward, Daily Star
Daves hit show is pulling in record audiences for the channel
**** Sean Marland, TV Times Magazine
Funny, silly, surreal, charming, imaginative and a bit rude
David Butcher, Radio Times
Taskmaster is an unashamed celebration of the bizarre and the mediocre
Sam Wollaston, G2 Guardian
Never before has anything so absurd, so stupid, so utterly pointless, made such good television
Sara Wallis, Daily Mirror
Inventive
Mike Ward, Saturday Magazine, Daily Express
The funniest show on telly
The Sun, TV Magazine
Creative Chaos
Emma Messenger, TV Choice
Taskmaster is one of the most consistently innovative and funny series on telly
Joe Clay, The Times, T2
The kind of Dave thing that shouldnt quite work but is actually wildly stupid fun. Mainly thanks to Alex Horne, late of so much splendid radio, and Greg Davies...a winner
Euan Ferguson, The Observer
The keynote themes are ludicrous absurdity and moderately cruel sadism. Somehow, however, it all works brilliantly, with the presence of Horne adding the barest modicum of civility to proceedings...prepare for tears of laughter
Mark Wareham, Mail on Sunday, Event Magazine
The show routinely delivers the funniest, most unexpected comedy of the TV week...The cleverest spin on the panel show format in years, its must-watch TV
Wesley Mead, Den of Geek
This delightfully daft game show was a big hit for Dave last year, and it makes a triumphant return this week
Inside TV
This seems to be a series that really brings families together
Bruce Dessau, Beyond the Joke
Splendidly silly
Sunday Times Culture
Clever
David Stephenson, Sunday Express, S Magazine
**** EVENT, Mail On Sunday
**** TV & Satellite Week
**** TV Times Magazine
__
For more information, please contact:
Gem Pinkney, Publicity Manager, UKTV or Florrie Sheehan, Avalon, FSheehan@avalon-entertainment.com, 0207 598 7222
About Dave
@davechannel
Sky 111/246, Virgin 127/194, Freesat 157 Freeview, BT & TalkTalk 12/79
On demand on Sky, Virgin and UKTV Play
Since bursting onto TV sets in 2007, Dave has been putting in hours at the gym and is now a beefed-up powerhouse of brand new and original commissions from some of the biggest stars and production companies in entertainment. Romesh Ranganthan, Jon Richardson and YouTube sensation Yianni Charalambous are just some of the latest additions to the channels ever-increasing slate.
Whether its innovative comedy entertainment like the BAFTA
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
JAMES ACASTER, JESSICA KNAPPETT, KERRY GODLIMAN, PHIL WANG, RHOD GILBERT 
