Kerry Godliman on Taskmaster's Champion Of Champions

Taskmaster gets another step closer to the inevitable Champion Of Champions Of Champions on Thursday when a second Champion Of Champions will be crowned from previous champions Liza Tarbuck, Kerry Goldiman, Richard Herring, Lou Sanders and Ed Gamble. Here,  Godliman talks about returning to the show…

Why did you agree to do Champion of Champions?

I’d do Taskmaster every week if they’d have me.

There's nothing else like it. It's very creative, and it doesn't feel like a competition. I just find it really silly and playful and fun.

Greg and Alex are extremely funny and I like that the tasks are so varied. This episode of Champion of Champions is a great example of that. You’ve got an arty one, a practical one, and I like that variety compared to a lot of competitions where you’re just doing one thing.

A lot of former contestants have become good friends. Does it feel like there’s a Taskmaster family?

Sometimes it does, yeah. I’m always keen to know who's doing it next because it feels like they're joining the fleet. It does have a sort of Freemason vibe with the secret handshake.

In this Champion of Champions, you revealed you keep your trophy in a garage among ‘a lot of crap’ and Greg wasn’t very happy about it.

Yeah but it’s needed crap. It's valued crap. I know that might seem like an oxymoron but I keep my camping gear in there, and that's some of my most treasured possessions.

I just think the trophy is a bit creepy and I live with children so I don't know where else I would put it. I genuinely don't know where I would put it in the house.

It's huge and it's quite austere and it's mildly threatening. I’m happy with it in the garage.

Was it a different experience to do a show with other contestants who’ve all done it before?

What’s funny is that normally in a series it’s like human tapas so you’ll have a cerebral one and a surreal one and a lazy one and an efficient one and that's what's charming about each series.

But when you've got five champions, they might be more similar so I went into it thinking: ‘Maybe we’ll all do the same sort of thing.’

But that wasn’t true at all. We all did really different things. For my prize task, I genuinely thought everyone would do the same as me. It seemed really obvious to me. And I can’t believe nobody else did it.

How did you get on with Greg?

The beauty of watching this show is how arbitrary he is about everything, but it's maddening when you're a contestant.

But I think he was pleased with the fact we all brought our A-game. Right from the start, he was impressed with us because sometimes people just come on to the prize task with absolute rubbish and it really irritates him, but we all offered pretty great stuff and that kicked it off.

I think he was like, ‘Wow, these are good.’ That set the tone.

Did you do anything differently this time around compared to your original series?

No, I sort of wish I had. In retrospect, I now have regrets and I have things I would say.

But no, I didn't really overthink it. If I had a strategy at all, it was not to have a strategy. I just went in and tried to be a bit instinctive, but maybe I should have thought about it more.

Greg invented a catchphrase for you during your series, ‘bosh’. How do you feel about that – does it follow you around?

Yeah, it does. I’ve ended up just leaning into it. I even called my last tour Bosh. It represents a side of my nature that I both celebrate and wince at in equal measure.

He nailed your personality with that catchphrase.

Yeah, he definitely has a good a good eye for my nature. It’s like cheap therapy really. Go on there and get your personality wrung out.

People seem to use Alex as a prop more and more often these days. Did you do that in Champions?

He’s kind of like a stooge in the house so you do need to make the most of his presence. He’s there for the taking.. It’s a waste not to dress him up or make him do stupid things.

There was an art task where we really got to go wild with him. Although I don’t know if I would play it differently now.

I just couldn’t resist it. I wouldn’t say it was a particularly cerebral contribution.

Any favourite moments?

I’m not going to say what it is but Liza’s outfit is going to blow people’s minds.

And Richard did a task involving his feet which was stand-out for me. He’s got Frodo-like feet. I don’t want to be mean but they were kind of repulsive.

Lou was hilarious, defending her prize. She just dug and dug and dug. You want to say, ‘Stop digging, leave it’, but she was just on a mission.

Ed really smashed it with one task and on another one was really flailing around and getting angry. I love him. He gets really angry but it gets him nowhere.

You brought in a former contestant for a surprise cameo, too.

I don’t know how that happened, to be honest. He just engineered his way in and I realised with retrospect I’d been completely played. But it was nice to have him there as a little talisman.

Greg said recently he could never compete on Taskmaster, even for a comedy sketch, because he’d be too good. Do you agree he would be?

I don't think he would. I mean, he's brilliant at being the Taskmaster but I don't think he would be very good at doing the tasks.

It’s so fragile, that status that he's wielding, that anything could topple it. I mean, it's on ice, isn't it? It’s on a plinth of matchsticks. If there was one chink of humiliation in that persona, he'd be ruined.

So he’s right never to do it.

• Taskmaster: Champion Of Champions airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Thursday

Published: 19 Jun 2022