New line-up revealed

The line-up for the third series of Taskmaster has been revealed.

Dave Gorman, Al Murray, Rob Beckett, Sara Pascoe and Paul Chowdhry will be set challenges by Greg Davies, with Alex Horne – who devised the series – officiating.

Gorman wrote in his newsletter: ‘I was a big fan of the show’s first series - and was thrilled to be asked to take part.’

TV channel Dave announced that two new series of the show had been commissioned back in September last year – and they are currently being filmed back-to-back.

As previously announced, the contestants in series two will be Jon Richardson, Richard Osman, Joe Wilkinson, Katherine Ryan and Doc Brown.

Each of the new series will comprise five hour-long episodes. Season two will air later this year, and season three in 2017.

At the time of the show’s recommission, Dave’s general manager, Steve North added: ‘We are thrilled to continue this hilarious show on Dave. I’m particularly excited to see what genius tasks the mind of Alex Horne has in store for the next two series.

The format was based on challenges Horne set to fellow comedians during the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010 and 2011.

In the first series, which aired last year, Roisin Conaty, Tim Key, Romesh Ranganathan, Frank Skinner and Josh Widdicombe were set bizarre tasks such as eating a watermelon as fast as possible or painting a picture of a horse while riding a horse.

That series was was nominated for Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards and was last year’s most-watched commission on UKTV’s catch-up service, UKTV Play.

Published: 27 Apr 2016