Women in the majority of contestants for the first time

The contestants have been announced for the ninth series of Taskmaster.

Taking part in the new series are  David Baddiel, Ed Gamble, Jo Brand,  Katy Wix and Rose Matafeo. Greg Davies will return as the Taskmaster with series creator Alex Horne as his sidekick.

It is the first time the show has featured a majority of women contestants.

The news was announced as Lou Sanders won the ninth series tonight.

She took home the life-size gold statue of Greg Davies’ head after scoring 164 points over the series, eight more than Iain Stirling in second place.

Joe Thomas was third with 150; followed by Sian Gibson with 143 and Paul Sinha with 136.

It has also been announced that a Taskmaster board game is set to be released this autumn.

The series has been a hit in the ratings, averaging 1.7 million viewers per episode, 16 per cent up on the last series. Taskmaster also remains the most watched show on UKTV Play with more than 5.5 million views since January.

It was was crowned best entertainment programme at the Broadcast Awards  last year and has been nominated for an International Emmy  and two Baftas.

The format has been sold to 17 countries including local versions in the US (starring Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster), TV 2 in Denmark, VTM in Belgium, TVE in Spain, and two series on Sweden’s SVT channel.

Here's the announcement of the series nine contestants:

Published: 10 Jul 2019