Taskmaster needs to end before we all get sick of it

The comedy game show is one of British TV’s modern success stories but Louis Chilton thinks the jig is up

- Louis Chilton

Let me dust off the first rule of show business. That is to say: always leave 'em wanting more. By this point, it's an ancient and threadbare adage - but still intractably true. And it's one that came to mind as I flicked through this week's TV schedule, and came upon Channel 4's Thursday night slot. There, at 9pm, wasTaskmaster, the comic game show hosted by Greg Davies, returning yet again for a 19th series.

It shouldn’t really be a surprise at this point. Taskmaster has been on TV every half year since 2015, when the series first launched on Dave, the channel that now broadcasts under the doggerel name U&Dave. (The series moved to Channel 4 in 2020.) Created by comedian Alex Horne (who also serves as Davies’s sidecar deputy presenter), Taskmaster quickly became a beloved staple of Brit TV.

People loved the premise: five comedians attempting a series of bizarre, inventive or downright pointless “tasks”. They loved the contestants: a Who’s Who of British comedy’s best and brightest, emerging and established acts alike. They loved Davies, too – maybe the least-cancelled Greg on British television – steering proceedings with a sort of jolly cynicism. To be clear, it’s not like the series has ever fallen out of favour. But how long is it, really, until nobody is left wanting more at all?

It’s not that long-running series cannot possibly remain good, that there are not ways of staying fresh and reinventing a formula over time. But mostly, longevity simply leads to a rut. Whether it’s dramas such as Doctor Who