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A joyful book to start the year, full of trivia, stats and stories about one of the maddest shows on the telly.

For those of you not familiar (maybe you’ve been under a rock?), each series of Taskmaster takes five comedians and pits them against each other in a variety of tasks, some complicated, some seemingly simple, some creative! Lateral thinking is often helpful, but be careful because the Taskmaster’s word is final, and if he doesn’t like the way you’ve interpreted the question, he will not hesitate to award 0 points.

The book has been put together by Alex Horne who is the brains behind the show (even if he only appears on screen as the assistant), and Jack Bernhardt who was originally I think just a super-fan, and is all about the stats – he has spreadsheets which put mine to shame, and so is able to pull up all sorts of facts about contestants on the show.

Alex shares the history of how the show came about, including all the tasks that were part of the Edinburgh show he did before it became the TV show we know and love, and Jack shares stats like most episode wins and most inconsistent contestant. Then there are all sorts of highlights and anecdotes sharing the fastest tasks, tasks with animals, “recipes” for food tasks, tasks involving hair – all sorts of things!

It also talks about some of the amazing work that was done in lockdown “home-tasking” to engage kids, and the work that’s been done with schools too, which actually ended up with Alex getting an honorary doctorate (his speech is also in the book). And there’s a section in the middle in colour which shares a curated selection of some of the artwork created on the show over the last 10 years.

I really enjoyed it, I don’t think you’d get much from it if you hadn’t seen the show, but for those of us who have, it’s a lovely reminisce combined with analysis and behind the scenes information, it was everything I hoped it’d be!