Perform a One-Minute One-Person Play | Full Task

A: Write a one-minute one-person play.
B: Stage and perform this one-minute one-person play.
#taskmaster
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In this Broadcast Award-winning, BAFTA and Emmy Award-nominated entertainment show, Taskmaster tyrant Greg Davies (Man Down, Cuckoo), with the help of his loyal assistant Alex Horne (The Horne Section and the show’s creator), sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five hyper-competitive comedians.
Comedians that have risked life, limb, and dignity in the hope of making the Taskmaster proud so far include: Frank Skinner (The Frank Skinner Show), Mel Giedroyc (The Great British Bake Off), Romesh Ranganathan (Asian Provocateur), Hugh Dennis (Outnumbered), Sally Phillips (Bridget Jones’ Diary), Rose Matafeo (Edinburgh Comedy Award Winner 2018), and Russell Howard (The Russell Howard Hour). Unaware of what awaits them in each wax-sealed envelope, only one competitor can become the victorious owner of His Royal Task-ness’ golden head and be crowned the next Taskmaster Champion.
#Taskmaster #Comedy #GregDavies #AlexHorne

[@ABRouleauville]

Whoever did the blocking and lighting for 'Doors' should win an award !

[@robertmain95]

I know someone who would've been superb at this. She went to RADA

[@benzaiten933]

30 Grand, baby!

[@djpunyer8762]

That's what we thought in the "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" task but she was surprisingly (and hilariously) bad. Then the pineapple thing happened to prove that her RADA training paid off after all.

[@DarkHarlequin]

I GUARANTEE you she had to do some 'Postdramatic' thingemajig like what Munja wrote for real at RADA. 100%!

[@paulb270]

✌🏾✌🏾

[@jamesmccarthy962]

Did she? Damn you think she should have mentioned something like that (:

[@JustAPersonDoingThings]

I love how genuinely p*ssed off Sarah seemed about his non-play 😄

[@kayl7625]

It’s my favorite thing about this task 😂

[@Ciara_Turner]

"It wasn't a play" 😂

[@gonzy_estavez]

Love how Dara and John ended up with the best pieces by sheer skill alone

[@jackwang9536]

For non Brits: Greg refers to Alan Bennett while judging Sarah's play. Alan Bennett has won multiple playwright awards and wrote "The King's Speech". Sarah's play is a recreation of Bennett's Talking Heads series. You can find these Bennett monologues online. Bennett's series literally has an actor sitting & telling life stories & sharing witty bits of wisdom in a living room with some tea. It's so weirdly intimate & culturally British, like you are sitting there with that person, typically elderly, eccentric, and a bit lonely. Sarah nails this exactly. And Fern nails the acting too, channelling a lonely old lady in a care home surrounded by the cats that represented the spirits of the old folks who died. Fern knew right away that it was calling out Alan Bennett. It's such a great vehicle for Sarah's brand of humor too, which is very intimate.

[@TarunoNafs]

Isn't her nana in a home? She herself is in a cat cafe alright, but under the new law cats were now stuffed animals (or killed and made into texidermy?), so it's called a not cat cafe. At least if I understand correctly.

[@TarunoNafs]

But thanks for the info! I'm a non-Brit and didn't understand the reference fully.

[@jackwang9536]

@@TarunoNafs Sarah Millican in the podcast told Ed Gamble that the play was set in a fictional old folks home, and the cats represented the spirits of the people who died. The explanation did not make it onto the show, sadly. It really made the play so poignant.

[@CarolienV]

Yeah, yeah, we know who Alan Bennett is. We watch the BBC. We know stuff that goes on outside our own borders. 😅

[@gerardhill6163]

In contrast to Carolien below, I appreciate you adding the context for Sarah Millican's play. I am able to appreciate that play - and Fern Brady's performance of it - a lot more as someone who was not already familiar with Alan Bennett's work.

[@FreckledFreak89]

"Slightly overwritten" remains one of Greg's worst judgments but an all-time great task

[@blackdragoncyrus]

This was said on the podcast, but Greg was directly criticising Dara's writing ability as well, which as a comedian, oof.

[@Uther1313]

it can't be easy to judge your friends' work. Its all in good fun though

[@FreckledFreak89]

@@Uther1313 Dara winning the series, beating Sarah Millican especially, getting 5 points for every task in an episode, and then winning CoC speaks a lot more than a 1 point deduction in a tough task to judge. But Greg still got this one very wrong haha

[@dontknowdocare]

I'm convinced they gave Fern 10 whole pity points on this task just so she could win an episode 🤦🏻‍♀️

[@jessehammer123]

@@dontknowdocare Excuse me? Her acting was second only to Dara, and her writing only to Sarah. She was brilliant in both parts of the task.

[@jackwang9536]

I hope you all noticed the NASA logo in John's spacecraft was replaced with "DARA". TM production crew are legends.

[@Lightcode]

Can somebody please timestamp this cause I cannot find it. And I really want to.

[@jackwang9536]

@@Lightcode Multiple times. Basically every time they show the entire cockpit. Look to the far left of the screen (next to John's right shoulder), there is an instrument panel witth a NASA logo that has been rewritten as DARA. And in another panel, lower left corner, there is a computer playing tic-tac-toe with itself (a call-out to "War Games").

[@jackwang9536]

@@Lightcode Also, the DARA logo is on the tail fin of the rocket.

[@avysark2034]

Dara deserved 10/10 for writing and acting. But the EDITORS are those who truly deserve 100/100 for making it into what it is. Choice of Black/White and angles were just superb! Shoutout to the team behind the scenes (hoping that at least one of the involved will see...)!

[@britney_the_evil_overladybug]

I have a degree in theatre journalism, and let me tell you, Munya nailed the style of postdramatic performance art

[@majorfallacy5926]

I give it 3 dick rod clangs out of 5

[@frontal87]

Still shite

[@KorboQ]

I think the only thing it's missing is arbitrary nudity.

[@owensteam]

That sounds like a degree for morons

[@sweetheart1991]

this is one of my favourite Taskmaster tasks from series fourteen - seeing their creative writing and acting sides

[@britney_the_evil_overladybug]

Unrelated, but your profile picture is beautiful, do you know the name of the artist?

[@sweetheart1991]

@@britney_the_evil_overladybug thanks for the comment, it’s just a picture I took in a friend’s house years ago. Not sure where got it from but she moved away to New York

[@britney_the_evil_overladybug]

@@sweetheart1991 Thank you😊

[@TheBlackDemon1996]

I relate to John's writer's block so much...

[@luciahoneybee]

John's decision to go Southern for that piece was just right and I will die on this hill! His impression was also on point.

[@Cynndora]

john's play is incredible, much to the credit of Dara's acting given what he had to work with.

[@jackwang9536]

The cats in Sarah's play represented the spirits of the folks who passed away in the old folks home. Fern acted it beautifully and her Northern accent was lovely. It just goes to show how incredibly talented Sarah is as a writer and storyteller. It's one of my all time favorite moments in TM, as moving as Nish & Mark's song for Rosalind in Season 5.

[@jessehammer123]

Yeah, I think Sarah and Fern wrote brilliant plays (and Dara and Fern acted brilliant plays). It was some really stellar stuff.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

This was one of my favourite tasks in the series. Sarah must have been so pissed, lmao.

[@princessthyemis]

She certainly looked like it!! Poor her...she deserved better material!

[@djpunyer8762]

Fern and John's plays were genuinely brilliant.

[@cnelsonlv99]

What!? John's play was complete nonsensical $hit!

[@jessehammer123]

I think Fern’s and Sarah’s were brilliant, with Dara’s being good too. In terms of acting, I think Fern and Dara were brilliant, with John being decent too. But I can’t say John’s play was anything but terrible- Dara just turned it from nothing into beautiful minimalism.

[@cnelsonlv99]

@@jessehammer123 For the acting I agree with Greg's rulings, but for the script-writing, he lost his mind. Fern, Sara and Dara were the best, by far... John's was crap, and Munya's was crap wrapped in garbage.

[@LoveSmerch]

‘Because me glasses were on the outside of me ping pong balls’ is one of the most underrated comments in TM!

[@vonwux]

I think this was one of my favourite tasks across all the series. It's a long way from the standard sillyness of _measure this caravan in beans_ and such but it worked really well and it was nice to see them (sans Sarah I guess!) getting to flex their performative sides

[@subbtopp]

I love how Greg is always so sweet to Sarah throughout this season.

[@Arkholt2]

Taskmaster is always funny when you get to see the contestants try and figure out how to do something they've never done before, but I absolutely love tasks like this where you get to see them show off their skills and talents. Always fun to see creative, talented people utilizing their creativity, especially when they're not given very much to work with.

[@CallMeProm]

I am absolutely in love with John's performance. "I said I was sorryyyyyyy!!!!"

[@weatherwitchandfelinefamiliars]

These really were astounding. The props, the camera angles, music and the editing gave them all even more edge and the delivery particularly by Fern and Dara was outstanding ❤❤❤

[@headlessnotahorseman]

They must be fun for the directors too, because they get to do something more interesting than cuts between people running and counting things.

[@wgerrub7297]

Door(s) and The Not Cat Cafe were legitimate works of art. John's space adventure could work as a comedy show skit. The ping pong play was hilarious since it didn't let Sarah act at all.

[@maxwelleichman6825]

One of my favorite tasks of the series. I always enjoy the more freeform creative ones

[@benzaiten933]

such excellent cinematography.

[@bootieos7701]

Very inspiring speech from Munya's play.

[@iliketrains3495]

Sometimes I wonder how John is one of the best-scoring losers, but then I remember his play got carried to a full 5 points by Dara...

[@kenoman2007]

Overall, great task! I love 5he I love the surprise, shock, and horror when they found out they weren't doing their own play. Great twist of event!

[@LBullockPW]

This is really a great task. I love the how the different plays reflect the authors’ personality. And the acting! So great.

[@arm_613]

Great task and the competitors (mostly) came through with some very nice scripts and acting.

[@DarkHarlequin]

Best Task in all of TM history! No contest!

[@user-zi7no6rn2u]

I'd love to see this task done a thousand times. This was a great clip.

[@HardLuckStudio]

I got a taskmaster vr ad before this 😂😂😂

[@adamplace1414]

I could watch back through any task from this season. In fact I often do. What a wildly endearing and entertaining group of nutbags (and Dara).

[@prisonersforprofit]

loved the performances and plays.

[@juan21r16]

That was hilarious, loved it

[@earthstar2493]

I think this is my favorite skit of all time

[@KitagumaIgen]

Munya really nailed this task - making the daftest nonsense for someone else to suffer through...

[@cnelsonlv99]

He gave Dara's play 4 points but John's play 5??? WTF?!!?

[@J0RD4N971]

They both got 9 points overall.

[@nickk5670]

Happy birthday, Greg Davies!

[@jeremythephotoguy]

Dara killed it!

[@irishsamurai9008]

Fern killed it.

[@obroni]

I intrigued to read Fern's play, full of misogyny and ageism.

[@3gsFreak]

Ground control to Major Tom

[@nothingtoseehere2336]

How would you score it. My points given would be Writing. Acting Dara 5. Dara 5 Sarah 4. John/Fern 4 Fern 3 John 2. Munya 2 Munya 1. Sarah 1

[@KiraBrowne]

I was just writing out mine when I realised it would be basically the same as yours! I was surprised at Greg's choice, but it just goes to show how subjective art is! I think John's piece when put together with all the lights, music, Dara's acting, and great editing was great, and did give meaning to his words. But the writing itself, without the rest, was not worth so many points! I thought John's acting was great, I might even put him joint first with Dara.

[@baaldiablo8459]

@@KiraBrowne No its not subjective. Everyone with a brain knows which play was objectively the best.

[@jeremiedayglider1690]

John only got 5 points for his writing based on Dara's stellar performance. Dara turned a nothing into a something.

[@alamunez]

If it wasn’t for Munya, this would have been my favourite series. All other contestants are gold ❤

[@SuHo-bp1iy]

It wasn't a play.

[@brianm6337]

"So.. Let's make me a woman" *Gets out air pump* Oh- wait... he didn't mean that. 😆

[@InitialP_Photography]

The minute Millican appears, I'm gone 😤

[@dontknowdocare]

The last great season...great cast, great tasks. I enjoy the cast of 17 but the tasks have been lackluster after S14. I want more tasks where the contestants unknowingly chose something for themselves or another contestants. Most of those have been great. I especially want a cooking task where they think they're chosing for themselves but are in fact chosing for s.o. else for a change 😂

[@djpunyer8762]

S17E6 just had a task where they had to choose items for another contestant. Also S16 was great, what are you on about?

[@iliketrains3495]

@@djpunyer8762 Series 16 was good overall but had a few dud tasks; it's all subjective but honestly I think S13 was the last particularly good series in the task department. S14 had several episodes where I thought only one task was particularly good and the rest mediocre or straight-up bad, S15 had some very poor or otherwise unfair live tasks and a few very weak filmed tasks (egg deshelling and the ball of yarn ones come to mind), and S16 had a few too many DQ-prone ones that were pretty limiting (liquid into vase and the cards in clown ones) and the special task was super anti-climactic.

[@djpunyer8762]

@@iliketrains3495 It wasn't perfect, I'd say 9 was the last perfect series tbh, but it was still very entertaining and the cast was great and got on brilliantly. I definitely agree on the secret task though, they shouldn't have hyped it up unless it was a genuine task that any of the five could have found (like in NZ S3)

[@iliketrains3495]

@@djpunyer8762 Yeah I love series 9, the best series for tasks in my opinion and a top 3 series overall.

[@barnabycole9145]

Generation divide.