Taskmaster recently reached the milestone of airing its 21st series. Over its 11-year run, the comedy panel game show has seen great success, with Andy Devonshire directing all 197 episodes as Series Director and Executive Producer.
We caught up with him on how he crafts and refreshes the show after over a decade to fit in stories that exist beyond the tasks, and how he captures the unpredictable moments to bring laughs to audiences worldwide.
What does a day-to-day look for you as the Series Director?
I’m a director and exec, so I’m across all parts of the show. We’re really lucky in that we do two series plus specials each year, so that means that we’re always in one state of pre-production, production or post, or sometimes in multi-phases. We’re finishing off and editing VTs (video tapes) for one series, planning tasks for the next series, and preparing for the studio.
I’m always thinking about tasks, how to shoot them, how to make them work. It’s such a joy to make and it’s quite guerrilla. We’re working mostly out of the Taskmaster house, because that is the place where everything happens, so we have to be on-site to test things and break things, but then we move into the studio for that part and we have an edit house that finishes off those recordings.
What has working on the show taught you about the craft of directing?
Trust and belief. It’s a really small team that I work with. I’ve worked with the DoP Sam Montague since Series One of The Apprentice – amongst other things, we also started The Great British Bake Off together, another format started from scratch – so it’s been over twenty years, and we have a trust. I love working with new people, but at the same time, I have a shorthand with people I work with that really helps. We hopefully complement each other’s work, but also challenge and push each other.
We’ve worked out how to shoot things. That’s what happens in terms of directing – you find someone that you trust and you find a way of approaching something, and then you work it out. It’s just a big puzzle. Directing is getting things in line and making the most and the best of what comes in front of you. I’m always fascinated by the ‘how does this work?’ and then, ‘how does it look?’.
It’s just a big puzzle.”
What are some of the unique production challenges of this particular show?
I think its unpredictability. The show is repetitive in its very nature, so you have to develop the ability to improvise and always look for how to improve the look of something or make it stand out. In the course of a series, 30 or so tasks are pre-recorded, with each task done by five different people, so that’s 150 mini-shoots, let alone all the ones that don’t make it in. Then, alongside that, you have the unpredictability of the characters you’re filming, and the unpredictability of the weather and timing.
It’s a show about capturing the moments. You need the ability to capture the moments, the character and the comedy of everything that happens in the house, as that then reflects into the studios. As much as the guests are improvising, our crew are improvising all the time in terms of what happens and where they might go. It’s trying to anticipate what will make something look good when you have a changing environment and changing characters.
Each series is intended to be visually distinctive. The idea is to push the visuals and have a slightly different style, tweak or setting. The house is themed in different ways, and this doesn’t directly reflect on the style of shooting or even the tasks, but it underlines the need to make things feel fresh and different, not just a return to the same place and same look every series.
Since the show is non-scripted, much of the narrative is crafted and finetuned in the edit – could you speak about that process?
Alex Horne (creator), Andy Cartwright (series producer) and I will watch the cuts of each step of the VT, so we’re always adding our notes as the edits go along. The narrative of the show goes across the series.
The beauty of having five people doing the same task is that quirks of their character can be underlined as you go through the edit. It’s trying to fit in stories that exist, beyond the tasks themselves. Sometimes, that dictates the later tasks that we include, where certain things happen that feel like they’re the pay-off of a long character construction – or breakdown – as someone goes through their journey from the beginning of the series to the end.
We want a variety of styles of characters which complement and contrast with each other, and so it’s important that we get to a position of trust and support for the guests as they come, so they can lean into being themselves and help us enhance their reactions to everything that unfolds to them. We encourage the guests to be themselves and to react truthfully, because that’s when it works.
Our focus in the edit is about character, story and humour. We want to make it funny and engaging, and bring you into the characters of the people in the show. While the points are obviously factual and an element of the show – because ultimately, it’s about winning Greg Davies’ golden head trophy – it’s more about enhancing the joy of the task through whatever means necessary really.
We sometimes think, ‘this is a really good starting task or ending task,’ but genuinely, the organization of episodes is freeform. We put the tasks together for the ones that tell good stories or show good character or just are an amusing canter through the different styles of tasks at different locations, and there’s always a shuffle.
A director’s place is in the edit.”
How important is it to you as a director to be in the edit room?
I’d say that that’s the point of it. Obviously, for certain shows, you can’t be in on every edit every day, but there are certain things that you do in your job as a director that you then need to see through into the edit. If there are five different directors in with an editor, you’ll have five very different end products, and I think it would be a rare moment when a director can’t add value to what they’ve shot in the edit.
As a director, you’re not just shooting rushes, you’re shooting a film or a programme that you have a vision for how it cuts together. The beauty of TV is that it’s a collaborative process and there’s always a place for voices in the edit. But the director’s voice is a really important one, even in these days of multi-format and multi-shooting – a director’s place is in the edit.
What is it about the show that has contributed to its longevity and led to the creation of so many global spin-offs?
The beauty of it is that it feels like its own world with its own little set of rules, and so, walking through the door of the Taskmaster house feels like a step. Creating the world was the starting point because we had seven really engaging comics sitting in front of the camera, so hopefully, something good came out of it, but actually, it always felt like there was something special in terms of seeing into people’s lives and how their logic works.
We’ve been really lucky with the support of the channels – Dave and then Channel 4 – and Avalon were really good in terms of believing in Taskmaster and pushing it. If you believe in a show, commission two series at once and give it a chance to grow and expand. Don’t just cut it off after one series because it wasn’t quite right, because I think a lot of things would get learnt in the first series, which can only be improved.
We had no idea when we started that we were still going to be doing the show eleven years later, but it did feel like a genuinely special thing to do and it is a great playground.
That’s our job – to get people in the mindset of ‘you should love your days in this life’, and not just be shoved through the mincer of telly. I want guests to have a good time so that we have a good time and so that everyone else has a good time watching it – it’s a beautiful world, we’ve got to celebrate it.
That’s our job – to get people in the mindset of ‘you should love your days in this life’, and not just be shoved through the mincer of telly.”
Has the show’s reach and popularity affected your directing?
As a director, you’ve got to be first in, last out and you’ve got to be the hardest worker on the set. I think that’s your baseline. But everything has a balance.
Previous to my Taskmaster addiction, I would make it my duty to do multiple different jobs and always have something else coming in. I really like doing short-run things and making formats work. But that had a different kind of pressure, in that I didn’t know where the next job was.
The blessing of having multi-series and knowing what’s next makes it harder in that we have to deliver. Delivering 23 episodes is really tough, but because you know what you’re doing, you can put that focus into the job, rather than worrying about what’s next. If you want something done, ask a busy person, but sometimes we do question that logic when we’re snowed under with tasks. I think being able to improvise and make things work at speed are skills that have definitely refined over the last decade.
If I felt it was just making sausages, then I’d leave. I love setting out the look of new shows, and the beauty of Taskmaster is that you can do that every series to a degree. It’s the same show but hopefully, it has a different feel to it, and I think the repetition, or the lack of repetition, is useful.
Fit in stories that exist, beyond the tasks themselves.”
For directors who are looking to move into non-scripted shows, do you have practical advice on what to expect and what skills that they should work on?
TV is a people kind of industry, and you have to approach every job as if it’s the best job in the world. The same principles apply to every directing job that you have, be it a drama or a non-scripted. You just have to find the way to tell the story and manage the team.
As a director, you have to make sure that everyone around you is doing their job and working together for a common purpose. There needs to be clarity of what you want to do and you have to persuade someone that you’re capable, with the right skills for the job that’s in front of you. So much of that is people skills and having a clear vision and direction in terms of enacting an idea and setting things in motion.
There are certain skills that you have for certain styles of directing but I think the main question is, what are you doing as a director? You’re enacting what the idea of the show is, you’re enhancing and making something greater than the sum of its parts.
Has your view towards the show changed since you started those 11 years ago?
My belief in it has grown stronger. Quite often, as the director, you’re selling something to someone, to get them onboard or in the right space, whereas now I can trust in the show’s history and back catalogue. Guests don’t have to take a leap of faith, they just have to trust the team and the show to do them right, and I think that’s an important thing in these times.
Finally, what are your directing ambitions for Taskmaster in the future?
Make it better and bigger. The joy of it is that it’s hopefully open to more and more people to come in and do it, who trust us to have fun with them. A lot of people said the show helped them through lockdown, because it’s something you can plug into. Obviously, there’s an ongoing story across the series and character developments, but actually, you can drop into any episode at any time, have a laugh and feel the joy. I think there’s lots more joy that needs to be spread around the world that Taskmaster can do a bit of.
It’s the moment of the wax breaking and the task opening, a ritual start-up that opens the Taskmaster universe, because the guests and the audience have got no idea what’s coming to them. It’s a special show and I’m so lucky and pleased to be part of it, really.