Review: Taskmaster, “Big clumsy emu steps.” | Series 22, Episode 10

It’s the finale of series 22 of Taskmaster, and we’re back in the studio with Chloe Petts, Isy Suttie, Matt Lucas, and Nina Conti, who dressed up á la the season’s classics theme, and Richard Ayoade, who did not.

For as uneven as this season has been, the last half was really quite good. Conti consistently made me laugh in the studio, Lucas was far more delightful than I’d anticipated, and Suttie’s lateral thinking was fun if undercelebrated. And then we get to Ayoade. I’ve listened to his episode of Taskmaster: The Podcast, where he tells host Ed Gamble about the thorniness of trying to do Taskmaster while still protecting his decades-long comedic persona. But we’ve seen several glimpses of what Ayoade could have been — including an example in the finale episode — that I feel robbed by his apparent apathy. When he put his back into it, he was easily the season’s best lateral thinker, and did so without sacrificing his signature brand of comedy. That said, I did get a good laugh out of his “apparently there’s a series 22 WhatsApp group” comment.