Taskmaster is back and with it five new celebs (Joanne McNally, Nick Mohammed, John Robins, Steve Pemberton and Sophie Willan) who will be fighting it out for the honour of being named champion. The puzzles and games filled TV show has been going strong since 2015 and series 17 promises even more brain-teasers designed to stump and surprise.
Who will be this year’s outside the box thinker and join the likes of Bob Mortimer and Lou Sanders in the hall of fame?
Let’s take a closer look at those in the running to take home Greg’s golden head.
Who is John?
John Robins is a Bristol-born comedian and presenter. He has been a regular on the comedy circuit since 2005 and was the joint winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2017 for his show The Darkness of Robins.
Outside of comedy he has a penchant for cryptic crosswords, Wordle and Queen. He’s also a keen golfer and has charted his ‘bad golf’ journey in a YouTube series with Taskmaster co-host Alex Horne.
Where do we know him from?
Outside of stand-up, John has a dedicated fanbase thanks to his radio show with fellow comedian Elis James and their producer Dave Masterman. Beginning on Radio X (previously XFM), they made the move to Radio 5 Live in 2019 and recently celebrated their digital decade.
Other podcasts include How Do You Cope?…with Elis and John and The Moon Under Water. He handed over the landlordship of the latter pub-themed podcast upon giving up alcohol, a decision which he charts in his comedy show Howl.
And how can we forget Beat the Internet with John Robins? The comedy quiz show challenged contestants to finish sentences based on some of the internet’s most popular search terms.
Our prediction
Is John competitive? Just a bit. Are we immediately rooting for him because of his appreciation of crosswords and word games? Perhaps.
As mentioned, he’s already on good terms with Little Alex Horne, but this might not be to his advantage. The Taskmaster’s assistant is no stranger to making the game show experience a more difficult one for those in his inner circle. The secret assignment he gave to Mark Watson is a prime example (he alone was tasked with sending Greg Davis an anonymous cheeky text message every single day for five months).
John has been campaigning for an invite on to the show for some time, will he live to regret it?