Best Taskmaster Contestants: Here are the 12 most successful Taskmaster contestants of all time - including Bob Mortimer and Noel Fielding
This week sees the conclusion of series 14 of the show that sees comedians challenged to complete a host of strange tasks – but will any of them join the ranks of the all-time best contestants.
Presented by Greg Davies and Alex Horne (who also created the programme, originally as a show for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), the first series of Taskmaster was broadcast in 2014 on comedy channel Dave, before expanding its audience after being poached by Channel 4 in 2020.
Currently on its 14th season proper, there have also been special one-off ‘Champion of Champion’ and ‘New Year Treat’ programmes, comprising one or two episodes.
The show sees (mainly) comedians take part in a range of challenges which are then marked by the hosts, usually (but not always) winning a maximum of five points per task.
In order to judge which Taskmaster alumini have been most successful, and to take into account the often convoluted rules, we’ve taken the maximum amount of points available in each series and worked out what percentage each contestant has won – so if there were 20 points available in an episode and a contestant won 10 points, they would have a 50 per cent success rate.
For the purposes of this list we have restricted it to the 65 celebrities who have appeared on the 13 completed full series of the show – one-off special episodes don’t count.
We will update it (if anybody is good enough) with the series 14 contestants after the final epidode has aired.
So, here are – currently – the top 12 Taskmasters of all time.
1. Sophie Duker
Season 13 winner Sophie Duker is offically the best competitor in Taskmaster history. Her 173 points may not be the highest score ever, but her success rate of 67.32 per cent reigns supreme.
Photo: Jeff J Mitchell
2. Chris Ramsey
Chris Ramsey is the most unlucky runner up in the show's history. His 66.15 per cent pints success rate is the second best of all time - but he had the misfortune to be on season 13 alongside the all-conquering Sophie Duker.
Photo: Contributed
3. Rob Beckett
Back in season 3 Rob Beckett only had five episodes to compete in, rather than the 10 the show now runs for. His winning score of 87 may seem low in comparison to others on this list, but it means he had an impressive 64.44 per cent strike rate.
Photo: Jeff Spicer
4. Sarah Kendall
Aussie comic Sarah Kendall just misses out on a podium place in fourth. Her season 11 winning score of 158 represented a success rate of 63.98 per cent.
Photo: Gareth Cattermole