Taskmaster Australia Season 4 review: a well-tuned commitment to comedy

You have to respect Ten’s commitment to Taskmaster.

Season 4 has barely begun and they’ve already announced the line-up for Season 5 later this year. It’d be nice to think it’s due to strong ratings and a network-wide fondness for comedy; the fact it only takes two weeks filming at New Zealand’s Taskmaster Retreat to create two and a half months’ worth of content probably plays a part.

Whatever the reason, it’s the kind of commitment to comedy we haven’t seen since the ABC used to run two seasons of Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell in a year.

The show itself has been a steady addition to an already surprisingly consistent – as in, pretty much all the versions are good – global franchise. Around the world (or at least, in the UK and New Zealand), snarky hosts and their servile sidekicks are doling out puzzling and challenging tasks for comedians to attempt, hopefully with surprising results.

Watch the Taskmaster Season 4 trailer.

A big part of the Australian version’s success boils down to the fact that Tom Gleeson’s pre-existing comedy act is perfectly suited to the role of host. Gleeson’s act hasn’t always struck the right note elsewhere (see his Logie-winning campaign to win a Logie), but here his trademark insults, condescension and often outright befuddlement at the results can result in comedy gold.

As the one who actually has to go out and supervise the tasks, his sidekick ‘lesser’ Tom Cashman makes for a spot-on number two. He manages to be both sympathetic and at times frustratingly literal, sticking firmly to the letter of the task while the contestants desperately try to bend the rules.

There’s more to the gig than it seems: an early task in episode one requires him to find a set of car keys hidden by the contestants. He’s able to persuade one to simply tell him where they are, then has to handle another set of keys fresh from down a contestant’s underpants.

This season’s line-up includes Emma Holland, Lisa McCune, Takashi Wakasugi and the consistently bum-focused Tommy Little. McCune is the Australian version’s first non-comedian (if you count Julia Morris as a comedian) but that turns out to be no drawback. This is a series where the comedy comes from being inventive, not necessarily from being funny.

And then there’s Dave Hughes. For someone who hasn’t had his own show since Hughesy, We Have a Problem was axed in 2021, he sure spends a lot of time on our screens. Already this year he’s been a contestant on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, had his own episode of Australian Story, and now ten weeks of Taskmaster.

If it’s hard to think of another Australian comedian with his profile who’s still putting themselves out there so often, he’s got that covered. Australian Story explained that in his early 20s he replaced one addiction (alcohol) with another (success) and, well, next thing you know he’s buying one of the houses from The Block.

Clearly overexposure isn’t a concern, and to be fair, in Hughesy’s case it really isn’t. Partly that’s because his current status relies on him being everywhere: his comedy is based on him being just an average Aussie bloke, and familiarity is a big part of how he manages that despite him being a millionaire teetotal vegan away from the cameras.

And partly it’s because, unlike some comedians who make their living from stand-up, Hughesy can be genuinely off-the-cuff funny. The promos for this season have been making a lot of his attempt to shift a bunch of coffee cups without breaking them (spoiler: he breaks them). It’s a bit that plays into the Hughesy image of being a straightforward guy, and it’s also very funny.

So even if you’re sick of him (who could forget his years spent getting it wrong on The Masked Singer?), he’s still a comedian who can deliver the goods. Or at the very least, the ashes of his dead dog Barkley, which he brings in as a prize.

Taskmaster: tricky

But while the elements are once again in place for a memorable season, the first episode is a little wobbly. The tasks are promising enough and some of the results get laughs, but others don’t quite click.

The challenges need to be tricky and have the potential for memorable solutions, which means sometimes you just end up watching a bunch of coloured items floating in a lake gradually drifting together.

It also takes time for the contestants to come out of their shells. Hughesy, who generally does well with the tasks, seems to be overcompensating in the studio segments; McCune, who Gleeson at one point describes as ‘Australia’s sweetheart’, is notably the one whose persona arrives fully formed, especially when she turns out to be too nice to win at a task.

It’s a slightly rocky return, but that’s par for the course with Taskmaster. The more we get to know the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses, the funnier things get. And when in doubt, there’s always Tom Gleeson telling everyone else they’re rubbish: going by the ratings, that’s an act that never gets old.

Taskmaster Season 4 premieres on 27 March at 8.30pm on 10 and 10 Play, with new episodes weekly.

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