Greg Davies (I)

Greg Davies takes a trip down memory lane

He only got into comedy at the age of 33, and TV star and stand-up comedian Greg Davies has an appetite to make up for lost time.

Taskmaster, series one review

Greg Davies is fantastic; he's harsh, loud and ridiculous, completely giddy with power, and the relationship between Davies and Horne is clearly a long-lived one.

Radio Times review

No sooner has she left The One Show sofa, the ubiquitous Alex Jones is back, this time on the panel show in which participants attempt to hoodwink their opponents with absurd facts and plausible lies about themselves. It's all in good fun, and host Rob Brydon and team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack know how to squeeze the maximum amount of laughter from each absurd suggestion. Comedy actor Greg Davies, performance poet John Cooper Clarke and TV presenter Rick Edwards are also along for the ride in this edition.

Mike Wozniak in the #WOWwagon (Link expired)

Mike Wozniak might be best known now for his moustachioed portrayal of Brian alongside Greg Davies in the superb Channel 4 sitcom Man Down, but he's also a Fringe favourite, and something of a veteran, having been nominated for the if.comedy best newcomer award back in 2008.

Steve Hall: Edinburgh Fringe 2015 interview

Steve Hall was one third of excellent sketch group We Are Klang, alongside Greg Davies and Marek Larwood. He's also a brilliant stand-up in his own right and will be at the Edinburgh Festival this year with what will most likely be another excellent Fringe show.

Taskmaster is the kind of Dave thing that shouldn't quite work but is actually wildly stupid fun. Mainly thanks to Alex Horne, late of so much splendid radio, and Greg Davies, and regulars such as Frank Skinner and Romesh Ranganathan. And eating a watermelon in a minute, and having to paint a horse while riding a horse and other activities that would have been unsuited to, say, Queen Victoria's funeral. A winner.

Great comedians can make anything funny. Eric Morecambe bleeding a radiator or Les Dawson reading out AutoTrader would be hilarious by default, but could modern standups work that same magic when, say, eating an entire watermelon or emptying a bathtub? Dave's new panel show hinges precariously on that premise, with a quintet of comics - this week including Frank Skinner, Tim Key and Roisin Conaty - performing acts at the behest of titular taskmaster Greg Davies. In practice, a premise unlikely to tickle the titter glands of many.

Radio Times review

As a civilisation, we're starting to realise that asking questions about news or trivia from behind a desk isn't the best way to wring semi-improvised laughs out of moderately popular comedians. Far wiser to make them do something less restrictive, where the thing itself is funny before anyone starts. So we come to this fun new jolly, where titular Taskmaster Greg Davies - flanked by the show's creator Alex Horne - awards comics marks for eating as much watermelon as they can in a minute, emptying a bathtub without pulling the plug out, or painting a horse while riding a horse.

The comfortingly familiar guests are Frank Skinner, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty, Romesh Ranganathan and Tim Key. Skinner is a good weathervane, since he's been around far too long to bother laughing politely at unfunny jokes. Here, he laughs a lot.