Alex Horne wants to host a US Taskmaster with Greg Davies

Friday 22nd November 2024, 12:54pm by Jay Richardson

• Alex Horne has revealed that he hopes to have a second go at remaking Taskmaster in America, and ideally wants Greg Davies and himself reprising their hosting roles
• A 2018 US adaption for Comedy Central, with Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster, flopped after Horne felt he relinquished too much creative control
• Horne has also shared a list of dream bookings for further series of the UK original, including Kevin Bridges, French & Saunders, Bill Bailey, Stephen Merchant, Lenny Henry, Sarah Silverman and Al Pitcher

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Alex Horne hopes to host a new American version of Taskmaster with Greg Davies, the comic has revealed, ahead of the pair returning to the States to promote the hit Channel 4 show in January.

A bastardised US adaptation featuring musical comic Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster and Horne reprising his assistant role flopped in 2018, after the show failed to secure a second series on Comedy Central US. But Horne is open to the prospect of having another go.

"With a bit of luck we're going to try again" he told author Chris Duke on his mental health podcast The Peer Project. "But ideally with Greg and me, or two American hosts. I just think we would have more control over it."

The UK original currently enjoys a cult following in the States thanks to episodes being released on YouTube. After Horne and Davies guested on Seth Meyers's late night talk show in March, speculation intensified that a US revival might be on the cards.

Horne explained to Duke that he wasn't "pinning" his hopes on Taskmaster "launching" him in America.

"We're too old" he said. "I don't really want to be launched anywhere. I'm happy where I am.

"But if we could have a go, I think we would say yes, as long as the conditions were right."

Watts, whom Horne described as "one of my comedy heroes", is appearing in the second series of The Horne Section TV Show on Channel 4 next year. Horne said he felt that "Reggie would be a brilliant Taskmaster with a different assistant".

But "the two of us didn't necessarily have an awful lot of chemistry. He would also be an absolutely brilliant contestant. Maybe he would fit better in that role."

Recalling the six week shoot of the original US version in Los Angeles, Horne described it as "really fun", with "pretty good" end results.

However, he felt that the episodes were too short. And he remembered having "this audience who was drafted in to whoop and cheer and they whooped far too much".

He added: "It sort of disappeared without a trace very quickly. But I did go out there and there were billboards of me and the cast and that was so exciting. Looking back, I can see very clearly why it didn't work, there were so many compromises ... we said 'yes' to everything [Comedy Central] suggested ... 22 minutes is far too brief, you couldn't really get stuck into it.

"So we had to change the format a little bit. The prize task was different, only one person brought it in, so you're off to a weird start. It was very rushed, there's an advert every six minutes. That's American TV.

"I think if we did it again, we would just do it the way we do it here, which is what the other countries do. They all do it pretty much the same. We just changed too much. But you know, we were pretty young and naïve. It was really exciting, and I do think in general television networks know their audience more than I do.

"If Portugal suggest something, I normally go 'yeah, if they think that'll work, go for it!' And it's the same with America. I don't understand American TV."

Elsewhere in the interview, Horne revealed that the UK version has come "close" to landing Kevin Bridges and one of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders as contestants.

And he revealed that other "first seat", "legend" dream bookings would include Bill Bailey, Stephen Merchant and Lenny Henry, as well as, in a nod to the show's growing internationalism, US comedian Sarah Silverman and Al Pitcher, an English-born Kiwi comic who was once a fixture on the British stand-up circuit but is now big in Sweden, where he has already competed on their version of Taskmaster.

He added that the presence of an American "resident" in the forthcoming 19th series, someone based in the US rather the UK or Ireland, is "exciting".

Horne also disclosed that he didn't know if there would be a second series of the Junior Taskmaster spin-off show on Channel 4, featuring Rose Matafeo as the Taskmaster and Mike Wozniak as her assistant.

But he is "really hopeful" because "it's funny and heart-warming, it's different from the main show".

Initially, there was "talk of Greg and I doing it, which we were sort of up for. But time prevented that. And actually, I think it's so good to have different people."

He also acknowledged that with the Taskmaster Live Experience in London's Docklands, which has just announced an extension of its run until 23rd February, Junior Taskmaster, the celebrity New Year version, an accompanying podcast, computer game and lots of other merchandise, "there's quite a lot of Taskmaster about, we don't want to dilute it too much.

"We don't want to have people getting sick of it. Or we don't want to appear like we're milking it, which I'm sure it does."

Regardless, the show will likely outlast him and Davies presenting it.

"I don't think it has a shelf life" he reflected. "There's a chance at some point Greg and I will want to do different things. There's only so many different things I can do whilst doing it. I can just about fit The Horne Section in and a few other bits and bobs but not a lot else because it does take up nearly all my time.

"So without saying I'm leaving, there will be a point where I want to see my children a little bit more. Or my wife. Or travel the world more and that sort of thing. Greg and I have always said ... we don't want to drive it into the ground, we don't want people to be sick of it.

"At the moment, we're loving doing it so there's no sign of ending. But as soon as it's not fun anymore, we'll stop."