Taskmaster

“This is a metaphor for show business,” groans Al Murray as he crawls on his belly along a damp athletics track towards a microwave. It’s his response to the first task of series three of a show that could equally be called Comedians Messing About a Bit.

The broad idea is that Alex Horne sets the comics undignified tasks (make a snowman with no snow; throw a pea along a red carpet) which are then judged by a regal Greg Davies, but it’s the incidental pleasures that make it – like seeing Sara Pascoe’s speed-plaiting skills or how they each respond to the instruction to bring in their “most flamboyant clock”.