Feral

I was lucky enough to be in the studio audience of episode 7 of series 21 and thought I'd post some notes from the recording, like I did for NYT 2026. Again, these are mostly things related to Greg and Alex rather than the contestants, but there's a lot of general stuff as well.

I was lucky enough to attend the S21 Ep4 taping of Taskmaster and it was the horniest Taskmaster episode I have ever seen filmed. I don’t know what was up with Alex and Greg, or what happened during the break, but they were flirting up a storm. I was in the front row, directly in Alex’s eye line, and he knows me because I attend a lot of events after which he comes to say hello and pretends that he really wants to take a picture with me every single time, and he has remembered my name and you can tell I’m totally normal about this… anyway the point is that I’m a face he knows and because of the position of the seating it felt like he was looking at me and talking directly to me the whole time which made the whole thing even more intense. 

We started hot with the intro bit and Greg did his usual ask me anything and a male audience member asked Greg to marry him and he said, “I’d have to make some decisions but I’m not saying no.”

Greg introduced Alex by saying that he had seen Alex’s penis and that it was a perfect cylinder which is completely unnatural. Alex then walks on stage and says, “all I heard was you said I’ve got a perfect penis,” with a pleased little smirk. Then there was several kisses to start the show, Greg hugged Alex front on and then kissed the top of his head. Alex turned his head to face the audience while they were still hugging and Greg kissed the back of his neck several times with little kissy noises.

I do not remember anything about Alex’s improv at the beginning because despite me loving him and everything he does I find it cringy and watched through my fingers.

For Alex’s opening banter there was a bit where Alex had two red cups with water in and he asked Greg to copy his actions. Greg did everything to copy him. Alex sipped the water and so did Greg but then Alex spat it back out into the cup and Greg had clearly swallowed his. Alex said, “you swallowed,” and they gave each other such a look and then Greg got excited and said, “I’ve got such an urge,” and mimed throwing the water at Alex’s face. Greg then said, “I can’t they’ll kill me for the edit but I really want to.” Alex replied, “is it weird that I really want you to?” Greg then had quite a long conversation with the gallery and then turned to Alex and tossed it in his face. Alex made a brief surprised expression and started to wipe his face and Greg said, “oh god that felt so good,” he squirmed a bit in his seat and then added, “I’ve got such an unexpected erection.” And Alex leaned over to look at his lap. 

As part of the prize task Greg made Alex (I say made but Alex put up no struggle whatsoever) eat a kebab in a wrap with jam and then called Alex ‘baby girl’ and Alex just smiled cutely at him. 

Greg called Alex ‘baby boy’ in a variety of different styles and inflections and every time he said, “baby boy?’ Alex would reply, “yes?” And this went on for a really long time. Greg was repeating ‘baby boy’ to him and messing up and refusing to move on and he said, “this is not even on the autocue, I’ve just said to myself I’ll say the baby boy thing at him.”

Alex said he was going to wait to tell Greg the scores until after the ad break and Greg said, “you fucking little tease,” to him in a sexy growl and Alex turned to look at Greg and bit his bottom lip while maintaining eye contact with him.

Greg called Alex a cunt when he did something wrong in the mustard/custard task and Alex got all squirmy about it. Alex then said that his job was so difficult, I think in response to the thing he did wrong, and then Alex added “Hashtag hard for Horne,” and looked directly at me with a little smirk and I managed to nod and smirk back, the little shit. 

Alex made a sexual joke, I still can’t remember what about and Greg said, “you don’t usually say dirty things like that,” and Alex replied, “not often.”

After the task in which Joel ate a bit of wax in lieu of a sweet they were talking about anything being food if you put it in your mouth and Greg said to Alex, “in that case I’ve got something for you in my dressing room. and it's not food.”

Amy offered Greg a sexy piece of wood and he said, “I’ve got wood,” and again Alex checked his lap and Greg added, “actually I don’t often and that’s the problem.”

During a task, Greg said that Alex leaned across to him and described one of the male contestants as ‘hot’ and Alex just nodded in agreement that he did.

Greg called Alex a ‘pussy’ when an audience member asked why Alex won’t reveal who the contestant he doesn’t like is, Greg said, ‘because he’s a pussy. I’ll tell you, I’ve got like 10 of them I don’t like, but I asked him the other day and he now says that he likes that person again.” The audience member then said, “it doesn’t matter if you tell us then,” and Greg was like “clever but no.”

Greg called Alex ‘boy’ when he passed over to him for the live task.

Greg threw water at Alex again in the episode and said, “we all knew it was coming and yet it was still funny,” he then looked down at his lap and looked at Alex. Alex asked the audience, “do I look wet?” And smirked at me (hopefully that was a coincidence and he is not aware of Wet Alex Horne…) then the audience responded no and he asked, “where did it all go?” 

The bit that made me gasp the most though was they were doing Greg’s makeup and he asked if it was because he was sweaty and the makeup woman said no, and he asked why they were touching it up then and she said it was because Greg was a bit red. Alex then leaned over and said you are a bit red and Greg responded to Alex, “that doesn’t bode well for you tonight then because daddy’s horny.” Then he panicked a bit and said, “I’ve creeped myself out with that one,” and Alex touched his arm really softly and reassured him that it was okay.

This episode was recorded on the evening of Sep 16 last year at the Television Centre. The recording lasted about 3.5 hours from 6:30pm to a little over 9:45pm.

Intro

Greg was introduced on stage after the warmup person Mark Olver. He had a little chat with the audience, asked how everyone was doing, showed us his front-only vest and explained he was not allowed a real vest cause he sweats too much. After that he sat down on a chair on the contestants side and said ooo is something missing? The audience yelled Little Alex Horne and Alex was introduced onto the stage. Greg made an attempt at bear hugging Alex to welcome him onto stage, raising both arms up high, but Alex, after hesitating for a sec, went for his belly and gave him a good rub on the tummy like you do with a big cat.

Greg also disclosed to us that he was back at the peak of his weight (to which we cheered loudly), that he just had a nap and panick ate a Twix before coming on, so I guess that explains his good mood. When Alex came on he asked Greg about it (“you had a twix?”) in a sort of playful way and Greg asked if he’d had anything backstage. Alex said Haribo (cheer again) and added that he had a call with his wife. Greg, smiling fondly at that, said “you had a call with your wife?”

Greg asked if we wanted to see Alex do improv and was delighted when everyone yelled YEAHH with terrifying enthusiasm. He said this actually wasn’t a required part of the format, we could just start the show, everyone yelled NOOO and Alex tilted his head back and sighed so very loudly.

Greg then asked around for genre ideas. He picked an audience member “because of their enthusiasm”, and the audience member asked Alex to sing a hymn. For the topic of the song someone yelled out "carrot," so Alex was having to made up a hymn about carrots on the spot. The lyrics were “Did God give us little orange sticks? Yes he did. Yes he did.” Greg hummed along with him to provide melody. There was also a professional opera singer in the audience. Greg asked them to do a solo, then everyone joined in and sang the carrot song together. The song actually turned out surprisingly well. Later on, while the contestants were taking their seats and getting ready for the show, Greg kept humming "little orange sticks" to himself which was. Very adorable old man behaviour.

After the improv Greg went and sat down on the throne, and asked Alex to sit with him. Alex first sat down on the armrest of the throne - he perched up there so smoothly it genuinely looked like he does that very often, like he just belonged there (I’ll shut up now). Then Greg patted his own thigh and said Come sit over here. Alex’s first reaction seemingly was to straddle Greg’s legs and to sit on Greg while directly facing Greg, but he didn’t go through with it. Instead he stopped short, half hovering over Greg, they looked at each other and laughed, after which Alex spun around and sat right into Greg’s lap. Then to make things worse he started bouncing a little on Greg, up and down up and down. As if to stop his boy being naughty, Greg leaned his entire body forward, pressed against Alex's back, rested his chin on Alex’s left shoulder, wrapped his arm around him and hugged him tight. It looked so intimate I had to bite the inside of my cheek to not scream out loud.

LAH’s intro got cut a bit. After Greg saying the line about the postman in Alex’s neighbourhood, Alex admitted that there is indeed a postman who loves wearing shorts, and he said now that guy is going to think the story is about him. During the final pick-ups, Greg did the intro again, and Alex whispered under his breath, "Beautiful… beautiful eyes."

The banter was very pun-ridden and has something to do with Alex going on holiday. It wasn’t very long and will probably be released as an outtake so I’ll skip it here.

Prize Task

Loads of chat re Amy’s pregnancy pillow got cut. Greg said something to the effect that he only learned his one was a pregnancy pillow because his Romanian cleaner had asked him about it (gesturing towards his belly). Amy said she likes the big pillow because "it hugs you back like a big boy," to which Greg laughed and said, "I like a big boy too." Joel said he thought it was a sex thing, and Amy replied, "No, I have another thing for that." Greg said, "Me too, have I mentioned my Romanian cleaner yet?" (He immediately regretted the joke and started yelling "No, no, no!").

Also the pillow was named Linda. After all the sex chat, when Greg was taking notes on the pregnancy pillow, he accidentally wrote down "lesbian".

At one point Kumail called Joel by the wrong name - He called him "Reece". Apparently right before going on stage they were talking about Joel’s jacket, and the brand of the jacket was Reece? This resulted in multiple callbacks later in the studio.

Task 1

In the VT Alex called Joel a twat. The studio discussion on this was longer, in that after Joel said Alex turned different shades of red, Greg very naturally decided he had to make Alex say dirty words. He asked Alex what he called the bits downstairs and Alex said "Mr. Cheeky". Kumail followed up by asking"How is it cheeky? Explain." I can’t remember exactly what Alex said next, but the gist of it was somehow that it’s called Mr. Cheeky because he likes to suck grapes. Greg then said, "Yeah, Alex often comes over at lunchtime asking to suck my grapes."

Kumail’s nipples were discussed extensively in the studio. They talked for ages about whether he actually had nipples or not. Kumail eventually admitted that he does have nipples; wardrobe and makeup helped tape some body hair over them to cover it up. It was Alex who suggested that they could just leave it a mystery, saying “we'll start a rumour". Kumail actually said after that he preferred to come clean, so this might get addressed on the podcast when he comes on, or it could be that Kumail now canonically just doesn’t have nipples in the Taskmaster universe.

To top this off, Joel had another bit about how his nipples have been able to lactate(?!) ever since he was a kid. Greg asked if he had to milk himself from time to time. This bit went on for a while. Alex looked up whether male lactation is a sign of a tumor. Joel said he had looked into it and the doctor said it's fine. Greg then said he once had a condition where if his nipples get touched, his tits would get bigger. He said he had to go see a doctor about it when he was a kid, and one time he bumped into something on his chest for some reason and they swelled up massively. I forgot what the condition was called and I genuinely hope this is a real thing and not the product of my fever dream.

The Hank Green cameo in Joel’s part of the VT felt longer in the studio and more identifiable. I wonder if they’ve cut it shorter.

Task 3

I can’t remember any major stuff that got cut in Task 2. But for task 3, Kumail pulling the doll’s underpants off was talked about so much in the studio that at one point I thought it would surely be the major running joke of the episode. And then I remembered channel4 wouldn’t for their life air that many pedophile-adjacent jokes. It was such a good laugh for everyone though. Even after the recording they were still talking about it. Kumail was quite exasperated at the end and said "Have none of you ever pulled the underpants off a doll before?!" And everyone said no and said "You made it worse."

I might have dreamed this up but I swear they had a bit about Armando’s face during this task that got cut. Cause I remember seeing Armando’s face on the studio screen? But can’t recall much detail about this.

Live Task

This was such a live task to watch in person. Alex was in charge of measuring distances and adjusting the cameras inside the mops. His body was so stretched out and looked so nice while he was doing that hashtag hardforhorne

Pick-ups & Ad Breaks

There were a few pick-ups at the end. During the pick-ups, Greg noted that it was getting quite late, yawned, and very adorably said, "Sleepy time."

I think one of the ad breaks got cut. It was Greg saying "If you live nearby, you can take Alex home. He is what the sex circle calls a unicorn, and he will be happy to be the meat in your sandwich." In the final pick-ups, they recorded another version where they cut out "sex circle." For some reason Greg ended up saying: "He will be happy to be the meat in your couple's sandwich."

End note

And I'll add a few more bits:

During the pre-show, when Alex sat on Greg's lap, Greg said "Oooh, someone's a meatier boy" (implication: Alex's ass has grown since he last sat on Greg) and it looked like he squeezed Alex's ass with his right hand. He also said something about Alex's ass being very warm. Alex started bouncing on his knee. Greg then pulled Alex back against his chest, wrapped his arms around him and leant his face against the back of Alex's shoulder, pressing his cheek to it (facing the audience). It was both very sweet and very holy shit: Greg's face squished there and his eyes shutting for a moment. Okay. 😭

Greg's intro joke about Alex was about him fancying his postman because of their "lithe hips" and possibly something about their bum in shorts. It was extra amusing that the gender wasn't specified in Greg's words – very deliberate. Alex pulled a face and said "I do have a postie who wears shorts and he's going to think that's about him now". Greg said something devious about that.

Something I found interesting was that Greg always paid rapt attention to the VTs, or tried to anyway (it was sometimes difficult to hear everything with the audience reacting). He was fully twisted around in his throne, leaning on the right arm of it, and watching in full. Alex has definitely seen every VT beforehand, as he has little anticipatory reactions like putting his hand over his face just before he or a contestant does something particularly awful, giggling into his fist when something’s about to happen, etc. Alex really enjoyed the first two VTs in particular – he did a ton of giggling during them. It was adorable to watch.

A couple of times per VT, Greg would turn to Alex, hold his card up to cover his mouth and murmur something to him. I tried very hard to hear him, but I couldn’t pick up a single word even though I was right in front of them. From body language and context, though, most of it seemed to be clips or stills he wanted Alex to queue up, ready for him to reference afterwards. Some of it was talking about stuff he or Alex had just said and some of it was apologising for various nonsense. He also wrote a ton on his cards in quite small handwriting. When Alex had questions or wanted to double check something with Greg, he would tap delicately on Greg’s upper/middle back with his hand. Like ✋ tap tap. Sometimes he had to do it a few times before Greg noticed. It was very sweet.

Personally, I'm astounded that my favourite ad cutaway was, well, cut. I didn't think they cut those! I highly doubt they'll make it an outtake because they have yet to do that with a cutaway iirc, so here it is: Greg said that if any couples live close by, they should hire Alex. “Alex is what's known in sex circles as a unicorn. Ready to be the meat in your sandwich!” The audience lost their shit.

In the pick-ups after the contestants left the stage (where they redo lines, film alternatives, etc), the first alternative they tried for this cutaway was removing “in sex circles”, so it became “Alex is what’s known as a unicorn. Ready to be the meat in your sandwich!”. The second alternative reduced it further to “Alex is a unicorn”, but Greg also accidentally added 'couples' before sandwich here, so it became “Alex is a unicorn – ready to be the meat in your couples sandwich!” 😂 So sad they cut this. How is Greg going to sell his Assistant's services now?

During the breaks, Greg and/or Alex offered to answer questions about the show while they were getting lint-rolled and brushed by Wardrobe. Someone asked what they’d done in the break between the morning taping and this one. Greg said that he’d “panic-eaten a Twix”. Alex said that he’d wanted to nap, but “had a call with my wife instead”.

Also during a break, an audience member pointed to Alex's pineapple tattoo and said “so you put the pineapple upside down” in response to the unicorn line. Because his tatt looks upside down from the outside when he's not holding his arm up. Mark Olver the warm-up comedian came on and (lovingly) ripped into that person with a ribald, “You know what that means, then!” And then, out of nowhere, in his measured ‘I agree with you’ voice, Alex deadpanned: “Single people mean nothing to me.” 😂

Also, after Amy's unnecessary censorship VT played, Greg goaded Alex about holding the onion over his crotch. Greg: "What is it over?" Alex: "I don't want to say." Greg: "Tell me." Alex: "My.. area." Greg: "Yes and what do you call that?" Alex: "My cheeky chappy!"

They then went off the rails, bantering back and forth about what Alex's cheeky chappy does. Greg said that Alex often gets it out in his (Greg's) dressing room. Alex said yes, “For grapes. It likes to pick up grapes.” A contestant was like: “It picks them up?” And Alex said yes, "It has a suction function.” The audience was in pieces by this point. Alex: “But it can't pick up anything heavier than a grape". Greg was rolling about laughing.