Paramount has ordered a series of ‘Taskmaster Australia’ to be produced by Avalon Television with Kevin & Co for Network 10. Set to air in 2023, the show will be hosted by Tom Gleeson and Tom Cashman.
The production in Australia joins a growing list of countries with local adaptations of Alex Horne’s BAFTA and National Comedy Award winning “Taskmaster” format.
The show involves an all-powerful Taskmaster who, with the help of his loyal assistant, sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five comedians through a series of strange and surreal challenges.
Paramount has ordered a series of 10×60’ episodes. The new series will be produced by Avalon with Kevin & Co, while executive producers are Alex Horne, Richard Allen-Turner, Rob Aslett, James Taylor, Jon Thoday and Andy Devonshire.
In the U.K., “Taskmaster” has become a mainstay on primetime television with 149 episodes produced so far. It enjoyed nine seasons on UKTV’s Dave and was picked up under a landmark six season deal by Channel 4 in 2020. Series 10 – 15 air on Channel 4 from Autumn 2020.
The original “Taskmaster” show was sold to 94 countries and aired on The CW in the U.S. in 2020. It has also spawned a YouTube channel, an app and a boardgame.
As a format, it has been sold to 12 countries with over 300 episodes produced outside the U.K.
“Taskmaster New Zealand” is in its third series on TVNZ. A French-speaking Canadian version “Le Maître du Jeu” premiered in September 2022 on Noovo. In Europe, the format is known as “Bäst i Test” in Sweden and is in a sixth season of SVT. Norway’s “Kongen Befaler” won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for best entertainment in 2020 for Discovery. Two new series of “Suurmestari” have been ordered for MTV in Finland after its first episode ranked in the top ten most watched shows in the country. The sixth series of the Danish version, “Stormester” starts on TV2 next month.
