Awkward Questions with… Taskmaster hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne

Taskmaster returns for a 10th series this autumn at its new home on Channel 4.

Greg Davies and ‘little’ Alex Horne are preparing to challenge, embarrass and poke fun at five new comedians through a series of bamboozling new challenges.

Contestants including Johnny Vegas, Richard Herring and Daisy May Cooper will be trying to ‘make a large item vanish’ or ‘carry drinks across a garden while carrying a giant teddy and not touching the grass’, showcasing their physical and creative skills for our amusement.

In an attempt to turn the tables on the show’s co-presenters, we decided to ask them some awkward questions of our own…

Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?

Greg: Oh God yes.

Alex: We’ve never told each other we love each other Greg.

Greg: Are you sure?

Alex: I’ll write it down, because we should for the next series.

Greg: Your eyes tell me you love me.

Alex: I expect I have said it. But I don’t want to name names. Not in the last 15 years.

Have you ever stolen something?

Greg: Yes.

Alex: Yes.

Greg: I’ll tell you specifically what I stole. And it ages me extremely badly. At university my shared house had a record player and the stylus - which for younger readers is the needle that goes on the record - broke.

And at the time, Boots the Chemist sold record players. So I went into Boots, found the same record player on display cabinet, pulled the stylus off and placed it under my tongue. As I walked out of Boots, I cut my tongue on the stylus, so God punished me instantly.

My heart was pounding through my chest at the time. I felt like I was in a great bank heist and when I got home, the people I lived with all cheered and celebrated me like I was an all-conquering stylus God.

Alex: I’ve just stolen cash from my mum and alcohol from my dad. I took the cash from the handbag and they used to have decanters of port, so I’d take the port out and top it up with water.

Greg: Yeah, Alex grew up in the royal household.

Alex: Did you not have decanters of port lying around?

Greg: I’m amazed you went directly into your mum’s handbag. I used to steal from my mum by keeping the change to get some chocolate. Going directly into the handbag, that’s monstrous.

Alex: It was only ever a couple of quid.

Greg: Well, she’ll know now. I know she’s an avid reader of BT interviews.

Have you ever lied to get a job?

Alex: I tried to get into Oxford University and I lied on my form that I’d read Beowulf. They asked me what I thought about Beowulf in the interview and I didn’t know if it was a poem or a man, so I didn’t get in. They know instantly. They can see in your eyes.

Greg: I lied in all my teaching interviews. I taught in three schools and I lied in every single one of those interviews. To this day, I don’t know a single thing about teaching. At all. I don’t know, or care, how to educate children.

Something that amused me was that for my first interview for teaching, the headmaster started laughing and said, "Well done for your Chief Scout's Award".

When I got home I discovered that my mother had updated my CV and had added bits of information about me without telling, so my teacher application included that I was a Chief Scout. Absolutely ridiculous.

Could Taskmaster solve problems around social distancing and the two-metre rule

Greg: Are you suggesting Alex and I should become part of a government taskforce? I’d certainly be up for that and lending my expertise.

Alex: We do get messages on Twitter saying we need to send in the Taskmaster to sort this out. Like the Presidential debates in America. If there is a clamour, we will step in.

Greg: I will happily be parachuted in to any top ranking government role and bring Alex with me as the Gove to my Johnson.

Alex: I’ll happily Gove your Johnson.

Greg: Thank you. And I’d like to see you Gove my Johnson.

Watch Taskmaster on Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 4.

Catch up on Taskmaster series 1-9 on All 4.