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As Champion of Champions I had been invited to test out the
new Taskmaster Experience at Canada Water (I was disappointed once I got there that they had invited some people who weren't Champion of Champions which devalued the experience for me. Apparently they're letting anyone in - even you).
It turned out though that the journey there was the greatest task of all. I was completely exhausted from a night of podcasting and late to bed, early to rise (makes a man grouchy, clumsy and stupid), but luckily I'd been sent a car (because I was Champion of Champions - you won't get that). For some reason the driver had decided to get to East London via the M11 and turned a 90 or so minute journey into a three hour one. It wasn't just the bad choice of route (which there may have been a reason for, but it would have to be that the A1 had disappeared into a sink hole cos even at its worst you're not going to be stuck for 90 minutes) but it was raining hard and at one point I was woken from my snooze to find that the car was stopped as the weird country road we were on was blocked by a river. It wouldn't usually have a river there, but this was a full on, fast moving body of water and was impassable. There was now the problem of turning around in a single lane road with cars behind us and other cars parked because they couldn't get through. Again I would like to big up the A1 here. No country roads and no rivers.
The driver got turned round, got back to the main road and then thought he might be able to get through on the next right turn. He again hit the temporary river. That's the nature of rivers. They are quite long.
Eventually we got where we were meant to be going, but if the journey home was going to take as long as this then we'd have half an hour to look at stuff and then have to get in the cab again. It's nice to be sent a car, but I couldn't help thinking that we'd have done better on a train.
Anyway, it was a nice party, with smatterings of comedians, contestants and the terrific crew that work on the show, so my tiredness and annoyance was soon forgotten. We had an 8pm slot to play Taskmaster, so had a couple of Taskmaster (non-alcoholic) beers and chatted with the other guests and had a look of the museum which includes my picture of a duck, drawn whilst looking in a mirror (I wasn't sure which my one was to be honest).
The experience itself was lots of fun. You get to do five tasks (and there's two different sets you can do if you want to come again) and whilst they have to be fairly clean and simple so they can be reset in time for the next group, they stay true to the Taskmaster spirit and there's plenty of Easter Eggs for fans (who might also be on the lookout for tricks), but I think newbies would like it too. It's got an impressive video system so that Alex and Greg are there too (along with a real life helper). There were a couple of technical mishaps, which meant I didn't get three points that were supposed to be mine, but I wouldn't have come in the top five anyway. I did however win the battle of the five losers so left with a duck. I can't give away any secrets, of course, but the time flew by and it was fun to play with both friends and strangers (though I did have a couple of celebs in my group too).
It was nice to be out, though sad not to defeat all who came before me. I was also beaten by the lockers and thought someone had taken my coat. It was was quite a complicated system to get them working and I had been so engrossed in that that I hadn't looked to see my number, but my friend had told me she thought I was in locker 14. When I got back that locker was empty and my code didn't open the ones nearby and a nice lady had to open them up with a special key for me. But none of them had my coat in. I was about to give up on it when I thought I'd try one more that was not very near locker 14 and it pinged open. Taskmaster Champion of Champions indeed.
I insisted the driver go back the sensible way and we didn't encounter any rivers (and of course traffic was much lighter and it wasn't raining as hard) and we got home in 90 minutes, a bit later than we'd told the babysitter, but she was happy with the extra loot. So I did win that task.
I think you'll love this experience. Ticket prices vary and it can get quite expensive. Would I feel as happy if I'd paid £100? I did pay with 4 and a half hours of my life (in terms of travel) and it was worth that.
On balance if I was you I'd come and see 5 nights (and 10 podcasts) of RHLSTP instead, but for some reason Taskmaster is more popular than RHLSTP so maybe it's worth the extra.
It's the most Harry Potter World that any Edinburgh Fringe show has ever got and that's a remarkable achievement for Alex and the team. They really are the most excellent people and deserve to be as rich as humanly possible. Even if Alex only has £8 haircuts (cf RHLSTP).
