Taskmaster Series 21 Episode 3: The Stats Round Up

Jack Bernhardt

17 min read

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Apr 25, 2026

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Warning! This chunk of stupidity is simply festering with spoilers for Series 21 Episode 3 of Taskmaster! Do not go past this picture of Nish Kumar dressed as Jason Mantzoukas in front of Jason Mantzoukas dressed as Nish Kumar if Nish Kumar was naked in a cupboard eating a banana if you haven’t seen Series 21 Episode 3 of Taskmaster!

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Amy Wins and Winks, Joel Wanes and Wanks: a second sensational win on the trot for Amy (22 points, 4.4PPT) means that she ascends the ornate staircase to the top of the series (and all-time) leaderboard, leapfrogging Joanna Page, whose disastrous score of 12 (2.4PPT) puts her in deep blue-green-yellow-green-yellow trouble…

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Let’s make like Armando and skip off joyfully to enjoy the ice cream of STATS!

• Amy won her second episode here with a score of 22 — she’s just the second contestant since Series 8* to score 20+ points twice in the first three episodes of a series, after Sam Campbell in Series 16 (who scored 21 and 24 in Episode 1 and Episode 3 of his series respectively). Her victory also means that this is just the second series in the history of the show where no man has won at least one of the first three episodes (the other was in Series 6, when Liza Tarbuck won Episodes 2 and 3 after Alice Levine won Episode 1, a fact which bodes very well for Amy…)

*again, like last week, I feel compelled to mention that after Series 8, there were just 5 tasks per episode in (almost) all series. There are other examples of contestants who scored 20+ in two of the first three episodes (Kerry Godliman and Lou Sanders), but they had more tasks to score those points.

• Joanna, meanwhile, falls to second place, five points behind Amy — she was five points ahead, a swing of 10 points. Only twice in the show’s history has there been a bigger swing from Episode 2 to Episode 3 — Series 2, when Katherine Ryan went from being 7 points behind to 6 points ahead of John Richardson, a swing of 13 points (although this was thanks to the controversial live rabbits task) and Series 13, when Bridget Christie went from being 9 points behind Chris Ramsey to being 3 points ahead, a swing of 12 points. Joanna’s score of 12 this week is a 10 point fall from her Episode 1 high of 22, and it means she joins a select group of contestants who started brilliantly but then had rubbish Episode 3s: like Joanna, Mat Baynton, Chris Ramsey and Al Murray all scored 18+ points in each of their first two episodes, before scoring fewer than 13 points in Episode 3. Of those, only Mat went on to win his series (and it’s worth mentioning that he still managed to win his low-scoring Episode 3). Has Wales’ Sexiest Woman 2009 peaked already? Will she soon be back on the fish sherry?

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• At the other end, a similarly poor episode for Joel Dommett (12, 2.4PPT) means that he falls to the bottom in the series scores for the first time. Worryingly for Joel, the contestant who was in last place after three episodes has gone on to finish bottom thirteen out of twenty times — and only two contestants have gone on to finish higher than fourth having been bottom at this stage (they were Kiell Smith-Bynoe who rallied and finished, inexplicably, in second place in Series 15, and Susan Wokoma, who squeaked ahead of best mate Sue Perkins into third in Series 16). Still, at least he got to moan “wank” in one of the most beautiful staircases in Hampton Court.

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• Onto the prize task (“The most fun thing to drag behind you on a piece of string when you go for a walk”) and this was the fourth time the criteria of a prize task was “most fun thing” (after Series 15’s “Most Fun Thing To Put On Your Head That You Aren’t Supposed To Wear On Your Head”, Series 17’s “Most Fun Thing To Turn Upside Down” and Series 18’s “Most Fun Thing To Put In Alex’s Pocket Without Him Knowing”). It was Armando who came away with 5 points here, thanks to his offering of a truly delighted Lorraine Kelly on a trolley. It’s the first time Lorraine Kelly has appeared on the show, although not the first time she’s been mentioned — in Series 11 Charlotte Ritchie used her as the inspiration for her Scottish accent in the “in-flight announcement” task (she also mentioned that she had sent Lorraine an email apologising and was yet to hear back), while in Series 13 Sophie Duker showed off a photo of her with Lorraine Kelly in the “recreate the coolest photo in your phone” task. Meanwhile Kumail scored 4 for his “early-to-bed” kit. This is a well-worn prize task tactic, to group together many different items under one theme in an effort to overwhelm Greg with quantity over quality — we’ve seen it previously in Series 8, with Iain Stirling’s present for a doctor of a “going out kit” (glowsticks and alcohol), Joanne McNally’s “basic bitch starter pack” in Series 17, Susan Wokoma’s “advent calendar” of prize tasks in Series 16, Sophie Duker’s “Taskmaster couples’ cosplay kit” (no trousers and a duck in the mouth) from Champion of Champions 3. This can frequently backfire (Sophie scored 2, Iain 1), but the sheer amount of effort can also favour contestants who have failed in prize tasks previously for whom Greg feels a bit sorry (Joanne and Susan being good examples) — Kumail might fall under that category.

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• Amy dropped points for the first time in prize tasks this series, receiving 3 points for a projector playing a breast-swinging dance — I believe this is the third time a contestant has presented a video of themselves as a prize task, after Rhod Gilbert’s “creepy video” in Series 7 (footage of him recording Greg sleeping from his cupboard, 5 deserved points) and Joanne McNally deflating a balloon in Series 17 (1 point, barely deserved). This is also the second time a representation of a contestant’s breasts have been brought in (although the first by a contestant themselves, as Jason Mantzoukas provided a jelly mould of Aisling Bea’s breasts in Series 19) — Sophie Willan also wanted to bring in her own breast for a prize task in Series 17 but was not allowed by Channel 4 (boo Channel 4). Joel Dommett received 2 points for his parachute (the first time a parachute has appeared as a prize task in the show’s history), while Joanna Page received 1 point for her fish-shaped hip-flask full of sherry. Sherry is a type of fortified wine — as such this is the lowest score wine has ever received on the show (previous entries like Daisy May Cooper’s ‘a bottle of wine’ for the best thing to put in your mouth had scored 5 points), if we don’t count Nick Mohammed’s 1 point for “the concept of putting ice cubes into white wine” (which, to be honest, I’m not, and neither should you).
• The first task (“put on the headphones, obey the instructions and build the tower”) was the fourth “fastest wins” task of the series — this is already as many as there were in the whole of Series 15 (in seven fewer episodes). The high number of “fastest wins” tasks may suit Joanna Page — she won here, and has now received 17 points from a possible 20 in these speed-based tasks. Joanna also found one of the hacks that the show had planted here (the tower in the caravan) —I believe this makes her the first contestant to find a hack that the show has planted (as opposed to creating their own hack) since last series’ “What number has Alex written down” task, where Sanjeev Bhaskar found a pad featuring an imprint of the number that Alex had written.

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• At the other end, Armando struggled, scoring just one point — in solo “fastest wins” tasks he’s scored just 3 points, averaging 1.00 points per task. I think this task was also unique in the sense that it was a “fastest wins” task where it was incumbent on the contestant to end the task, not Alex (as they had to clap three times when they thought they had built the correct tower) — this outfoxed most contestants (and most notably Kumail Nanjiani, who went from first place to second last because of his failure to clap). In a sense it has similarities with the “make and wear a popcorn necklace” task from Series 12, where contestants had to either ring a bell or not ring a bell and declare that they had done the right thing three times in order to end the task. Unlike that task, where the contestants didn’t really know whether or not they had done the right thing until they got back to the studio and were told by Susie Dent, here the contestants were all fairly confident they had got the correct order (after all, they had listened to that infernal song enough times…)
• Task Two (“paint the best painting of the painting while hugging”) was the second team task of the series, and it was a bit of a disaster for the Team of Two, whose picture of a “horse seconds after it had been hit by a bazooka”, combined with Armando’s blatant grunt-cheating, saw them score just 1 point to the Team of Three’s 5. This is, I believe, the largest defeat by a team in a subjectively judged task — usually Greg will give at least 2 pity points for the worse team in artistic challenges (see Series 14’s “Create the best picture of a bird” task, where Greg gave the Team of Three 2 pity points), but the entirely smashed horse was enough to disabuse Greg of any sympathy. This sketch did have a slight echo of one the first tasks in the show’s history (“paint the best picture of a horse while riding a horse”), in that it was another picture of horse to be crafted under extreme circumstances. In fact it’s at least the third time contestants have had to draw horses under extreme circumstances, as in Series 7 the contestants drew happy horses upside down to be featured on overhead projectors.

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• Task Three (“get to the top of the staircase”) had similarities with a task in New Year’s Treat 2024 (“eat these poppadoms”) — in both tasks, the contestants had to discard letters from their alphabet and then say words without those letters to progress in the task. Like that poppadoms task, every word the contestants said was judged against this criteria (not just ones which they “deliberately” submitted) — in that sense, this was another task where saying as little as possible was the best tactic (much like Series 20’s “Say the most five letter words” task), and explains why Alex kept on telling Joel to stop talking (although not why he kept replying ‘ah ha, got you, I understand now, good’). Fans of the production team will have noticed that it was Clarenz tooting the trumpet at the end of the task — this I believe is Clarenz’ first on-screen appearance since he lavished praise upon Fatiha El Ghorri as she spooned yoghurt into her mouth in Series 19 (although that does feel like a while ago and I’m fully expecting some Clarenz superfan to prove me wrong with a more recent appearance).

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• This was Amy Gledhill’s first filmed solo task win — perhaps surprisingly for a contestant leading the series. Kumail, meanwhile, thought he had won, until Alex showed a bit more footage in the studio that showed he had (inadvertently) cheated. This is the first time this series a contestant has lost points because of something that was spotted on second viewing, and the first time since the final episode of Series 20 (where the Team of Three thought they had nailed a task until Alex and the production team spotted in the edit that Sanjeev had accidentally opened an extra cupboard door). This task was also the first time Joanna scored lower than 3 in a solo filmed task — she scored 2, just ahead of wank-struggler Joel Dommett. Before the final task of last episode, Joanna had managed to score at least 3 in every task — could this episode, containing her lousy prize task and even more disappointing live task, be the start of a wobble for our Welshwoman?
• The live task (“transfer Greg’s balls from your bucket to your beaker”) featured the contestants trying to balance a snooker cue on the table — perhaps a reference to Nick Mohammed, who balanced a snooker cue on his chin while sitting on a cow in Series 17. It’s the first task to specifically mention snooker since Series 12, where the contestants had to make a shelf that could fit all of the snooker balls (or as Desiree called them, “snukka balls”). This was another win for Amy — it means she’s currently averaging 3.84 points per task in the studio (ie, prize and live task), a record that can only be bettered by Katherine Ryan (who, again, rabbits) and Dara Ó Briain. What makes it all the more impressive is that the first live task of this series was a Winner Takes All task which Amy did not win — she’s been near perfect in every other task that’s taken place in the studio. Never bet against an Edinburgh Award Winner when it comes to picking up points live…

All Time Leaderboard

• She may not be able to wink but Amy Gledhill has clambered to the top of the series — her PPT of 3.87 is also enough to put her just ahead of John Robins at the top of the all-time leaderboard. It’s early days, of course, but Amy is in a strong position — she’s yet to score 1 in any task, and she leads the series in prize tasks (4.33PPT), subjective tasks (4.40PPT) and live tasks (3.33PPT). Overall, she’s scored 25.55% of all the points this series — this is a higher proportion than previous record holder John Robins managed in his series (24.27%), and really reflects how uneven this series has been so far (by contrast, Joel has scored just 15.86% of all points this series, ahead of only Roisin Conaty and Victoria Coren-Mitchell). We don’t want to act like Freddie Mercury on an anteater and get carried away, but the omens do look good for her. Amy is the eleventh contestant to score 57 points or more after three episodes (she’s on 58, in fact) — and of those previous ten, only three didn’t go on to win their series (Richard Osman, Jon Richardson and Bridget Christie — and in fact both Richard and John were also behind eventual champion Katherine Ryan at this stage in their series). But look, what do I know? Last week I heavily implied Joanna Page had this series in the bag, and this week she misspelled the word nail and admitted she had a drinking problem when she was eight years old. One week you’re cock of the walk, etc…
• Speaking of Joanna Page, her 12 points (2.4PPT) sends her sliding down the all-time chart — she’s now between Dara Ó Briain and Sarah Millican (a real Dafty In The Middle situation here) in fourth. There’s no reason to panic just yet — Joanna is actually level with Amy on solo filmed tasks (both on 3.86PPT) and she’s still leading on objective tasks (3.90 PPT). She also did manage another filmed solo task win this episode — this makes her the tenth contestant to win at least one filmed solo task in each of the first three episodes of a series, after Mat Baynton, Sam Campbell, Dara Ó Briain, Joe Thomas, Bob Mortimer, Nish Kumar (inexplicably), Noel Fielding, Jon Richardson and Richard Osman. She’s also won 23.35% of all points this series — between them, Joanna and Amy have scored 111 points, which is just 5 less than the three boys put together…

• It was a good week for Kumail Nanjiani (his freak-out over his cheating aside) — his series high score of 19 (3.80PPT) means he leapfrogs over both the other boys into third place in the series (still 12 points behind Joanna but still, baby steps), and up to joint 86th in the all-time chart (level with Johnny Vegas) with a series PPT of 2.73. In some ways, this was a Phil Ellis-esque performance — three 4s but no solo task wins (although he would have nabbed at least two if he remembered how to clap in the first task and how steps work in the third). This was also the first episode this series where Kumail has not finished last in a task, and it might be that he’s starting to find his groove — as well as being third in the series, he’s now third in the series in objectively judged tasks (2.80PPT) and third in solo filmed tasks (2.86PPT). On the all-time chart Kumail is now joint 86th with a PPT of 2.73 — he’s level with Johnny Vegas and just below Sue Perkins and Rosie Jones. On the plus side for Kumail, his score of 41 after three episodes is not terrible — twenty five contestants have had a lower score at this point (including Kumail’s Taskmaster nemesis, Jason Mantzoukas, who managed just 39 after three episodes). A big positive for Kumail was his prize task — his 4 points here was the first time he’s scored over 2 this series. He’s worked out that Greg prefers the concept of going to bed early to terrifying paintings of children — this may make him a force to be reckoned with going forward.

• Meanwhile an average performance from Armando Iannucci (13 points, 2.60PPT) means he falls back to fourth in the series and also drops one place in the all-time chart to 93rd (nestled between Nick Mohammed and Lucy Beaumont) with a series score of 2.60PPT. The potentially concerning thing for Armando here was his filmed task score — just 5 of his points this week came from the filmed tasks, the lowest score of any contestant this series. No contestant has scored fewer points in an episodes in filmed tasks since the seventh episode of Series 19, where Jason Mantzoukas and Stevie Martin scored 3 and 4 points respectively. Overall filmed tasks are not Armando’s strong suit — he’s averaging just 2.00 PPT, currently the second worst score in filmed tasks ever (only ahead of Katherine Parkinson’s 1.96PPT). One thing to note about Armando is the lack of variation in his scores — he’s averaging 2.60PPT in both objective and subjective tasks, and there are just 4 points between his best episode score and his worst (15 points and 11 points respectively), pretty modest compared to Joanna Page who has already swung from 22 points to 12 points in the first three episodes. On the plus side, this shows he’s very consistent. On the negative side, it means he’s consistently mediocre. But give him some credit, he’s been performing all this time with a nasty cough (and a very suspicious grunt).

• Propping up the rear is Mr Wank Egg himself, Joel Dommett — he’s fallen to the bottom of the series with a score of 12 (2.4PPT), and fallen to 103rd place on the all-time chart with a PPT of 2.40 (only Katherine Parkinson and Roisin Conaty have a lower score). The issue for Joel currently is objectively judged tasks — he has a score of just 2.30PPT, with only eleven contestants picking up a worse score in that metric (including usual suspects David Baddiel, Katherine Parkinson, Ivo Graham and Phil Wang). Live tasks are also a bit of a struggle for Joel (to be honest it does help if you remember the rules of the game while you’re playing it)— his 1 point here means he’s averaging just 1.67 points per live task, which is the second worse score ever (only Sian Gibson boasts a worse score). It’s really only Joel’s team tasks that are keeping him above ground — if you exclude team tasks, Joel is rock bottom of the all-time leaderboard with a score of just 2.15PPT. Positives for Joel…He’s yet to break that egg?

And Finally

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• Armando Iannucci made a bit of history here after just three episodes — he’s the first person to compare Taskmaster to detention camp Guantanamo Bay in two separate tasks. This week, he pointed out that being made to obey the headphones was a bit Guantanamo, having said the same thing last week about Alex’s bright orange bowling outfit (fair enough, on both accounts, to be honest). In the previous one hundred and ninety five episodes, Guantanamo Bay had only been mentioned three times: first by Jo Brand in Series 9, when she was tasked with whispering a word that began with D and ended with G (so naturally Guantanamo Bay was a perfect choice), then by Greg in Series 13 when he compared Judi Love, Bridget Christie and Sophie Duker’s bird-themed stag-do for Alex as something out of an interrogation from there, and finally by Joanne McNally in Series 17, who said that hanging up tasks with pegs was like being at Guantanamo Bay (possibly an overreaction). Meanwhile, Joel Dommett became the sixth contestant to say “wank”* on the show, although only the fourth not to say it in anger (as Zoe Ball and Sophie Willan both used it to curse/insult Alex). The other three wank-sayers were Josh Widdicombe in Series 1 (where he referred to one of the Aussie rules football team as “The Wank Plank”), Aisling Bea in Series 5 (where she says that going into a room with plastic sheeting on the walls and a man usually means she has to wank him off) and Daisy May Cooper in Series 10, who offered it up as one of many four-letter swear words for a live task. This episode did make history though — between Joel’s whispered “wank”, Amy’s gag about it in the studio and Joel’s delightful “this episode started with someone struggling with a wink and ended with someone struggling with a wank” line (and Greg’s reprise at the end), this episode is comfortably the most wank-filled ever. Well done everyone, wanks very much.

If you wan(k)t more stats, simply say the word “loaaaaaf” as menacingly as possible while staring at Alex Horne in a staircase full of boobs. Or just click here for the Terrifying Spreadsheet!

And don’t forget to listen to Taskmaster The People’s Podcast this Monday, where we’re talking about what would happen if Jenny Eclair was Lorraine Kelly, and whether or not there’s a pasta shape that is based off an ear. Is there? We refuse to Google.