EXCLUSIVE: The Taskmaster team came to Deadline’s Live Studio and revealed they have been invited to bring their live stage show to the Hollywood Bowl.
The comedy game show has found a U.S. audience on YouTube, where full episodes of the UK series are released day-and-date. Having sold out a range of smaller U.S. venues, hosts Alex Horne and Greg Davies have now received an invitation to bring the live stage show to Hollywood.
The Taskmaster masterclass featured Horne, producer Andy Cartwright, director Andy Devonshire and exec producer Jon Thoday, co-founder of Avalon. The team discussed the show’s evolution, how they devise tasks and assemble casts, while Horne recalled realizing Taskmaster had broken the U.S. when an NYPD cop asked him for a selfie.
Taskmaster airs on Channel 4 in the UK and the format has proven popular internationally, with numerous local versions up and running. There have been attempts to bring the format to U.S. television, but while those efforts faltered, making full episodes of the UK series available on YouTube has built a fan base large enough to earn an invitation to play the Hollywood Bowl.
“In the early days, we had the ambition to make a U.S. version of Taskmaster,” Thoday said in the Taskmaster masterclass, which was a highlight of the Deadline Reality TV Summit at SXSW London.
The Avalon topper continued: “We did make a short show for Comedy Central. We actually changed the format for that, which probably was a mistake. Ultimately, we woke up one day and thought we’ll just put the show on YouTube. From that day till now it’s grown every week… to the point where a lot of the traditional channels would actually like to have Taskmaster, but we like the fact that we’re in so many homes.”
Taskmaster Live has already found success in smaller U.S. venues, selling out shows featuring guests including John Oliver and Seth Meyers in minutes.
In the annals of British comedy, the venue also has special significance, having hosted one of the UK’s most legendary acts back in 1980. “Monty Python played it,” Thoday explained. “Greg and Alex did some live dates in the U.S., and now they’ve been invited to play the Hollywood Bowl, which is the ultimate accolade. And that’s all because of the show being shown on YouTube.”
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