John Robins is an English Edinburgh Comedy Award winning stand-up comedian and radio and podcast presenter on BBC 5Live and previously Radio X. Robins has appeared on several radio programmes, including Talksport show, BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth and BBC Radio Wales' What's the Story?. He also hosted his own show on Dave titled Beat the Internet, and has appeared on Live at the Apollo. In 2019 he launched a YouTube channel named Bad Golf alongside Alex Horne.
In 2024, Robins appeared as a contestant on Series 17, finishing in first place with 192 points - the highest score a contestant has ever achieved on the show, beating Dara Ó Briain's score of 184. He was a guest on episode 152, 161 and 173 of Taskmaster The Podcast and episode 113 of Taskmaster: The People's Podcast.
Performance[]
Task | Description | John Robins |
---|---|---|
Episode 1: Grappling with my life. (28 March 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: Most glorious thing that sounds a bit like "Greg Davies" if you mumble it. | 4 |
2 | Do the riskiest thing involving this egg without breaking this egg. | 5 |
3 | Team: Create the best single picture of an animal doing something surprising. All six blinds must be fully and equally involved in your picture. You may not see each other's work and you may only say two words at a time. After the task, your pieces will be lined up next to each other in this order: 1) Shortest Wikipedia entry, 2) Best show at the Edinburgh Fringe winner, 3) Smallest shoe size, 4) The person whom Alex said "hello" to first, 5) Most Twitter followers, 6) Lowest-scoring full name in Scrabble. You may not move outside of your segment. | 3 |
4 | Hoopla Gary before he crosses the finish line. Your time is doubled every time one of your limbs gets wet. | 3 |
5 | Live: Bring your sausage to life. You may not write any words on your drawing. | 3 |
T | Which chess piece is not in the peas chest? | ✘ |
Total | 18 | |
Episode 2: Jumungo. (4 April 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The most fun thing to turn upside down. | 3 |
2 | Rescue the cat. The cat must come out of the top hole. Your head may not enter the dome. The door must remain closed. | 4 |
3 | Team: Do the most epic thing using green material and this green screen onesie. | 5 |
4 | Stick the heaviest thing to the board using three of the ingredients on the shelves. Once you've chosen your ingredients, you may not change your mind. You must choose your thing in the first two minutes. | DQ |
5 | Team Live: Guess the movie that your teammate is saying. Your teammate can only say the first three letters of each word of the movie title. | 5 |
Episode 3: Some impropriety? (11 April 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The best thing for a person that is meant for an animal. | 5 |
2 | Work out who is following you. You must stare at the duck at all times and take an average-length step towards the duck every time it quacks. If the person following you agrees with you, they will say the name of a mammal. If the person following you disagrees with you, they will say the name of a bird. If the person following you doesn't know if they agree or disagree with you, they will say the name of an amphibian. | 4 |
3 | Complete the jobstacle course. Each job must be completed to a satisfactory-quality level. The baby must remain in the baby carrier at all times except during nappy change. | 5 |
4 | Create tension. | 3 |
5 | Live: Catch the most monsters in your boxes. The monsters must propel themselves from the table. | 5 |
Total | 22 | |
Episode 4: Apropos of Apoppo. (18 April 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The greatest thing to give to a granny. | 5 |
2 | Work out who you are shaking hands with. You must only shake hands with the hands and you may not handle the hands in any other way. You may chop off a total of three fingers and one thumb but if you set off the health and safety emergency alarm, you are disqualified. Also, you may not look around, over, under or through the fence. | 3 |
3 | Create the biggest and best dot-to-dot picture. | 5 |
4 | Team: Fastest team to (go to the lab,) discover the (cake, eat one half, put the) other half (in the post box, put a flower on top) of this (task and then sit on top of this) task wins (five points.) You must (not necessarily) always hold hands. (That's up to you.) | 5 |
5 | Live: Pass all your loo roll through your loo roll inner tube. If your loo roll breaks at any point, you must put down your loo roll and put both your hands in the air for 10 seconds before carrying on. | DQ |
Total | 18 | |
Episode 5: Snooker cue umbrella chin. (25 April 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: Most extraordinary picture. | 5 |
2 | Be the most impressive load bearer. You must stand on the doormat, wave with one hand above your head and give a nice big thumbs up with the other whilst bearing the most impressive load. Your load must not be touching anything other than you. | 4 |
3 | Take the most dramatic photo of yourself in mid-air. You may take five photos. | 4 |
4 | Tie yourself to the bed. You must be horizontal whilst in the lab. If you pull down the terrible tie, you are disqualified. | 3 |
5 | Live: Park a vehicle in the parking bay. Your vehicle must be rolled whilst standing on the spot and the worst parker each round is eliminated. | 4 |
Total | 20 | |
Episode 6: A three ring man. (2 May 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The best thing that you can get into. | 2 |
2a | Make a bespoke personal hamper for [the contestant before you in the alphabet]. | 0 |
3 | Have the most exciting thumb war with Alex. | 3 |
4 | Team: Make the most moves on the movement circles. Your teammate must flip a bottle, then throw a dart at each dartboard to create a move. If they get a bulls-eye, you have free choice. Also, if they successfully land the bottle flip, your teammate may place a dart anywhere in the dartboard. | 5 |
2b | Create a picture of the person who gave you this hamper using the contents of this hamper. | 3 |
5 | Team Live: Completely cover your teammate in rubber rings. Catchers must face the Taskmaster at all times with their hands above their head. Throwers must stay behind the white line. | 5 |
Total | 18 | |
Episode 7: Dream date territory. (9 May 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: Snazziest hollow thing. | 1 |
2 | What have you caught? You may only give one answer. | 4 |
3 | Perform a recognisable piece of classical music without using any musical instrument. You may not hum, sing, whistle or that sort of thing. | 4 |
4 | Take Alex to one side and do the following things to him: Confess your favourite piece of kitchen equipment, scream a body part of your choice in his face, declare a gardening tool in a silly voice. | 5 |
Get the most orange juice in the vase. Only your chosen items may touch oranges. | ||
5 | Live: Paint a face on your ball. You may not touch your balls with anything other than your tools. Also, you may not remove your helmet. | 4 |
Total | 18 | |
Episode 8: The umbrella wink. (16 May 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The thing of yours Greg would most like to squeeze in his mighty hands. | 2 |
2 | Flick, flip and flap a flip-flop, flan and flapjack. You may only flick, flip and flap once. | 5 |
3 | In the next task, you must get something from the caravan, the shed, the hutch and the toilet before the task is finished. If you get something from all those places without anyone questioning why you're getting something from all those places, you get two bonus points. If you fail, you lose two points. | 2 |
Team: Put the watermelon on this table. The table may not be moved. Once you leave this room, you may not re-enter this room. Also, you may not step on the stage and the watermelon may not touch the stage, floor or ground. Finally, you must speak into your hand-held microphones at all times. | 5 | |
4 | Make this mannequin come alive. | 3 |
5 | Live: Write down a letter of the alphabet. | 5 |
Live: Every time Greg asks you a question, you must write down an answer. Last correct answer placed on the board is eliminated. | ||
Total | 22 | |
Episode 9: Assistantbury. (23 May 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: Most splendid spherical thing. | 4 |
2 | Create a new tradition to celebrate Assistant's Day. | 3 |
3 | Peg a sock, bin a sock, then don a sock on an appendage. Each single action must take place between bleeps. | 5 |
4 | Make the back of your head look like the front of a head. You may not just make a mask. You must demonstrate your new front-of-head in action. | 5 |
5 | Live: Bounce a ball on the bar. In round one, your ball must bounce once before falling off the bar. In round two, your ball must bounce twice before falling off the bar, and so on. Each player has one life. | 4 |
Total | 21 | |
Episode 10: Ambience and information. (30 May 2024) | ||
1 | Prize: The thing that gives the most hope for the future of the human race. | 1 |
2 | Find and complete the real task. Each task has a 1% chance of being the real task. | 4 |
Peg all the tasks to the washing line. | ||
3 | Hug your special friend. Every time you touch a letter, you must turn it over and one minute will be added to your time. | 3 |
4 | Team: Present the best new short-form shiny floor American gameshow. Alex will be the contestant, one of you must be his rival and somebody must win. | 5 |
Bonus: Best new gameshow catchphrase. | 1 | |
5 | Live: Crawl around behind the wall for 20 seconds. On Greg's command, you must then pop up from behind the wall. If Greg correctly predicts where you will pop up, you will be eliminated. If there is a tie in the final, the round is replayed. | 4 |
Total | 18 | |
Total | 192 |
Trivia[]
- John is the contestant to win the most points out of any contestant in the series, being the first to surpass 190 points, beating Dara Ó Briain's 184.
- John's Freddie Mercury outfit for pre-recorded segments is a nod to his well documented love of Queen.
- John is one of few contestants to:
- Contribute to a prize task in a series outside of their own, albeit unknowingly, as his Queen-themed clock was brought in by his then-girlfriend Sara Pascoe for the prize task of A pea in a haystack.
- Win three episodes in a row. Other contestants to achieve this are Richard Herring and Kiell Smith-Bynoe.
- John is the first contestant in the show to win an episode with their only task win being the prize task, achieved in Snooker cue umbrella chin.
- Excluding prize tasks and bonus points, John never received only one point or two points for any task across the series.