The creator of Taskmaster goes to “ruthless” lengths to keep a lid on the show’s surprises, according to comedian Mike Wozniak.

Wozniak, 47, memorably appeared as a contestant on series 11 of the Channel 4 panel game show, which aired during the pandemic in 2021.

Prior to his stint on the show, however, Wozniak actually won Horne’s original version at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010.

The Fringe show had the same format as the much beloved televised series, which sees comedians take on bizarre, pre-recorded and studio-based challenges with no prior knowledge of what they might be, with Taskmaster Greg Davies and Horne, his assistant, overseeing the action.

“You’d get these instructions that would inevitably lead to questions – what am I allowed to do, what are my limits – he’s not going to answer those questions. Doesn’t care, tough. Hard cheese,” Wozniak told The i newspaper.

Speaking about the series now, he said: “[You] genuinely have no idea [what’s going to happen] – you’ll be in this tiny room in the house, properly sequestered from everyone else – even if you want to go to the loo, someone will be monitoring you so you don’t sneak a peek at what they’re preparing outside.”

“Alex is utterly ruthless,” he concluded.

As for Wozniak’s relationship with Taskmaster Davies, the pair starred together in the 2010 sitcom Man Down, which he recalled as “one of the happiest working experiences of my life”.

“It was a literal dream come true,” he said. “I love sitcoms, I always have, so it was pure joy. I would have been perfectly happy if that job had gone on and on and on, way past jumping the shark, until we’d really ruined it.”

Wozniak finished second in his series of Taskmaster, with Sarah Kendall taking home the trophy: a golden bust of Davies. Lee Mack, Jamali Maddix, and Charlotte Ritchie also competed in Wozniak's season.

He returned to the franchise years later, in 2023, as the assistant for Junior Taskmaster alongside Rose Matafeo’s Taskmaster.

The spin-off show is one of more than a dozen spin-offs of the show. It enlisted children aged nine to 11 as contestants, and was not renewed for a second season.