It’s both an honour and a curse to be singled out on Taskmaster.

Very few comedians have the privilege of being given their own task by the big scary boss Greg Davies and his minion Alex Horne. It can be torturous – but oh so entertaining.

In series one, Josh Widdicombe had to painstakingly count the number of baked beans in a can and the number of grains of rice in a bowl. In series five, Mark Watson had to send the Taskmaster an anonymous ‘cheeky text’ for 150 consecutive days.

Fast forward to series 21, and Joel Dommett, who’s hosting tonight’s 2026 National Television Awards on ITV, had to carry an egg during every task and hand it to Alex when the timer went off. Luckily, the comedian was ‘happy to be tortured’, he told Metro.

Nonetheless, he wishes that he’d acted differently when he first found out that carrying the egg would give him no extra points.

‘It was quite cool in the end,’ Joel says about being singled out for the mission. ‘You were like, “Oh, this is really special. This is a really special moment.” 

‘When Greg told me, “It was a task just for you and it’s for no points,” why did I not just take it out and smash it on the floor? Why didn’t I do that? I spent 10 episodes with it in my trousers. Like, what an idiot!’

‘Again, that shows very much the kind of person that I am. But I put it back in its holder, put it back in my trousers.’

The first time Alex blew his horn signalling for Joel to get the egg out will forever be seared in my memory. The I’m A Celebrity star immediately started rummaging down the front of his trousers, as the other Taskmaster contestants watched, completely baffled.

‘It was torture, but funny torture. Funny to be quite fun. I think I’m quite happy to be tortured if it’s funny,’ Joel states.

However, he does still wonder why he didn’t ‘smash’ the egg during the season finale.

‘Put it back in my trousers. What am I doing? It rolled off the table in my dressing room, and then made the dressing room stink of six-month-old egg,’ he recalls.

Hopefully his dressing room at the National Television Awards smells a tad nicer. Tonight, he’s hosting the awards ceremony for the sixth time, with stars including Sheridan Smith and Alison Hammond, and shows including The Traitors and Clarkson’s Farm up for top prizes.

While one might expect him to remain neutral, Joel admits he’s biased towards his own shows, I’m A Celebrity and The Masked Singer, despite recently parting ways with the former after competing in 2016, hosting the spin-off Extra Camp and then fronting Unpacked.

‘We’ve got favourites. Usually the shows I’m in. You’ve got your favourites, but that’s also okay,’ the 41-year-old remarks.

‘I would love I’m A Celeb to win. I’d love Masked Singer to win just so I can put something in my empty trophy cabinet. That would be fabulous.’

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The NTAs are a ball, but the afterparty is where the celebrities let their hair down. But not for Joel – not anymore.

‘They put on a good do. When I didn’t host the show, I loved it because you’d go straight to the afterparty. But now I host it, when I come off stage, I just want to lie down for a bit. I’ve been stood up for three hours in quite uncomfortable shoes, because I often wear a Cuban heel, and then once I’ve sat down and spoke to my family for half an hour, by then it’s like half 11,’ the comedian explains.

‘Before I hosted it, I loved the afterparty. It was so fun. You chat with so many people. You get really drunk and [it’s] so exciting. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it’s difficult for me to enjoy it as much as I used to, especially knowing that you’ve got to get up and be a father for the day afterwards. That’s always the difficult part.’

While the presenter might not be partying up with his celebrity pals tonight, someone who Taskmaster fans will be happy to hear he’s still close with is the charming Kumail Nanjiani, who Joel and Amy Gledhill couldn’t help but fawn over in the first episode.

‘He’s so lovely,’ Joel reveals. ‘I cannot say enough nice things about that man. His wife is adorable. So lovely. They’re just a beautiful couple and he’s also just undeniably and just brilliantly funny. 

‘When you have such a massive star like that, you would think that they wouldn’t be quite as sharp comedically, but he is so funny.’

At this point, Joel brings up their WhatsApp group. Now one might imagine that some of the wittiest minds on British television would come up with an equally amusing group chat name. 

‘I named it, and it’s awful,’ Joel confesses. ‘It’s a WhatsApp group full of comedians; it should be a really clever, good name, but it’s called Taskmaster Peeps. Awful.’

Don’t sweat it Joel, we’ve all been there. (My group chat ‘Absolute Ledges’ is my proof).

Bad group chat names aside, it’s wonderful to hear about the ‘family environment’ the cast created on the programme, which eventually saw Joanna Page crowned the winner.

‘Everyone really enjoyed everyone’s company. It was so nice. It’s obviously a dream come true to do that show, but it was helped a lot by the fact that we had such a great crew.’

The National Television Awards 2026 airs tonight from 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.


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