Who's who on Taskmaster Australia?

If you've been living under a rock and somehow hadn't heard the news already, rumours of an Australian adaptation of Taskmaster were confirmed this week, through official announcements by both Avalon and Paramount.

The announcements on 6 October 2022 revealed that Paramount had commissioned a season of 10 episodes of the show, to be produced by Avalon Television and Kevin & Co (the same production company that works on Taskmaster NZ) for the Australian broadcaster Network 10.

Set to air in 2023, the show will be fronted by Tom Gleeson and Tom Cashman, as the Taskmaster and his assistant, respectively.

Sam Smith, the chief task writer for Taskmaster NZ, also shared on Twitter that he had been involved in writing tasks for the new version of the show, which, like its NZ counterpart, will feature all original tasks.

He also confirmed that the show was being filmed in New Zealand, and it is currently believed that the pre-filmed tasks themselves will be shot at the same ranch used for Taskmaster NZ.

This is all interesting and exciting news, but most fans will already be aware of all of this, since there's already been extensive media coverage of the announcement.

The real purpose of this post is to share a little background info on the hosts and season 1 contestants, for those of you who (like me) aren't very familiar with the Aussie comedy scene.

The information below is just a very quick summary for each - please click on their names to visit their dedicated pages for a lot more background info!

The hosts

Tom Gleeson (The Taskmaster) is a stand-up comedian, writer, and television and radio presenter, perhaps currently best known as the host of Hard Quiz, a spin-off of his 'Hard Chat' segment from the show The Weekly. In 2019, he won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Television. His stand-up show Joy (2019) won Best Comedy at Perth Fringe World, and his show Lighten Up (2020) won Best Comedy at the Adelaide Fringe.

Tom Cashman (The Taskmaster's assistant) is an up-and-coming stand-up comedian, a regular on Channel 10's The Project, and has appeared on Question Everything, Celebrity Letters & Numbers, Planet America, Australia Debates, and Tonightly with Tom Ballard.

The contestants

Danielle Walker is a stand-up comedian who has appeared on ABC Comedy’s Tonightly with Tom Ballard, and the Just for Laughs Stand Up Series on The Comedy Channel. Her first hour-long stand-up show Bush Rat won her the Best Newcomer Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2018, leading her to take it to the Soho Theatre in London’s West End in early 2019.

Jimmy Rees is best known for playing the role of Jimmy Giggle on ABC Kids' flagship programme Giggle and Hoot between 2009 and 2020. In 2019, he competed in the sixteenth season of the Australian version of Network 10's Dancing with the Stars and, in 2020, he started releasing short humorous videos on TikTok and YouTube (most notably, the Meanwhile in Australia series).

Julia Morris is a comedian, presenter, and actor who relocated to the UK in 2000, and appeared in episodes of QI and the sitcom Not Going Out. Since returning to Australia in 2007 she has appeared on and hosted numerous shows and, since 2015, has been the co-host of the Australian version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.

Luke McGregor is a comedian, writer, and actor, best known for his roles in the ABC TV series Utopia and Rosehaven, the latter of which he co-created with Celia Pacquola. His six-part comedy documentary series about sexuality and body image, Luke Warm Sex, aired on ABC in 2016.

Nina Oyama is a comedian, writer, actor, and director. She is best known for her role as Courtney in the ABC comedy series Utopia. Between 2017 and 2018, she was one of the writers on ABC Comedy's topical entertainment show Tonightly with Tom Ballard. Between 2019 and 2020 she played various characters in the Network 10 sketch comedy series Kinne Tonight.