This Country

Date set for the return of Taskmaster

The tenth series will air on 15 October on Channel 4, its new home having been acquired from Dave.

The line-up of comedian contestants was announced earlier this year, including Daisy May Cooper (This Country), Johnny Vegas (Benidorm), Katherine Parkinson (The IT Crowd), Mawaan Rizwan and Richard Herring (RHLSTP with Richard Herring).

Alex Horne created Taskmaster for a live show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2012, before it was picked up by Dave who ran it for nine series. It has since been exported to seven countries.

BBC comedy king Shane Allen on the importance of new talent

(Credit: BBC)

Both Monty Python’s Flying Circus and W1A – shows produced by the BBC Comedy department five decades apart – featured a gag in which the BBC head of comedy is revealed to be a dour, humourless figure on the brink of clinical depression.

“Yes. And Episodes did a bit of that, as well,” laughs Shane Allen, when the long-running gag about his job is mentioned, thereby establishing that it could not apply to him. The tape of our conversation is fittingly – though, given some of his predecessors, not inevitably – punctuated with his deep laugh.

BBC mockumentary This Country renewed for third series

The series which was written by siblings Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper, who also serve as the leads is about the day-to-day of two cousins living in a rural village in the Cotswolds. 

The show has recently won three RTS Programme Awards; for Comedy Writer, Comedy Performance and Best Scripted Comedy. The show has also been nominated four times at the upcoming BAFTA and BAFTA Craft Awards.

ANATOMY OF A HIT: THIS COUNTRY

This sublime RTS multi award winning comedy explores the lives of young people in modern rural Britain, focusing on cousins Kerry and Kurtan and their home in the Cotswolds. Written by and starring siblings Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper and filmed in Gloucestershire, it has been described as ‘perfection’ (The Guardian) and ‘hilarious and heartbreaking’ (Radio Times).
 

This Country: Charlie Cooper discusses this year's comedy hit

It’s been a hectic series for the show’s stars, cousins Kerry and Kurtan, played by Daisy May and Charlie Cooper. There’s been fishing, tadpoles spawned in the pond, there was an incident with some aggressive sheep… A busy six weeks in the Cotswold town the pair call home – or rather it hasn’t. And that’s sort of the point.

Winners of the RTS Programme Awards 2018 announced

Anita Rani picked up the presenter award (Credit: RTS/Richard Kendal)

The RTS Programme Awards, chaired by Wayne Garvie, honours excellence across all genres of television programming and recognise exceptional actors, presenters, writers and production teams, as well as the programmes themselves.

The BBC scooped 17 awards for its programmes and talent, and also won the coveted RTS Channel of the Year award.