When we went to Denmark, we’d both had a day off before the flight so we could visit The Globe theatre for a tour and afternoon tea. Tomorrow we’d be flying to Cyprus for another race, but today we had plans again.

During the pandemic I saw many recommendations for watching Taskmaster as a very funny game show. I watched nine seasons of it in a short space of time, and since then have watched every new season as it was broadcast, as well as the New Zealand and Australia editions of the show. Carmen had been watching the show much longer, and also very much enjoys watching it. We both thought it is one of those shows that would be fun to do, but it’s only for comedians. That is, until they launched the Taskmaster Live Experience.

For the most part, the tickets were obscenely expensive, and seemed to be a massive cash grab by Avalon from the popularity of the show. If the event had been at the actual filming location, then maybe it was a little more understandable, but it would actually be a replica of the garden located at Dock X. There was however the occasional date where the ticket prices, whilst still high, were a little bit cheaper. One of those dates just so happened to be the day before we’d be flying to Larnaca, so we decided we may as well give it a go.

At around 08:55 we headed to the tube station at Eastcote, and took the Met line to Finchley Road, and the Jubilee line from there to Canada Water. I bought a pain au raisin on the way as I'd not yet had breakfast. The building isn’t too difficult to find with a large TM printed on the doors.

At the front desk you show them your ticket and you get passes on lanyards for your time slot and the route through the Taskmaster house you’ll take. No bags or photos are allowed inside the ‘house’ so there’s a locker room you can use for free - next to the gift shop.

There’s a museum area with and pictures and artefacts from the shows, such as the costumes of Paul Sinner and Phil Wang. There’s the post-it notes of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ that Sam Campbell drew on series 17, and the paint splatter from Jamali Maddix from series 11. There's so much more too, so it really becomes a Taskmaster nerd test to remember what was from which episode or series.

The entrance we’d need to queue at is a replica of the Taskmaster house front with a statue of Greg Davies on one side and the eco done with as golden pineapple on the other. You can go in the famous caravan, and stand next to Linda the cow, or gaze up at Patatas the cat who is perched on the roof of the house.

There are two sheds you can go in, and the potato throwing task as well. Eventually it was our time to go in, and we would be a group of six.

In the first room you’re introduced to what will happen, and to Little Little Alex Horne. She would be the Taskmaster assistant that would score us and lead us through the rooms. Our first task was upon us.

All the information is on the task

I won't spoil the details of the tasks but there were solo and group tasks that spanned the lounge, lab, and shed of the Taskmaster house.The top five went through to the final, and ‘everyone else’, so just Carmen, would play a different game to see who won the best of the worst. Carmen got a golden duck for winning that.The scores were reset for this final task.

Somehow I managed to win! I then got to sit on Greg’s throne and was presented with a Champion medal. Carmen came over to have her picture taken with me, and we got a a printed picture for free because I won.

We got a few more photos around the outside, and then had a go at the potato throwing before leaving. It was a fun couple of hours, but I'm not sure it would have been worth any more than what we'd paid for it - getting the cheapest tickets we could. For fans of the show though, if you can get hold of the cheaper tickets, it's definitely worth checking out.