'What little dignity I had disappeared a very, very long time ago'

Jenny Eclair on doing Taskmaster

Jenny Eclair talks about taking part in series 15 of Taskmaster, which starts on Channel 4 next week.

What do you think of this year’s line-up.

It’s an absolute treat!

I’d met Mae [Martin] once before, in Melbourne, when we were both doing the comedy festival. We were both younger than we are now. Mae was really young – foetally young – but I remember seeing them have breakfast and thinking, ‘What a gorgeous creature.’

I’d never met Kiell [Smith-Bynoe] before, he’s hilarious and much more capable than he occasionally seems, particularly in throwing tasks.

Ivo [Graham] is a poppet, he was at university with my daughter and they have mutual friends, but I’d never met him.

Frankie [Boyle], our paths have crossed, but never to a point where we’ve been stuck in a corner talking to each other so that was an absolute joy. There’s a real light side to Frankie, and when you hear him giggle it’s very fun. If you say something that makes him laugh, and you get that giggle, it’s really satisfying. I thought he’d be more intense.

He also thought you were going to be a bit more serious.

I don’t know where he got that impression from but I’ve long been associated with Grumpy Old Women which actually was never about sitting there moaning. The television series was slightly more like that but the live shows were definitely not. We all make assumptions about people.

Were you competitive?

What happens with me is that I start really well, I fly very high, and then I do an Icarus and I crash to the ground.

That has been the story of my life, my career, every single thing that I’ve ever done. I make a superhuman effort and do really well, then everything crumbles.

The truth is, I’ve been waiting 15 series to get on this show and you can imagine how begging my emails became over the years, and then I got really resentful that I wasn’t asked to go on it so I didn’t watch it for ages and ages, because I don’t watch programmes I’m not invited on to that I should be invited on to, which means I’ve never ever watched a single episode of Have I Got News for You, or many other fucking things.

So then, when my manager said, ‘We’ve got you on Taskmaster,’ I was absolutely overjoyed. Then I started watching it properly, and I thought, ‘Fucking hell, what have I got myself into? This is really fucking big.’

It’s quite a monster task all in all, and physically and mentally draining.

Why did you want to do it so badly?

Because I saw my peers doing it and I thought, ‘Well, why haven’t I been invited to do this?’ And it had a reputation for being really, really good fun.

Did you have any strategy?

No, I forgot. I forgot to have a strategy. It would have been better if I had, I think. But a strategy should always be ‘take it slowly’ whereas I just did everything like a bull in a china shop because I thought, ‘If I do it quick they might not notice I’ve done it wrong’.

You clearly really enjoyed it. Is it a bit like returning to childhood?

I think so. I was brought up abroad and we didn’t have television, so there was a lot of mucking about. I had a very ‘mucking about’ childhood. So yes, you’ve actually hit the nail on the head. It is a total regression.

And have you learned anything about yourself?

Yes. That I’m incredibly stupid, naive, trusting and clumsy. And too quick to act and too slow to think. That’s what I’ve learned.

Any regrets, then?

I wish I had thought more about the prize tasks, because I was mortified on a couple of occasions. But no real regrets.

I wish I hadn’t taken my shoe off without having any nail varnish on my toes in episode four. And I am very double-chinned, and I forgot about that. And I wish I could do some of the tasks again, knowing what I know now.

You were accused of emotional blackmail in a bid for points by bringing up stories about your family. Is that a fair accusation?

Yes, and I wish I’d done it more. Greg liked the story about my dad being a spy. I don’t think the story about my grandson got enough points, though. I’m not sure we’ll ever break that news to Arlo that he only scored a measly two points in that round, that it didn’t tug hard enough on Greg’s heartstrings.

How did you get on with Greg generally?

I recognise a very, very common streak of comedy in what Greg does and I adore the relationship he has with Alex. It really makes me laugh; I’ve become hysterical on occasion.

I once saw his live show called The Back Of My Mum’s Head, where I was almost incontinent with laughter. I went with my daughter, and it was in a small sweaty attic room in Edinburgh.

We were sitting next to a boy who had never seen stand-up before and afterwards, he said, ‘Is it always like this?’ and I had to say ‘no’. It was so special for him, he was wet with laughter. I had to say, ‘No, sometimes it’s shit. Come and see me tomorrow night.’

How do you describe the relationship between Greg and Alex?

Absolutely adorable. It’s a much more interesting Ant and Dec. And I love Ant and Dec. I’ve worked with them a lot and they’re great. But they’re not a patch on Greg and Alex, are they?

How do you describe your relationship with Alex during the tasks?

I felt sometimes that he felt very sorry for me but was trying not to show it.

He wasn’t as helpful as he could have been. He could have saved my bacon on a couple of occasions. He gave me the impression that I was allowed to do things that I actually wasn’t.

The thing is, in the studio, you know very well it’s not your show. It’s Alex and Greg that the audience have come to see. We are mere courtiers in the palace of.

So it is quite nerve-racking, being in the studio. There’s a tension amongst us all. We want to do well, we want to be supportive of each other, but we also want to be funny, and sometimes you feel a bit clumsy.

You have to leave your dignity at home on Taskmaster, don’t you?

I’ve never had much dignity, and what little dignity I did have disappeared a very, very long time ago.

I’ve done a lot of things I should have died of shame of over the years, and I’ve managed to survive. But that has helped. I don’t think you can have vanity and be funny unless you use vanity as the core to your comedy.

Was there any particular moment where you caught yourself in the middle of a task and thought, ‘What are we even doing here?’

There is one that has prompted me to write letters of apology to my family for being so stupid. It’s a history thing and I really, really showed what my teachers always wrote in my school reports, which is ‘doesn’t listen, doesn’t concentrate, waste of brain’ and all this kind of thing.

I really live up to everything my teachers said in my school reports. It’s the one that I really cringe about.

• Taskmaster series 15 starts on Channel 4 at 9pm on Thursday March 30.

All the Taskmaster series 15 interviews