Gavin & Stacey star Joanna Page has revisited a mortifying blunder ahead of the new Taskmaster season, where she’s set to appear in a lineup of comedians including Armando Iannucci and Kumail Nanjiani.
Page, best known for the role of Stacey in the beloved Barry-set comedy, appeared on The One Show tonight to promote her new BBC series, Shift the Thrift.
Quizzed by hosts Alex Jones and Clara Amfo about her upcoming Taskmaster stint, with the new season starting tomorrow, Page shared a “soul-destroying” incident she suffered when doing a gymnastic trick on the show.
“Well, I’ve always done gymnastics, I’ve always done dance and I say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do a handstand,’ and they say, ‘Are you sure? Are you alright?’ And I say, ‘Of course I’m alright, I can do a handstand’,” she began.
“Boom straight into it. I realise I have no upper body strength anymore and I just went boom straight into the ground,” she continued.
Channel 4
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“It was quite soul-destroying, but I had to deal with it, move on. It was Taskmaster, you have to deal with the situation, and you just get on with it.”
Page, Iannucci and Nanjiani are joined by Amy Gledhill and The Masked Singer host Joel Dommett on series 21 of Taskmaster.
Meanwhile, series creator and co-host Alex Horne hinted at a possible starry addition to a future lineup.
“I could give you a sneaky bit of information for the distant future,” he told RadioTimes ahead of season 21. “We have got an Oscar winner in a future [season].”
Channel 4
Before Horne teased the identity of this mysterious contestant, he’d opened up on being starstruck working with Iannucci. The host admitted that meeting the writer and director behind The Thick of It and Veep was “daunting”, though he was soon able to relax around him.
“He’s a comedy legend and a very clever man, you’d think. Not on Taskmaster! It turns out Armando is an idiot, which is so nice to [know],” he said in a previous interview with RadioTimes. “I found him quite daunting to meet and work with, but within five minutes, you realise he’s the same as everyone else – he crumbles under pressure.”
Taskmaster returns on Channel 4 on 9 April.
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Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.Â
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