Channel 4 pilot Your Time Starts Now will see Alex Horne setting families challenges to complete
The format, which is linked to Taskmaster, builds on the premise of Horne’s 2018 BBC series The Button and online pandemic format HomeTasking
Channel 4 says of the format: “It’s an utterly distinctive celebration of British family life in all shapes and sizes”
Channel 4 has ordered Your Time Starts Now, a spin-off from Taskmaster in which Alex Horne sets families at home challenges to complete.
As BCG reported in April, plans have been underway to pilot a task-based format involving Horne, and the network has now confirmed it has ordered a pilot from producers Avalon called Your Time Starts Now.
The producers explain that the format will see “UK households compete against one another while tackling a host of his typically devious tasks without ever leaving their homes. Five teams of friends and families across the UK will need to display creativity, lateral thinking, speed, knowledge and teamwork if they want to win.”
The format “builds on the at-home ingenuity” of earlier incarnation The Button, a series Horne made for BBC One in 2018 in which at-home households competed against each other. It also is inspired by HomeTasking, the online format that saw Horne on a mission to entertain a world stuck in 2020‘s lockdown.
Alex Horne says: “I’ve had the pleasure of being in the room while countless comedians have tried and usually failed on Taskmaster and I’ve learnt that for the most part, that lot are sneaky loveable idiots. With Your Time Starts Now, I’m now excited and intrigued to see how the rest of the country can cope doing simple things under the pressure of time-constraints, dogged rivals and my own snarky gaze. Good luck, people of the UK. I shall be watching.”
Taskmaster director Andy Devonshire will also be overseeing the pilot. He says: “It’s a beautiful gift to have the chance to bring the joy and mischief of Taskmaster into homes and see how families cope with a direct dose of Alex Horne‘s invention.”
Executive producer Jon Thoday notes: “After years of being asked by fans about a little-known show we produced nearly 10 years ago called The Button and following the success of HomeTasking in lockdown, we are delighted Channel 4 has given us the opportunity of seeing if combining the spirit of those shows may bring more comedy gold from the brilliant minds of Alex Horne and Andy Devonshire.”
Commissioner Tom Beck concludes: “Wildly inventive, properly funny and rooted in real people being brilliant (and, occasionally, absolutely rubbish), Your Time Starts Now feels perfectly Channel 4. It’s an utterly distinctive celebration of British family life in all shapes and sizes, and I can’t wait see how our families get on as they try and tackle Alex and Andy’s ludicrous tasks. Why should comedians get all the fun?”
The pilot of Your Time Starts Now will air on Channel 4 at a later date.
In April it was confirmed that Channel 4 has ordered three more years of Taskmaster series. Series 22, due to air this autumn, has already been filmed and will feature Chloe Petts, Isy Suttie, Matt Lucas, Nina Conti and Richard Ayoade.