Sherlock star Mark Gatiss has addressed the idea of going on Taskmaster, after a fan said that they’d love to see him take on the absurd gameshow.
However, he refuses to compete for a reason that could take viewers by surprise.
Anyone who watches Taskmaster, presented by creator Alex Horne and the austere Greg Davies, knows that it’s often far harder than it looks – just because someone’s intelligent doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily know how to conquer the complex challenges.
It appears that’s exactly why Mark, who gave a ‘sinister’ performance as Mycroft Holmes in the BBC adaptation of Sherlock, would rather avoid participating, for fear that fans discover he’s not as clever as he seems.
On Friday, the 59-year-old took part in a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) to promote season two of his TV show Bookish, in which he plays Gabriel Book, an aptly named book shop owner with a skill for solving crimes.
One of the Reddit users called TyrannosaurusSbex asked Mark if he prefers ‘a good ghost story or a good mystery’, before then adding: ‘Also… You’d be brilliant on Taskmaster! Would you consider it?’
‘Both!’ the actor responded to the first question, before then sharing whether or not he’d consider doing Taskmaster in future.
‘Taskmaster is one of my favourite shows – but like David Mitchell I would like to preserve the general impression that I’m intelligent and have no wish to disabuse people of that notion,’ he replied.
While one can understand his reasoning, I’m sure we can all agree that going on Taskmaster wouldn’t make audiences think that he’s not intelligent… I suspect.
Would I Lie To You? and Last One Laughing UK winner David Mitchell previously admitted that he’d been asked to do Taskmaster, but turned down the opportunity.
‘It’s a very good show but I don’t want to be on it. My feeling is that I’d be s**t but not in a funny way,’ he said, as reported by Beyond the Joke.
‘People think maybe I’d be a good sport about it and I don’t think people thinking that will increase if I’m on it. It’s like I’ve been asked to be on Celebrity Mastermind because people think I’d be quite good at that. So why would I do it then?
‘All I can do is ruin it by going on it and turning out to be considerably more ignorant than people expect.’
Who knows – perhaps we can get Mark and David on a future series together, to cancel out their insecurities?
Mark, who played Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock, which he co-created with Steven Moffat, also answered a fan who asked what the biggest differences were between ‘inventing crimes for Gabriel to solve, and inventing crimes for Sherlock to solve’.
He answered: ‘With Sherlock – we always went back to Conan Doyle and you’re writing for an existing character. Bookish is period specific so a lot of the inspiration for the mystery of the week comes from the setting.
‘If they share anything it’s that I didn’t want Book to be omniscient. Just as in our version of Sherlock he has big gaps in his knowledge, Book relies on other people’s expertise at times and obviously the books which surround him. But like Holmes he is able to make big intuitive leaps.’
Bookish season 2 premieres on Wednesday August 26, 2026, at 8pm on U&Alibi.