Mickypedia... and a Taskmaster shirt

Well I've been blown away by the response to episode 1 of series 4... thanks to everyone that has been in touch. Doing live continuity on the night sure makes it fly by...

I'm going to try and keep this relatively spoiler-free... but if you haven't seen the show yet - and want to, well it's repeated on Saturday night at 10... or you can watch it on UKTVPlay, here.

It's often the case with these shows that a lot of people ask the same question... and the nature of social media means that it doesn't matter how many times you answer it... the answer never gets seen by everyone. I like to try and reply to people if I can... and sometimes the easiest way is to put an answer here. I know people will still ask it... but at least I'll have something I can link to by way of reply.

And with this episode, the thing people most want to know about is Mickypedia...

So, to answer your questions... we couldn't have an obvious camera in the green room because its presence would have flagged up that something unusual was going on. But we did have a small, hidden camera in there capturing something. But we haven't used it for very good reasons.

Firstly... that first episode is absolutely packed. There isn't really anything we can cut to make room for it... and what you see on the show is what the audience in the venue saw.

Secondly, Micky is a smart chap. Imagine you were him. Play the show through in your mind... and imagine being him watching it unfold. The moment that makes the audience gasp in shock and delight, isn't the moment he realises what's been going on... if you're him and you know what he knows, there have been plenty of clues before that. And there isn't really a way of playing the moment he does realise into the show because at that point the audience hasn't yet got the full picture.

I suppose what people are really interested in, is seeing how Micky reacted when I came into the Green Room after the show was finished. The truth is he took it very well. I think people in that situation are mainly pleased that things finally make sense. And there was obviously no malice involved, indeed it was all done with a great deal of affection. I think the fact that it had spiralled beyond its original target and become something bigger - made it feel like it wasn't just about him.

But Micky's first reaction was, "I'm not having my face anywhere near it... and please don't put my surname in." And I think he's wise to think that way. It's a courtesy we always afford to people who's tweets or facebook posts we use.... assuming they're not celebs anyway. Because we don't want them to have to deal with people getting in touch - for good or bad reasons. And Micky's no different. He's very happy that it happened... but doesn't want to deal with the fall out every time the show is on. And that's fair enough!

Oh, if you're on my mailing list, you might remember that, throughout the previous three series I've given away various bits and pieces from the show from time to time. I've had a few people asking if I'm going to do the same this year. And seeing as you've asked... yes I will.

I'll start with the next episode... and seeing as there's no obvious thing to give away from episode 1, I'll give away one of my Taskmaster shirts instead.

The one in this photo...

At which point, I expect a few people who watched the series will say, "hang on, Dave... didn't you take a knife to that shirt? Hasn't that shirt been cut up and distributed to far flung corners of West London?"

To which the answer is... "that did happen to an identical shirt... but it wasn't actually that shirt."

The thing with Taskmaster is that the tasks happen over several days spread across various months. I'd spend a day at the house doing various tasks by myself alone (well, with a camera crew and Alex) and the others would all do the same. And when that's happening, they don't know which tasks will sit together in which episodes. And so the easiest thing is for everyone to have a particular outfit that they wear for all of those filming days. And because the tasks are sometimes messy - for example, one of them involved some people rolling in goose poo - it's essential to have more than one outfit so that you can change into something less goose-poo-y. So I had more than one of those shirts.

And the publicity shots were taken after the tasks... so I know that the one I'm offering up as a prize is the one I was wearing that day. Phew, I think that's clear.

Some people ask me why I do it via the mailing list rather than, say, on Twitter. The reason is... I don't want to use the competitions to spread the word about the show. Obviously, I'm delighted if people want to spread the word about the show - but doing so because you want to means much more than doing so because you want to win a prize. And it's not exactly a big prize. In fact, I think it's medium. But you know what I mean. I don't want to generate a load of twitter spam.

I also think it's nice to do things uniquely for those on the mailing list. So if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning that shirt... or you just want to have advance notice of what I'm up to, or when tickets are released for series 5 etc etc... then you can sign up below. 

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