Sophie Duker’s just shared a Taskmaster secret: every contestant has to have two identical versions of their signature outfit. This posed a problem for the standup, writer and all-round stylish comedian who is one of this series’ competitors alongside Bridget Christie, Ardal O’Hanlon, Judi Love and Chris Ramsey. “Most of my clothes are from the bottom of a bin in a vintage shop or stolen from a friend, so it was quite hard to get an outfit I could replicate.” She settled for a pink and yellow crop top and matching tracksuit bottoms: “I’m dressed like a Refresher!”
The challenge-based comedy show has made national treasures of previous contestants. Appearing on it is a big deal. Especially for someone who, despite doing comedy for more than a decade, only recently began calling herself a comedian. Fortunately, before filming, Duker “defeated the final boss of impostor syndrome” by appearing on Live at the Apollo: “It’s so hard to say you’re not a comedian when you’ve done it in front of thousands of people.”
But anyone who saw Duker’s award-nominated Edinburgh fringe debut Venus in 2019 would be left in no doubt of her comedic talents. While she’s been doing standup since 2015 and runs her own comedy night, Wacky Racists, her first foray was as part of an improv troupe (“basically a cult”) at Oxford University. In Venus – named for the so-called “Hottentot Venus”, Sara Baartman – Duker explored the expectations put upon black women by the rest of society. “It was the first time I tried speaking in my voice about the stuff that went on in my life,” she says.
While she confronts racism and sexism in her material, she says: “One of the worst places to try to affect political change is in a comedy show because you have to have a certain hit rate of dick jokes. I find all those comedy nights [with performers] posturing about free speech and how libertarian and anti-establishment they are so safe and boring. My belief system will shine through my comedy, but I don’t think that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Humour is a great companion to progressive politics though: “You have to be able to laugh at yourself because you’re never going to be in the right for long, the world is always changing.”
In 2019, Fringe of Colour, which supports people of colour performing in Edinburgh, launched a free ticket scheme to diversify festival audiences. “Because I was doing a show that was so personal, about being a weird back girl, I was one of the first to sign up,” Duker says. “To see yourself being seen is really cool.”
Being nominated for the festival’s best newcomer award changed things for Duker, who had previously worked in TV production as her day job (including on shows like 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown that she’d later appear on as a guest): “I was like, maybe I should try just doing comedy and not working other jobs. Maybe this is something people like you can actually do.”
So, 2020 was set to be a big year. Obviously, things didn’t quite go to plan. But Duker, who also writes for radio and TV shows including The Now Show, The Amazing World of Gumball and the Bafta award ceremony, found the work kept coming in. She became a regular on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and hosted a BBC podcast series about Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. “I was like a cockroach, I thrived in the apocalypse,” she says.
After a three-year fringe hiatus, she’s returning this summer with a new show, Hag. “It is the big, queer, unhinged, sexy, chaotic show I always wanted to do,” she says. There are jokes about sex, punchlines at the expense of Tory politicians, and tales from recent travels in Ghana. But overall, it’s about growing older and wiser. “As you will be able to see, I got disgustingly old because I turned 30,” she jokes. “So now I just have to go slowly mad and not be a burden on the men in my life.”
Writing and performing Venus, Duker was trying to be “very cute … it’s the spoonful of sugar thing, you can feed people difficult truths as long as you have a shell that’s appetising and adorable.” Being cute isn’t a priority any more. “Now, people are literally out here drinking vinegar! If you have a strong flavour, that’s sometimes why people want you.”
Duker is embracing that ethos with Hag: “It’s about being spiky and that being fabulous. It’s a relief not to have to be like Snow White. Poisoning apples is fun. Hag is about gleefully not caring any more.”
Taskmaster’s format best suits comedians who are unapologetically themselves; the Hag attitude should serve Duker well. “I am very competitive,” she says. “I’m quite lax about my own personal safety – I stabbed myself in the thigh and fell out of a tree. I really liked going all in.”
Duker thinks diehard Taskmaster fans may call her out on missing obvious clues but knows there’s at least one task she bested. “Although in this task, through succeeding, you’ve humiliated yourself,” she says.
Will TV success take her away from standup? “I can’t see myself ever leaving it. There are exciting things I would like to do, but being live in a room with an audience, being truthful and stupid, is the best.”
Taskmaster begins on 14 April on Channel 4
