Andy Devonshire is good at making organised silliness feel unforced. We rate his unobtrusive work on Taskmaster, where the people matter more than the pictures, though the pleasure still depends on who is playing.
Fi1m perspective
In Taskmaster (2015), we remember the people and the games long before we remember a particular image. Andy Devonshire's direction deserves credit for that: it supports the foolishness without trying to make every task look momentous. We felt at ease watching it because Alex Horne and Greg Davies provide a dependable centre for all this adult silliness. An eating challenge needs that sense of company rather more than it needs grandeur.
His earlier directing work includes The Apprentice (2005) and series directing on The Great British Bake Off (2010). He has directed Taskmaster since its launch, working across the filmed tasks, studio sequences and editing. The continuity is worth noticing: these are non-scripted programmes whose directors have to make something coherent out of what participants actually do. Devonshire's particular skill is finding character and humour within repeated activities, then giving those discoveries room in the finished programme.
Cinematographer Sam Montague has worked with him across all three programmes, giving this apparently changeable work a consistent partnership behind the camera. On Taskmaster, production designer James Dillon helps support the games without making the surroundings the main attraction. Devonshire varies the house theme and visual style between series, while leaving the basic format intact. Those changes are useful, though we would not mistake fresh decoration for fresh comedy. His work shaping the edit matters more: character moments give the programme something to follow beyond the completion of a task.
The qualification is the cast. Some Taskmaster line-ups give the silliness considerably more life than others, and the format can become repetitive. Devonshire's attention to character is the right response, although it cannot make every group equally entertaining. Start with Taskmaster for the inventive games, but choose a line-up whose company appeals; these are people we will be spending an evening with.
Biography
Andy Devonshire is a British television director and producer. His credits include directing The Apprentice (2005–2012), The Great British Bake Off (2010–2016) and Taskmaster (2015–), on which he has also acted as executive producer and directed all episodes to date.
He studied drama and English at the University of East Anglia. Devonshire has received several BAFTA awards and nominations for his work, including wins for Young Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off. He has maintained a long collaboration with director of photography Sam Montague since their early work together on The Apprentice.
