Did Rhys Mathewson Write for Taskmaster NZ Before Becoming a Contestant?

Rhys Mathewson does not arrive on Taskmaster NZ Season 7 as a complete stranger to the machinery behind Paul Williams’ mysterious envelopes. Long before viewers watched him spend more than an hour trying to understand a VHS challenge in Episode 2, Mathewson had already worked behind the scenes on the very series now putting him through its increasingly unreasonable tests.

The short answer is yes, Rhys Mathewson previously wrote for Taskmaster NZ. There is, however, an important distinction in his credit. Mathewson was a script writer on Season 6, rather than one of the credited task writers responsible for designing the challenges. IMDb lists him as a script writer across all 10 episodes of the 2025 season, alongside Robbie Nicol and Paul Williams.

That makes his move from writer to Season 7 contestant unusual, but perhaps not quite the secret advantage it might initially appear to be.

Related: Why Is Rose Matafeo on Taskmaster NZ? Her Taskmaster UK and Junior Taskmaster History Explained

Rhys Mathewson Wrote for Taskmaster NZ Season 6

Season 6 of Taskmaster NZ featured Alice Snedden, Bree Tomasel, Jack Ansett, Jackie van Beek and Pax Assadi. Behind them was a writing team divided between developing tasks and preparing the scripted material surrounding the show.

The credited task writers for that season included Abby Howells, Josh Thomson and Paul Williams. Mathewson, Robbie Nicol and Williams were credited separately as script writers. That means it would be misleading to say Mathewson personally devised all the traps and challenges that Season 6’s contestants faced. His documented role was on the scripting side of the production.

That distinction matters because Taskmaster is a strange television production. The tasks themselves require a particular kind of puzzle writing and testing, but the studio episodes also need comedy material, links and the structure that allows Jeremy Wells and Paul to move between pre-recorded attempts and live discussion.

Mathewson therefore had genuine inside experience of how Taskmaster NZ is put together without necessarily having a catalogue of secret task solutions sitting in his head when Season 7 began.

Becoming a Contestant Was Still the Dream Job

Mathewson addressed the change directly during an official Season 7 AMA with Paul Williams after the premiere. Asked how competing compared with writing for the show, he said he enjoyed being involved in Taskmaster NZ in any capacity but described becoming a contestant as a comedian’s dream.

That reaction makes sense considering his history with the programme goes back even further than his Season 6 writing credit. In 2022, while working as a roving reporter for Seven Sharp, Mathewson was sent to the Taskmaster NZ house by Jeremy Wells to see whether he had what it took to become a contestant.

The resulting segment already looked like an unofficial audition. Mathewson was given the challenge of turning a clotheshorse into a real horse and responded with the kind of escalating desperation that producers generally hope to find in future contestants. Four years later, he finally received the proper invitation.

Did Working on Taskmaster Give Rhys an Advantage?

Season 7 has already provided a convincing argument that knowing how the programme is produced does not mean knowing how to beat it.

Episode 2’s VHS challenge asks the contestants to “do what the tapes are asking you.” Five video cassettes appear to contain the solution, encouraging everyone to watch them and search for the correct tape. The actual instruction is hidden through different types of adhesive tape around the room, which spell out that the contestant needs to dance.

Mathewson spends 94 minutes and 37 seconds looking for the answer. Even worse, he comes close to completing the task accidentally by moving his body, only to clarify that he is merely jiggling or walking rather than dancing. That insistence keeps the clock running.

It is difficult to imagine a better illustration of the gap between understanding Taskmaster intellectually and surviving it as a contestant. A writer can know that misdirection is coming. The contestant still has to notice the particular piece of misdirection while being filmed alone in a room.

Mathewson acknowledged a related weakness during the Season 7 AMA. He said the show taught him that he develops tunnel vision and often stops being aware of his surroundings, which is almost the perfect flaw for a format that regularly hides vital information in plain sight.

Rhys Has Been Part of New Zealand Comedy for Years

For viewers outside New Zealand, Season 7 may be their first substantial introduction to Mathewson. Locally, he has been part of the comedy and television circuit for much longer.

Mathewson has won both the Billy T Award and the Fred Award, two of New Zealand comedy’s major honors, and has appeared regularly on programmes including 7 Days, Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee and The Project NZ. His Seven Sharp work also created an amusing connection to Season 7 because the programme is hosted by Jeremy Wells, the man now deciding whether Mathewson deserves one point or five.

He and fellow Season 7 contestant Rose Matafeo also go back considerably further than Taskmaster. Matafeo has said they first met when she was 15 through Class Comedians, a programme for young New Zealand comedy performers. Their reunion on Taskmaster NZ therefore puts two comedians with years of shared history into a competition where cooperation can disappear the moment points are available.

That background also helps explain why Mathewson was a natural fit for the writing room before producers eventually put him in front of the cameras.

Related: Taskmaster NZ Season 7 Episode 2 Recap: Morgana O’Reilly Wins a Chaotic Night

Writing the Show and Playing the Show Are Very Different Jobs

The most interesting part of Mathewson’s Season 7 casting is not whether he has access to some hidden Taskmaster playbook. His first episodes suggest quite clearly that he does not.

Writing for the studio requires knowing how to shape comedy after the tasks have been filmed. Participating requires making decisions with incomplete information while Paul Williams watches without offering useful assistance. Those skills overlap only slightly, and Taskmaster has always been particularly effective at exposing the difference between somebody who understands comedy and somebody who can remain rational after reading an oddly worded instruction.

Mathewson’s experience may help him recognize the show’s instincts. He knows that wording matters, that the obvious solution is often dangerous and that almost anything in the room could become important. The problem is that every other regular viewer knows those things too. The hard part has always been applying that knowledge at exactly the right moment.

Rhys Mathewson’s Taskmaster History Comes Full Circle

In a relatively short period, Mathewson has gone from visiting the house for a comedy television segment to writing on a full season and finally sitting among the five official contestants. Few Taskmaster NZ players have arrived with a comparable behind-the-scenes connection.

Yet Season 7 works because the production does not treat him like an insider. Once the task begins, Mathewson has the same information as everyone else and can make the same spectacularly inefficient decisions.

His Episode 2 VHS ordeal may already be the funniest answer to the question of whether writing for Taskmaster NZ prepared him to compete. Mathewson knew exactly what kind of programme he was entering. He simply had no idea that, on this occasion, he needed to dance.