Button House

We have decided to gift the land, and house thereon, to you and the man one, on a long-term loan, for a period of…as long as you like. So you’re going to give a house that you don’t have to the people who already own it? Exactly.

Unless this is your first visit here, you will probably have seen me banging on about how esoteric and ‘deep’ a lot of these designs are; forged for the niche. Well, this isn’t that. In a sitcom set in a massive house, this is the sign for the massive house. Sometimes you need a palate cleanser.

The little bit of gloss I’ve put on this one is to include the location. In the episode ‘The Grey Lady’, you can see a brief glimpse of Button House’s in-world location. And it’s Hemel Hempstead. Though the postcode is KT11 3CR. Which doesn’t make sense. Obviously it’s fictional anyway, but ‘KT’ is a Kingston upon Thames postcode. Presumably because the location in real life is West Horsely Place in Surrey. So yeah. No idea why they relocated it to Hemel Hempstead. A town mostly famous for a horribly unnavigable, most un-‘magic’ roundabout.

The show’s premise is a bit of a masterstroke. In the sense of cramming as many wildly differing characters from multiple disperate backgrounds and time periods seamlessly into one sitcom. Make them all dead. We’ve got Tory politicians, cavemen, Scout leaders and various noblewomen through the ages. And the casting – man alive. Adefope, Wix, The Horrible Histories lot and then obviously Charlotte Ritchie and Kyiell Smith-Bynoe. It was never going to not be good, was it, now?

And, you’d have to say, one of the strongest Taskmaster alumni showings of any British programme.