‘Cunk on Earth’ – Philomena Is Still Phenomenal

Diane Morgan is a hoot as the poker-faced ‘investigative journalist’ Philomena Cunk who asks experts in their field profoundly intelligent questions like “what was the Soviet Onion?” or “Do we know if King Arthur came a lot?”. The 5-episode mockumentary series ‘Cunk on Earth’ is now available to stream on Netflix and is just as hilarious as some of the previous installments featuring Morgan.

Written by Charlie Brooker, Ben Caudell, Jason Hazeley, Joel Morris, Eli Goldstone, Michael Odewale, with some additions by Diane Morgan herself, the script is rife with wry humor that will delight viewers, especially those who are already fans of the character. Over the course of 5 episodes, Philomena interviews distinguished experts and takes viewers through history of mankind, right from the discovery of fire to the creation of nuclear warheads.

One of my favorite lines from the series was – “Having conquered numbers, humankind moved on to something even more boring by inventing writing”. As a published author and someone who writes on a daily basis, I took no offense on the dialogue and laughed my ass off, and you’ve got to love the irony in the quote – she isn’t saying it off her head, someone wrote that for her. Another one that cracked me up a lot was – “The Greeks also created a kind of theater for stupid people known as sport”.

Diane Morgan’s deadpan delivery is everything, just like her dumb-blonde British character in the other Netflix mockumentary ‘Death to 2021’ which was packed with stars but Morgan stood out with her riotous performance. But unlike the ‘Death to…’ titles, ‘Cunk on Earth’ features real-life professors, historians, authors, and experts on whatever topic Cunk is questioning them on. All the guest interviewees do a fantastic job of making sense of the ridiculous questions posed to them, only one of them can’t contain their laughter onscreen. While I usually don’t enjoy British humor too much, I hope they keep making more of these series starring Diane Morgan, because like the makers of the show claim before each episode – it’s potentially award-winning.

It’s a 8/10 from me.