This sensationally idiotic guide to film history is hilarious. From a crude Mary Poppins gag to confusing the hell out of Michael Bay, I could listen to Cunk’s surreal tosh all day
In a world of slow-burn, jargon-littered dramas, there’s something to be said for the TV programme that sets out its stall within the first 12 seconds. Cunk on Cinema is one such programme. The latest series from Diane Morgan’s sensationally idiotic documentarian is a three-part history of film that begins with our host reeling off some of humanity’s greatest achievements in her deadpan Bolton tones. Specifically, “conquering the landscape, growing the great wall of Chinese, discovering Mona Lisa and inventing global warming”. If you think that list is funny, you’ll enjoy what is essentially a vehicle for some of the stupidest jokes ever written. If you find that kind of malapropism and misapprehension childish, I suggest you switch off immediately.
We first encountered Philomena Cunk in 2012 as a spoof talking head on Charlie Brooker’s annual end-of-year Screenwipe special. Billed variously as a “computer typist”, “Bake Off viewer” and “influential Tweetist”, she was at heart a stubbornly ill-informed woman-of-the-people who offered confused commentary on pressing subjects of the time, such as Jimmy Carr’s tax avoidance and the dog from The Artist. Thanks mainly to Morgan’s ability to spout surreal tosh in an appealing no-nonsense fashion, Cunk was a hit. Soon she branched out into solo documentary-making (with Brooker and his longtime colleagues, including Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley, still co-writing her material), covering subjects as modest as “Britain” and later “Earth”, bamboozling her expert interviewees with inane yet dogged questioning like a cross between Jeremy Paxman, Louis Theroux and a far less problematic Ali G.
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