Posted in: BBC, Netflix, TV | Tagged: cunk on life

Cunk on Life: Brooker & Morgan Could See "24"/Borat Future for Cunk

After the success of Cunk on Life, Charlie Brooker and Diane Morgan have an idea of what they would like to see next for Philomena Cunk

Who is Philomena Cunk? She's the fictional (thank God!) host and pundit of Cunk on Life, Charlie Brooker's mock documentary that spoofs pompous BBC documentaries that became a surprise global hit when Netflix picked it up. Cunk, as played by her co-creator Diane Morgan, is an idiot – badly-informed and stubbornly insistent she's right in her stream-of-consciousness musings on each subject matter, even though she lapses into gibberish, which is the whole joke. For over a decade, she has hosted satirical BBC series and specials about lofty topics such as Shakespeare, Britain, and all of humanity while interviewing real experts. All this led to Cunk on Life, where she expounded on Life, The Universe and Everything, which goes as well as expected – in hilarious idiocy. So what's next for the brain-addled pundit?

Cunk originally appeared in Charlie Brooker's scathing satirical BBC news series Weekly Wipe, which debuted on the BBC in the UK in 2013. She was initially conceived as a posh, upper-middle-class "yummy mummy who is also a cupcake blogger," said Brooker, but the character really took off after Morgan auditioned in her native Northern English accent. "The flatness of my accent really complemented Charlie's writing," Morgan told Variety.

Cunk became a major audience favourite and thus a regular on the Wipe shows. Morgan was given a recurring segment called "Moments of Wonder," in which Cunk would interview increasingly bewildered real academic experts and then "trample all over their favorite topic."

"So that meant we knew we could get her to ask experts questions that are impenetrable, but make some sort of sense, like, 'Where is the money in a coin?'" says Brooker. "That actually weirdly ends up in a profound place, but is also a stupid question. Those are my favorites."

"You've really got to be on your feet and ready, because those interviews go on for about two hours," Morgan said. Early on, she realized that experts would often ask her, "What do you mean?" and she would have to come up with Cunk's counter-answers with absolute certainty and conviction. "They're really lulled into a false sense of security. The first few questions are quite easy. And then once they're comfy, then you come at them. And they'd often fall into the trap, which was lovely." Cunk would push back on their theories with dubious anecdotal evidence, citing "my mate Paul," "my aunt Carol," and "my ex Sean" as her main sources for the "truth".

At the end of the feature-length Cunk on Life, Cunk disappeared (allegedly) to uncover another planet. How is that going to work out? "There's whole aspects of her life that are a real mystery," said Brooker. "So, if she goes off to explore another planet, it slightly makes sense on some level. She'd come back completely unchanged by the experience."

Since finishing work on Cunk on Life last year, Morgan and Brooker have been discussing what could possibly be next for the Cunkverse. "There was talk at one point — and I liked the idea — of doing a Cunk action thriller where, basically, she's interviewing an expert, and they get their head blown off from across the street by a sniper. And then, it turns into something like '24,'" Brooker says with a laugh. "I'd love to do a whole thing that's a cross between that and 'Borat.'"

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