Cunk on Life

I'll start by saying that it is my style of humour but blow after blow leaves you limp and no longer interested.

It could have been a funny half hour show - that would be enough.

I enjoyed it at first, seemed witty and cheeky and funny but then it just starts to repeat and it's just painful.

This is my first Cunk to be fair so I didn't know what I was getting into.

I suspect that a lot of the 9-10 star reviews are by mega fans or maybe some involved in the production. But I get why some people would love it.

Like I said I did, it's funny, until it isn't Like Dad jokes, funny, 2nd one funny... but then pleases stop.

They must have lost the writers and producers that make Cunk on Earth a success. The jokes are all flat, and the timing that made all the jokes worth is nowhere to be found. Philomena seems like she's trying to force all the words out in rapid fire, not giving anything room to breathe. It's also turned from a fake documentary into a self aware comedy, which makes it a bit unbearable.

It gives off the vibe that someone wanted to pump out material after the recent success of Cunk on Earth, but didn't want to put in the prerequesite work to make it good again.

A pity, Diane deserves so much better. She's gone so far and has so much further to go.

The latest entry in Charlie Brooker's Cunk On... universe, Cunk on Life is certainly not Diane Morgan's funniest outing as the fantastically oblivious documentarian Philomena Cunk, but she retains all the brainless charm we would want. As usual, she offers up her own understanding of the subjects in-between a series of interviews where we yet again must ask just how "in on it" the interviewees were.

This time around, she explores life itself and the many different explanations for how life exists, not to mention the greatest of all questions: why.

It doesn't take too long before she starts interviewing those who believe that the greatest riddle of all time isn't actually a riddle at all (and yet will project arrogance onto those who simply try to explain that NOBODY truly knows the answer and/or ask that people would PROVE these things before taking them as definitively factual), namely the religious. The first exchange with "spiritual author" and parapsychology scholar Rupert Sheldrake perfectly distills what I'm referring to: "Is there a God?" "Yes." "Oh, that was quick."

Later, Cunk tries to wrap her head around science, death, the philosophies that concern death, and the role that science seems to have assumed following the proverbial death of God, but more and more of the jokes end up rather lame. Cunk on Life is not as consistently or constantly hilarious as 2023's Cunk on Earth, and some of the less successful gags are in the form of skits, an element that Cunk on Earth did not use. It's also markedly more juvenile than before. The best parts are still the narrations and interviews, which make perfect use of the bewildering stupidity of this character.

When people say she's Borat-ing, they don't just mean the simple fact that she's doing a docu-comedy where a character interacts with real people who do not know that it is a character. Just as Borat speaks with people who are racist enough to believe that a caricature like Borat could be a real person (validating them to a point where they reveal even uglier things about themselves), Cunk often seems to come across scholars who are sufficiently full of themselves to believe that Cunk/Diane Morgan really is just that dumb (not discerning that they're the ones being taken for a ride).

Ok can we talk about how amazing the professor from the Munch scene (Richard Thomson from University of Edinburgh) is though, he managed to keep the conversation going and almost communicated with Cunk successfully while holding respectful boundaries. You can tell he has such passion about art that he's more shocked even a bit hurt than offended by her opinions. Enjoyed this special because I'm a fan of the series, a bit overdone otherwise with the trying to be trendy parts and self-reference but still pretty funny, right now I want more of this series but also don't want more of this series. Required characters limit finally met so I can post!

Philomena Cunk examines life and its meaning. By speaking to academics and other experts in their fields she looks at the big questions regarding life.

If you've watched Cunk on Earth you'll know what to expect: Philomena Cunk (Dianne Morgan) essentially asks absurdly silly but funny questions to some of the brightest people on the planet. If you've watched Da Ali G Show this will seem familiar as Cunk is derivative of that (and not as good).

However, despite not being entirely original it is pretty funny and entertaining. Dianne Morgan is great with spot-on timing.

Not as good as Cunk on Earth though. The set-ups are less intelligent, the humour cheaper and lower-brow and the experts less easily shocked.

Last time they seemed shocked at the silly questions but, to their credit, didn't lose their composure. Here they seemed to expect the silly questions (possibly they'd done their research and seen previous Cunk stuff) and rolled with it. Brian Cox, the eminent physicist, even seemed to be successfully anticipating where Cunk was going with her double entendre questions but played along anyway.