A Vida por Philomena Cunk

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).

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.

I am in such conflict here. I love the concept of the Cunk series -the mockumentary style. But the jokes are mostly toilet and genital humour that a 14 year old boy would be proud of.

What made the earlier Cunk mockumentaries quite riveting is that the humour might have had a smattering of genital and toilet humour but it was generally clever. In this special, it seems that the writers decided that virtually every word needed to have a double entendre. It simply felt very childish, silly and a sad, weak attempt at humour. The second serious problem is the too much repetition of Cunk's poor social skills in mentioning vile information using her ex boyfriend and now, a new character, her Aunt. This technique worked well when spaced across episodes. It lost it's impact compacted into a one hour special. Sadly, the, dare we call them 'thoughtful' real scientific information that was present, albeit briefly in each episode of earlier Cunk, was lost in this quest for a laugh a minute.

Having said all of that, Morgan is so brilliant an actor that her expressiveness alone is enough to create amusement. Thanks to her, this special is lifted higher than the writing deserves.

I noticed that some reviewers didn't like the jokes, but I laughed from beginning to end.

The reason this works for me is that she is dead serious when she asks the questions and the interviewees answer the questions without laughing.

I love all of her stuff. It's a shame that this got lower marks because I want her to keep on making these series.

I also find it exceedingly annoying that we have to type so many characters to leave a review.

I have nothing left to add to my review. Just came here to say that I found it hilarious and worth the watch despite some of the lower reviews. I'm not a someone who laughs at just anything. The bar is higher with me. So give it a try.

I love Cunk. I've seen all of her shows to date and love them all. I was so excited for the new one and put it on without a moment's hesitation.

And then... Just underwhelmed all the way. Jokes felt flat and repetitive. The experts are repeats and are clearly in on the joke by now that their reactions just don't feel sincere.

I'm not sure what's gone wrong behind the scenes, but the formula that worked so well, and was borrowed heavily from the Borat/Ali G playbook, didn't work here. Maybe it's me, maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe the ideas tank is dry and they're treading the same ground without anything new or fun left to do. Probably a bit of both.

It's a shame. I hope they can find their spark again. Until then, I'll continue to enjoy what was.