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Cunk On Britain brings Diane Morgan‘s Philomena Cunk back to the small screen following her Worlds of Wonder segments on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, and the subsequent Cunk on Shakespeare.
I really enjoyed all of that, so was looking forward to this, but as it began it was all feeling a little too familiar.
Cunk on Britain attempts to ask post-Brexit vote questions like “Now we’ve got our country back, what exactly is it?”, and how history is a “rear view mirror of time”.
All I can do is really give a few examples of the script before I come to a conclusion, so:
- Sceptered isle is pronounced ‘skeptered isle’
- “It’s hard to imagine there was a time before Britain. No-one can say when, because there were no clocks.”
- “It’s not surprising dinosaurs died out because they were kept in zoos like this (a museum) where they were reduced to mere skeletons.”
…and so it goes on, such as misreading “King Arthur Camelot” as “King Arthur came a lot”.
There’s a few minor laughs, such as “Before Snapchat, hills were the best way to distribute dick picks (cue the Cerne Abbas giant)”, but while tThe Cunk charm was amusing at first, we’re after all the Screenwipe segments and a couple of specials, it’s rather worn off.
Thankfully, it was a brief 30 minutes, but I won’t be back for more. I’m Cunk-ed out.
Cunk On Britain isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but each episode will be on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days after transmission.
Score: 1/10
Director: Lorry Powles
Producers: Alison Marlow, Matt Hulme
Writers: Ben Caudell, Jason Hazeley, Joel Morris
Executive Producers: Charlie Brooker, Annabel Jones
Philomena Cunk: Diane Morgan
Contributor: Robert Peston
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.