What I appreciate most Diane Morgans Philomena Cunk character, introduced as part of Charlie Brookers Clear weekly mockumentary series on current affairs, is that once you have a character named Philomena Cunk, do you really need anything else?
It’s a perfect comedic character designation, with an overly flowery first name and a perfectly concise last name that incorporates multiple comical ‘K’ sounds and always verges on a slightly taboo – less so in the UK – dirty word.
Pussy on Earth
It comes down to
A fine and sometimes instructive introduction to a particularly silly cartoon character.
Then you get the actual character itself. Cunk was first presented as a lackluster interviewer/commentator in three- to five-minute segments characterized by her ignorance and spotty research. But then, somehow, the character and concept were fleshed out in some half-hour specials, then the BBC Two series Cunk on Britain. Now her second extended series, Pussy on Earth (another BBC Two launch), has so successfully expanded the character and made her so relatable that the new show comes to Netflix for exposure to a global audience who may have missed all of her previous incarnations.
Of course, you can watch most of Philomena Cunk’s previous TV appearances on YouTube Pussy on Earthor you can watch them afterwards Pussy on Earth. But it doesn’t really matter, because Philomena Cunk has gotten funnier the more Brooker and Morgan use her, which is far from normal when it comes to expanding initially one-note characters. And they achieved this without sacrificing the character’s mockumentary core.
In five half-hour episodes, Pussy on Earth is a consistently funny, often delightful series that mixes high and low comedy at a breakneck pace. The punch line doesn’t always get across – partly due to inconsistencies in how the character has evolved – but don’t worry if an observation feels too slick or a target feels too sharp. Philomena Cunk goes straight to the next one. By the end of these episodes, damn if I didn’t see signs of real emotion and depth poking through. They’ll make another real person out of Philomena Cunk!
I wasn’t kidding about the pace of Pussy on Earth. In five episodes, the documentary-style series covers all of human progress from the beginning A wise man – “We often assume that early men were stupid because they had big eyebrows and said ‘Ugg'” – to ancient civilizations to modern religions to the Dark Ages and the Renaissance to the global expansion of Western civilization to industrial revolution to wars in the 20th century and technology of the 21st century. There’s so much material out there Pussy on Earth can’t help but feel a little shallower than Cunk on Britain, with its hints of exploratory depth. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t fun to be had when Philomena Cunk embarks on a journey of discovery.
The conceit treats Cunk as a somewhat dead-looking version of David Attenborough, who travels the world — possibly in real life and possibly only via greenscreen — speaking to highly decorated pundits about all important matters pertaining to civilization, including whether early humans the same number of holes as we do, why society tends toward violent conflict, and the enduring joys of the video for Technotronic’s hit “Pump Up the Jam.”
Morgan, whom Netflix viewers may know from Ricky Gervais’ After life, is a confident artist with a varied range. She is deliberately subdued and even bland, but if necessary she is capable of falling off a sand dune or being hit on the head by a wooden plank wielded by a Jesus impersonator. The writing team, led by Brooker, gives Morgan silly non-sequiturs and ludicrous mispronunciations — I still have to giggle because she pronounces “Bible” as something closer to “Bibble” — but there’s a complicated, often casually discarded joke structure to her banter, as if praising the smartphone as “incredibly advanced yet so simple a child could make one.”
I’m not sure that Cunk’s Marxist-adjacent skepticism – she is particularly cynical about the expanding American empire – is in keeping with the character, but also with Brooker’s worldview, nor do I fully believe Cunk’s existential anguish at realizing that Laika, the first dog in space, died up there, but these are things that nuance the character and provide a reminder of how well and full of a performance Morgan gives. It’s in the David Brent or Stephen Colbert – the man of The Colbert Reportnot the real man – vein of devoted ignorance.
The series and character are at their best in Cunk’s interviews with experts, as she politely, if somewhat indifferently, asks various Cambridge and Oxford tutors questions like, “Why should people believe in something bigger than ourselves? Is it so we don’t feel so fat?” or “Why does humanity feel the need to invent killing machines like this? And could you limit your answer to a kind of sound bite?’ Whether or not the experts know exactly what they’re getting into – some have been Cunk resources before, while others are featured in multiple chapters in this series – they usually try to provide little educational highlights to counter their interviewer’s inevitable confusion. You don’t learn much from it Pussy on Earthbut you will pick up little bits and pieces of trivia or historical connectivity.
The best interviewees are able to find intellectual depth in even the dumbest Cunk questions, which in turn frustrates Philomena Cunk, which in turn makes it even funnier. When an interviewee takes the time to express concern about Cunk’s ignorance, rather than just simmering annoyance or frustration, it may be more than she deserves, but certainly what we, as viewers, deserve.
Within the format concept of Cunk being a pioneering documentary host of a pioneering documentary, Pussy on Earth tries to branch out in style every now and then. One episode has a really funny fake commercial that I won’t spoil – it made me laugh a lot. The episode about religion and the dark ages climaxes with a bizarrely imaginative fantasy series for one woman. A few smaller flowers fall flat, but at least they don’t last long.
It’s especially fun to watch Brooker and Morgan come up with the new and different things they can do with this character. For the American public, Pussy on Earth works like an introduction without context. Even worse, it’s always just funny to say “Philomena Cunk.”