Cunk on Life (2025)

January 7, 2025 6:34 PM

[Trailer] Philomena Cunk delves into life's profound questions, examining subjects from the big bang to AI, meeting academics and creatives, all with her trademark misguided observations. -IMDb

Not enough reviews to average a critical approval rate / 85% audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

Justwatch listing.

posted by johnofjack (12 comments total)

Okay, this was a great end to a tiresome day. I had a few belly laughs and at one point laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

If you love it when smart people make stupid comedy, this might be for you.
posted by johnofjack at 6:35 PM on January 7 [6 favorites]

The Cunk programmes are pretty well known her in the UK by now. Any British interviewee who takes part this late in the day is just acting - which kind of ruins the premise for me.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:59 PM on January 7

https://youtu.be/uZ-5eOD57Ss?si=E3fOOGwO7GQXcFjv (At around 8.44 mark)

"They know that it's a comedy show"

"But they don't know what [Cunk is] gonna say."

"They're basically told to pretty much treat [Cunk] like a child, basically, and so to go earnest. The experts work best when they are very earnest."
posted by applesurf at 5:38 AM on January 8 [7 favorites]

Yes, some of the reactions seem to be genuine such as the times where she is criticising the paintings. For me the stuff that doesn't work as well is the "paid advertising" bits. Those seem fairly clunky and forced.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:16 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

"are thoughts made of atoms?"
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.
.
........
posted by alchemist at 8:02 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]

just acting

I dunno, there's a massive difference between "I'm aware that Cunk is a comedy fiction" and "I have Diane Morgan's script sitting in front of me" especially for these people who regardless of context are definitely not trained actors. I do not think you could, on purpose, engineer very many of the reactions in Cunk's interviews
posted by Kybard at 1:42 PM on January 8 [6 favorites]

I'd include some trigger warnings:
* discussion of suicide
* discussion of cruelty to dogs
* once you hear “our souls” as “arseholes” you can’t unhear it
* nudity!

There are extras in the credits.

There have been other Cunk specials, available on Youtube, which *might* be worth investigating.
posted by Pronoiac at 7:09 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

I'm glad they bought Barry back. I do wonder if like Stephen Toast, they'll try their luck with Philomena in the USA for the next one?
posted by phigmov at 11:36 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Brian Cox is always a joy in these, even if this appearance can’t hold a candle to the time he was interviewed by Cunk about the nature of entropy and she took him to task for statements he had made in his earlier work, extracting from him a correction regarding his claim that “things (could) only get better.”
posted by MarchHare at 4:55 AM on January 10 [5 favorites]

Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15th 1844 in the Prussian province of Saxony.

It's not known whether he pumped up the jam during his lifetime.
posted by polecat at 4:24 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Fascinating how Brian Cox makes out as being so profoundly humorless. I listened to about the first 4 seasons of his "Infinite Monkey Cage" podcast, and as I recall his schtick there was that there's nothing funny about science.

I thought I smelled "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" on the puppet scene, and a little Googling seems to show that the main puppeteer was a contributor to "Don't Hug Me".
posted by polecat at 4:37 PM on January 11

Wouldn't the stars save energy if they turned off their lights at night?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:54 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]