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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Lucy Mangan

Philomena Cunk on Life review – Diane Morgan is absolutely peerless

Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) standing next to a human skeleton
Boning up … Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) Photograph: BBC/Broke & Bones

She’s done Shakespeare (“He remains the best and only bard this country has ever produced”), she’s done Christmas (“Christmas is everywhere. On television, in the high street – even in normally sacred places like church”), she’s done the history of Britain (“He had six wives all called Catherine. He was a Catherineoholic, or Catholic for short”) and she’s done Earth (“It’s difficult to believe I’m standing in the world’s oldest city, because I’m not”). Now, finally, we have Philomena Cunk on life.

Bolton’s finest and worst-informed pundit-presenter, who first graced our screens in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe and is played by the perennially deadpan Diane Morgan, has returned for a seasonal special that takes us through the profundities that “humanitkind” has puzzled over for centuries and the various ways we have tried to make sense of our lives through art, religion and philosophy.

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