Philomena Cunk on Life, being bored, Brat Winter and wisdom teeth…
“Philomena tackles some of the most complex concepts to have ever been discovered, including Quantum Physics, Existentialism, Nihilism, Hedonism – and at least four other isms” – BBC Two
Following the global success of Cunk on Earth, pioneering documentary-maker Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) returns with her most ambitious quest to date; venturing right up the universe and everything, to examine life itself.
“What’s the point of it all?” is a question humans have been asking themselves since the dawn of time. But as we cling to our dying planet, working round the clock while we’re slowly being replaced by machines, now more than ever, people are desperately looking to make sense of their lives – before someone invents a computer that makes sense of it for them.
Philomena Cunk:
“The aim of this new documentary was very straightforward. My previous documentaries, like Cunk On Britain, have taken me to some very interesting but, ultimately, very cold places, like Britain. With Cunk On Life I wanted to go to somewhere warmer. The show is all about what it means to be human – I ask important questions about the meaningless of life.
“There’s a lot in it about religion, but also quite a lot about sex. Partially because without sex they’d be no life, but mainly because no one would watch a show about religion over Christmas, so we had to throw in the sex to make people tune in.”
This one off special will see Philomena tackle some of the most complex concepts to have ever been discovered, including Quantum Physics, Existentialism, Nihilism, Hedonism – and at least four other isms – as well as exploring subjects from the big bang to biology, morals to meditation and art to artificial intelligence.
In her search for answers, she’ll also examine some of history’s foremost thinkers and ground-breaking creatives, from Dostoyevsky to Van Gogh, from Nietzsche to whoever came up with those signs in kitchens that say, ‘Live Laugh Love’. Along the way, she’ll be meeting leading experts and academics and not letting them leave until she’s got to the bottom of such questions as: what is life, why are we bothering to find out and when’s lunch?
Philomena Cunk:
“I thought if I did a show about being human then I wouldn’t have to do any research, because I already knew what it was like to be human. Sort of. But I did do a lot of research: I studied the work of all the major motivational fridge magnet makers and mixed it with some eastern philosophies I’d learned about from tiktok.”
Cunk on Life on BBC iPlayer and BBC Two on Monday 30 December from 9pm
