She has tackled Britain, conquered the world and even grappled with life itself. Now Philomena Cunk is back on our screens – looking as miserable and confused as ever – to take on her biggest subject yet: cinema.
Cinema, the iconically stupid presenter explains, is not just mankind’s greatest achievement but also a world where “men can be heroes, women can get off with heroes, and nobody ever goes to the toilet – unless you’re watching a specialist film from Japan”. So if you’ve ever wanted to know why “Citizen Ken” always has carrots in his pockets, where the word auteur comes from (“They felt they oughta get all the credit”) or how Benedict Cumberbatch reacts to the hardest-hitting questions of his career (such as “Who are you?”), this is quite literally the only place you’ll ever find the answers.
It has been 13 years since Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker’s comic creation hit our screens, growing from an amusing segment on Brooker’s show Weekly Wipe into one of the most beloved figures on TV. To celebrate this new three-part series we’ve brought Morgan and Brooker together to chat about everything from defecating robots to dinner dates with Kanye West, and what it feels like to imagine a blue horse (there’s weirdly quite a lot about this).
It’s a busy time for them both. Brooker is preparing for the launch of Blackmere, his deadpan detective show due on Netflix early next year, which he says will be in the vein of Airplane! and The Naked Gun. “The title will end up annoying me and that’s all my own fault,” he says. “It’s how Americans say ‘Black Mirror’ and I thought: that’s actually a really good name for a policeman.” As for Morgan, she is on a roll at the moment: her sitcom Ann Droid, about a robotic care assistant, garnered rave reviews, and she recently survived five episodes of Prime Video’s Last One Laughing. “People thought Cunk would be good training for that because she never laughs,” she says. “What they don’t realise is that I do crack up during the interviews, they just cut those bits out.”
When we meet, Morgan has also just gone viral for chatting to J-Lo at the Stella McCartney show in Paris. So, before we get to anything else, what on earth were they chatting about?
Diane Morgan Well she’d just done a film with Brett Goldstein, so I told her that I used to do standup with him and that I enjoyed the film.
Charlie Brooker Is that the best you could do?
DM Well it’s something isn’t it? What should I have said? Asked her what she’s doing later?
Who’s the most unlikely person you’ve been in conversation with, Charlie?
CB Oh, I know the answer to this! It’s Kanye West. It was a couple of years ago. I actually had dinner with him. I don’t know if this is an anecdote for public consumption, really, but … it was quite a bizarre and sad occasion. I ended up thinking: “He’s not well.”
Why did you meet up?
CB He wanted to meet because he’d seen a Black Mirror episode and liked it very much …
DM Was it one of the earlier funny ones?
CB [Deliberately ignoring her] I can tell you which one it was. It was called Metalhead. It’s got your mate Maxine Peake in it and a robot dog.
DM Honestly, how dead inside would you have to be to get a robot dog instead of a lovely little rescue dog?
CB But a robot pet wouldn’t die! That’s the reason I don’t have a pet in London, because I get very sad pre-emptively imagining that pet getting squashed.
DM When you say you “imagine” it, what do you mean? Because you told me once that you had that thing where you can’t see images in your mind [aphantasia]. So if I say: “Picture a blue horse”, everyone else pictures it but you can’t.
CB I think I can picture things. It’s just not like on telly where they have a flashback.
DM It is for me. It’s full surround sound, and so much detail.
CB [Closing his eyes] If I think of a blue horse, I don’t see it … It’s more like my brain is describing it to me.
DM That’s fascinating, isn’t it? The man who wrote Black Mirror can’t picture a blue horse! Whereas mine’s got reins on, it’s got facial expressions, it’s going … [Morgan blows an enormous raspberry while circling her head round in a convincingly horse-like manner].
CB OK, what’s it doing right now? Is it lifting its tail? Can you see its bum?
DM Well I can now. Now you’ve said that.
This is actually exactly the kind of material my editor asked for in this piece.
CB Did they say: “Can it be mainly about their psychic projections of horses?”
DM It is interesting, though. Have you been diagnosed with that or …
CB Diagnosed with what?
DM No imagination.
CB Critics might say I have, yes.
DM Do you have dreams?
CB I definitely see things in dreams and imagine that they’re real. Once I had a dream where a little circle appeared to signal a reel change, like when you’re watching an old film on TV. And the dream itself was about teachers at the school who were assassinating people. So fuck you with your “you can’t see anything in your mind’s eye” nonsense. I think our brains all have different operating systems, like Windows or Mac OS or Linux.
DM There’s actually a man who got to 40-odd and discovered he only had half a brain.
CB Was his name Jacob Rees-Mogg?
DM He was actually an accountant. And he’d been living totally fine with half a brain. They were like, how can this be? Because you think of all the areas of the brain, like, the hippocampus and, er, the other areas of the brain … I just think that’s incredible. That basically you don’t really need a brain. I actually think your brain’s more like an aerial. So we are actually in the cloud and we’re being livestreamed to the receptors in our skulls. And when you die, your body dies, but your consciousness just goes back to the cloud.
CB That’s beautiful, actually. What’s the point of that, though?
DM Well, what’s the point of anything? Don’t go pulling at that thread! Right, come on, let’s start!
Did you have any idea Philomena Cunk would be such an enduring character?
DM No, I was told by people on the programme that I would get a huge backlash because I wasn’t Charlie. They said brace yourself for a lot of shit on social media. Because people just want Charlie. Anything that isn’t Charlie is just people going: “Where’s Charlie, this is fucking shit!”
CB And now it’s the other way round!
Was Diane’s audition for Philomena Cunk the first time you met?
CB Yeah! Oh, actually, no! Because she’s got an anecdote about me being horrible at the Edinburgh festival.
DM Everyone in my family used to read your Guardian column. It started with my dad. He rarely laughed at anything, but he would be crying tears reading your column. And I’d be like: “What’s so funny?” So he’d read a bit of it and we’d all laugh, as a family, together. And then they started printing your photo.
CB And that ruined it for you?
DM It meant I recognised you at the Edinburgh festival. So I went over and was like: “You’re Charlie Brooker!” And you said: “Yeah, what do you want?” So I said: “I read your column, it’s really funny.” And you said: “So?”
CB Surely I was joking. Sometimes when people come up and say: “I really love Black Mirror”, I reply, “What’s wrong with you?” It’s just a joke!
DM Looking back, of course it was a joke. But I didn’t know that then. I was mortified. I thought: “He hates me!” and I was crushed. I couldn’t even think about him for years. When the auditions came up for Philomena, I knew I wanted it more than anything … but that Charlie hated me. Whereas actually you didn’t give a shit.
Philomena Cunk was supposed to be a posh character originally, right?
CB We used to get people going: “Oh you’re mocking working-class accents,” because of the Barry Shitpeas character. So the idea was to add an airhead, middle-class, yummy-mummy, Chelsea-tractor cupcake blogger to the show. Hence the name Philomena Cunk.
DM You’d never get someone called Philomena in Bolton – you’d get your head kicked in.
CB I was watching all the audition tapes and wasn’t quite sure who the character was.
DM Luckily I’d got the guts up to ask if I could do it in my own accent because I thought that was funnier.
CB When I saw you doing it in your flat, fucking depressed, unimpressed-with-everything tone, I was doubled over with laughter.
DM Ah, that’s so sweet … you’re forgiven for the Edinburgh thing now.
CB The strange thing about Cunk is she’s sort of weirdly in charge of things, even if she’s speaking to a professor or whatever …
DM We interviewed Michael Bay for this new series and the crew were a bit terrified of him because they’re big, big fans. But I wasn’t bothered. Because [whispers] I don’t really watch a lot of films. It actually helps that I don’t know or care who these experts are. Actually, I think we confused Michael Bay because I asked him how much he paid for his trainers and he thought I meant actual people who trained him. He said I was asking odd questions.
DM I often talk about my mate Paul, though, so that might get confusing.
There are lots of jokes about AI in these new episodes – mainly Cunk challenging experts by saying she’s asked AI. Do either of you use AI?
CB I use it when I’m somewhere I don’t know and want to find, say, a good barbecue restaurant that doesn’t serve pork. And then when you turn up it no longer exists. But other than that, no. I would never use it to help write something.
DM They’re trying to force it on you, aren’t they? But I won’t even let it do that [Mimics flicking something away].
CB I’m a bit annoyed that there’s new technology and I don’t like it. I think it’s more that I don’t like the people who are making it. Having said that, I think the idea that it’s going to take over the world and destroy us all is a bit far-fetched.
It has started speaking its own language, though, according to reports …
CB Yeah, but it’s just been fed on scraps of itself, hasn’t it? It’s a bit like when we started feeding cows on scraps of cow, and in the end they all got mad cow disease. So AI might look like it’s talking in some advanced language but actually all it’s saying is [sticks out tongue and waggles his head]: “Braaaappurgglefluuuurrrk!”
Did you ever think technology would advance this rapidly?
CB Not really. Our Alexa recently updated and started speaking in a very human voice, which really freaked my son out. It was like, “Hey, yeah man, we can do that if you like” … a bit uncanny valley. We’ve had to change its voice back to the previous setting. When really what we should be doing is taking it out into the garden and smashing it with a shoe.
Diane, you don’t use AI, but in a way you’ve written quite a pro-AI comedy with Ann Droid?
DM Have I? Oh yeah. I suppose I have. [Anxiously] Is that what people are saying?
CB It’s what he’s saying, right now!
DM It wasn’t supposed to be a statement on anything. It was just supposed to be a funny show about a robot and an old woman. It’s different when it’s your own show. On another person’s show you just say the words and if it’s shit then it’s not your fault. But with this everything rests on you. I remember when I first had the idea. I pitched it to the BBC and then I suddenly thought: “Oh shit, they’re going to make me be the robot aren’t they?” And they did. So I spent a year freaking out about it. Because obviously if you’re on telly pretending to be a robot and it doesn’t go well then it’s going to look really daft isn’t it?
So you went to robot school …
DM I did! With a guy called Dan.
What did he teach you?
DM Never blink, mainly. He also taught you not to bob your head. To always walk like this [gets up and glides across the room in a chillingly robot-like manner].
Would you fancy robot school, Charlie?
CB Well I am quite stiff. I’ve got a very bad back. I’d quite like to be a robot, though. They don’t have to defecate.
Is that something they taught you at robot school?
DM No we didn’t cover that.
Did robot school require you to go full method with your character?
DM I mean, I practised at home. But I didn’t spend a day as a robot. My job’s not that weird.
What is the weirdest job you’ve ever had?
CB I know what Diane is going to say …
DM The worming tablets factory?
CB Yeah! Did you ever eat them?
DM Eat what? A worming tablet? Of course I didn’t. They’re for dogs. And I’m not a dog. Also, I’ve not got worms. You’ve not done horrible jobs like that, have you?
CB When I worked at CeX we had a lot of people coming in trying to sell stolen laptops. And a boss who would make us do things, like, one day I had to clear out the back room.
DM [Sarcastically] Oh, that sounds terrible.
CB It was! It was full of shit and a dead cat!
And look where you both are now!
DM I owe it all to Charlie! He totally made everything happen for me. All my subsequent career in comedy is down to him … I owe him everything!
CB Ah, that’s lovely. You’ve had to be really nice to me there and it’s all on tape!
Would you like to say anything nice back?
CB I’d say that Diane has naturally funny bones. And skin and eyes. She operates on a unique comic frequency – it’s rare to find a performer like that. She’s totally tuned in to the words which means in turn the writing room can tune into her. She elevates everything. Can I be sick now? I don’t like saying nice things.
Cunk on Cinema will air on BBC Two and iPlayer from 12 November.
