MEDIUM RARE

Forget your K-dramas. Walk away from thrilling, gory, violent crime serials. Documentaries are interesting but not all of them are fun to watch.
Introducing Philomena Cunk, if you haven’t met her yet. She’ll make you cry when you laugh, and laugh when you should be crying. All because she’s primed to ask stupid questions that force you to think. Unlike many comedians, she’s a pretty face to watch – deep-set sparkly blue-gray eyes, auburn-red hair, creamy complexion, with a nice figure to boot (even when she’s instructed to open each episode by walking in a forest or perched on the edge of a cliff in her walking boots).
Philomena Cunk was supposed to play a “posh” character but here she is, sounding like the lot of us who ask idiotic questions out of ignorance or an inability to phrase our words correctly. Philomena Cunk is a screen name; in real life she’s Diane Morgan, but as an actor she’s so convincing as the interviewer whose questions leave her interviewees reaching for the door or the window to jump out of. What a refreshing change from the know-it-alls who leave their audiences feeling deprived of the most basic education or the latest news.
When Ms. Cunk asks an archeologist, “How were the pyramids built? Did they start from the top or bottom?” you’re not hearing a mistake, you’re hearing an invitation to think, “Maybe the ancient Egyptians were so smart they could defy gravity?”
Her questions cover history, finance, literature, and more. The fun is in watching how her interviewees squirm in their seats, roll their eyes, grit their teeth or force a mystical smile. As a BBC production for Netflix, the Cunk series has no problem lining up for Cunk’s shooting gallery a moving parade of experts who, as the typical stiff upper-lipped Englishman is portrayed, look like they’re ready to quit or kill.
How would a banker answer, “Where is money in a coin?” How should a watchmaker respond to “Where’s time in a clock?”
Cunk on Earth is joined by Cunk on Britain, Cunk on War 2 (as she calls it), and the like. She spares no one, not Queen Victoria, not even Shakespeare, “Why is he so popular? He’s long and boring.”