Philomena on Shakespeare (and drugs and global warming)

May 9, 2016 • 1:30 pm

Hey, Brits, listen up: this Wednesday, at 22:00 London time (don’t kvetch about GMT or whatever they call it now), you can see a half-hour show on BBC 2: “Cunk on Shakespeare” (available at the link shortly after the show). I hope I can see it in the U.S.

It appears that Diane Morgan once again appears as our beloved Philomena Cunk, naively inquiring about the Bard in her inimitable way. Here’s a preview in which she talks to (and discomfits) Shakespeare Man:

Over at the Guardian, and writing under the name Philomena Cunk, Morgan summarizes the plots of many Shakespeare plays. A few examples:

Hamlet

Shakespeare’s most famousest play, includes all his hits. It’s basically his Thriller. It’s even got ghosts in it, like Thriller. And a skellington.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

This is staged outdoors a lot, so it is easier to sneak out, making it one of Shakespeare’s most popular works.

Othello

This groundbreaking play features one black man, something not tried again in a dramatic work until Ghostbusters.

And VICE has an interview with La Cunk about various topics, including drugs and global warming.  A few quotes:

What would be your last meal?
I had a banana about half an hour ago, so that was my last meal. But can you call a banana a meal? Or is it a snack? Is it “snacks are savory and treats are sweet”? What’s the rule? A banana doesn’t feel much like a fucking treat. It’s more like a job.

Would you have sex with a robot?
God, no. Imagine the noise. All that beeping. What if it started buffering in the middle? It’d put you off your stroke.

Without googling, explain how global warming basically works.
The more humans there are, the hotter the planet gets, like when there are too many people in your front room and you have to open a window. But the only way to open a window on planet Earth is to make a hole in the ozone layer. And that just makes it hotter, like when you’re on holiday. And all the flies come in. It’s very complicated. Which is why it’s good that three percent of scientists are keeping an open mind that it might not be happening, because that would be a lot easier, to be honest.

Be sure to catch a half hour of Philomena in two days.

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h/t: Mark

15 thoughts on “Philomena on Shakespeare (and drugs and global warming)”

  1. To watch BBC shows otherwise blocked in the US, use a VPN and change your location to the UK. I have used Tunnelbear. The free version has limited bandwidth but enough to see the show.
    https://www.tunnelbear.com/
    If you let it post a tweet to your account, you get an extra 1GB. You can do that once a month.

    You should install the BBC Iplayer which will let you download the show and watch it for 30 days. I have not been able to capture a stream with the player so if you want to capture the stream, best to use a browser.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install

  4. We have just had a month or so of Shakespeare in Auckland NZ where a Pop Up Globe theatre (the first of it’s kind) was erected on a downtown carpark site. It was made as true as possible to the real deal but have a look using the link below. It was so popular they extended the season. ‘Common people’ could chose to stand in the ‘mosh pit’ albeit for a cheaper price.

    http://www.popupglobe.co.nz

  5. What if it started buffering in the middle?

    LOL. She’s completely hilarious and awesome. Jerry is rapidly becoming the Godfather of Cunk.

  7. After Mary Beard going all Roman (again/ still ; haven’t completed the series for a Beard-athon) and before Scotland 2016.
    Set for recording.

  8. “Hamlet” — Isn’t that the one where Shakespeare strung together a bunch of familiar old sayings with a castle-intrigue plot?

  9. I’m hoping DT will choose her for his VP since a Trump/Cunk ticket couldn’t lose.

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