Cunk On Shakespeare

Note: This review is from 2016

TV review by Steve Bennett

So this is the dumbed-down BBC; a presenter not only ill-versed in the subject she’s supposed to be educating us about, but proud of the fact. Philomena Cunk has never shed the insolent teenage attitude to Shakespeare as being dull or difficult and, drenched in millennial cynicism, refuses to be impressed by the legacy of his ‘gibberish’.

She’s probably representative of a larger part of Britain than the theatrical Establishment would want to admit… so in some ways the perfect host of this one-off as part of the Beeb’s quadricentennial Bardathon. This is the way to make him accessible, not by feigning enthusiasm.

‘It's hard to believe today,’ she says of Shakespeare’s original productions. ‘But back then, people really did go to the theatre on purpose.’ And of his comedies, she incredulously observes audiences laughing ‘as if there were jokes in there’.

So this sceptic savant gets to ask dumb questions of literary scholars and RSC members such as Iqbal Khan and Simon Russell Beale as they to persuade her of the playwright’s worth. They get visibly annoyed by her idiotic lines of inquiry, though they are good actors.

There is, of course, something of the Ali G about this, whether in wilfully mispronouncing ‘pentameter’, notching up the malapropisms (‘bionic plague’) or asking whether of the hundreds of words Shakespeare dreamt up, ‘bumberclaat’ is among them. But Diane Morgan puts her own stamp on things.

Though she confronts these luminaries with expert listless contempt, the script is not hers, but written by Charlie Brooker with Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris, regular collaborators on his Weeky Wipe shows where Cunk originated.

And Brooker’s dry and brutal wit is all over this. On the modern avant-garde interpretations of Shakespeare Cunk says: ‘Incredibly, people go to see this sort of thing despite it being completely fucking unwatchable’. It could have come straight out of his mouth.

There must have been questions about whether Cunk’s dour personality can sustain an hour, and there are a couple of moments where she seems to be retreading familiar territory. But she varies things with a growing, if grudging, respect for ‘the bald man who could write with feathers’ thanks to relating his work to the modern world. Titus Andronicus is, after all just ‘a posh Friday The 13th’ and his greatest masterpiece is Game Of Thrones.

And just when you think you know where the ‘documentary’ is going, a surreal curveball will knock you off balance. The scene in which she asks the archivist how books work is a sublime bit of silliness.

This may be the first full-length outing for Cunk, but it surely won’t be the last.

• Cunk on Shakespeare is on BBC Two at 10pm tomorrow: