Diane Morgan went vegan a few months ago, so naturally, we meet for lunch at a restaurant in central London that almost entirely serves cheese. It is a humid, muggy day. \u201cYou don\u2019t often hear people use the word \u2018muggy\u2019 now,\u201d Morgan says, when I mention it. \u201cHow many people do you hear saying that, on a daily basis?\u201d A pause. \u201cUnder the age of 85, I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgan is famous for her deadpan style, which she has honed to perfection as the mockumentary host Philomena Cunk<\/a>, and has put to use all over British TV, from the dour Liz in Motherland<\/a> to Kath in Ricky Gervais\u2019s sitcom After Life<\/a>, with a recent stint as the reporter Onya Doorstep in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.<\/a> Over a lovely looking cheese-free salad, she admits that she is becoming more of a hippy as she gets older. \u201cAs I\u2019m cascading towards the grave,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n Coming up roses \u2026 Diane Morgan. Photograph: Suki Dhanda\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Morgan is here to talk about the surreal, anarchic Mandy<\/a>, which she created, writes and stars in. It is \u201cpure stupidity\u201d, she says, gleefully, ahead of its fourth series. \u201cThere\u2019s no meaning. You\u2019re not going to learn anything. I don\u2019t want to learn anything.\u201d The episodes are barely 15 minutes long, and see Mandy try out various jobs and get-rich-quick schemes, as she is forced to navigate fatbergs, psychics, illicit medical procedures, Russian gangsters and plane hijackings.<\/p>\n Back in the day, Morgan and her friend Michael Spicer<\/a> (\u201ca YouTube<\/a> sensation now\u201d) would meet up at a pub \u2013 upstairs, in an empty room, not at the bar, she clarifies \u2013 with a bag of wigs, to play around with characters. One of them became Mandy. Mandy first made an appearance on Craig Cash\u2019s short-lived 2016 sitcom Rovers<\/a>. When the BBC asked Morgan if she had any ideas for a new comedy, Mandy staged a comeback. They filmed a 15-minute pilot, in which Mandy covets a white leather sofa, leading to a Princess Di makeover that clashes with an experimental medical trial. \u201cI never thought they\u2019d pick it up, and I think that\u2019s why it was so mad,\u201d she says. \u201cI had the freedom to do whatever I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n It went out in 2019, and was soon picked up for a full series. \u201cI thought, fantastic, made it, and then thought, oh shit.\u201d She was so nervous about it airing that she almost phoned the BBC and asked them to pull it. \u201cIt felt really personal, in some ways,\u201d she explains. In the new series, Mandy vomits ice-cream on to a small child\u2019s head and gets \u201crancid lamb fat\u201d injected into her backside. How personal are we talking? \u201cI felt like people were going to go, what the hell is that? And I\u2019m sure a lot of people did. It\u2019s just what I felt like doing at the time, as a reaction to all those Fleabaggy dramas. Fleabag<\/a>\u2019s brilliant, but because it was so successful, there were loads of other shows that were a bit like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweet treat \u2026 Morgan as Mandy, who has tried countless different jobs \u2013 and failed at all of them. Photograph: Richard Harrison\/BBC<\/p>\n Mandy is not like that. Instead, it was inspired by more grotesque physical comedies such as Bottom. \u201cWhere they\u2019re just beating each other up repeatedly. I couldn\u2019t think of a woman that had done that.\u201d She wonders whether women don\u2019t want to make themselves look disgusting. \u201cI\u2019ve not got a problem with that,\u201d she laughs. \u201cBecause that\u2019s what I want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n In the first proper episode, Mandy gets a job in a banana factory, squashing spiders. I think about it every time I pick up a bunch at the supermarket. \u201cI was told that was an actual job in Bolton,\u201d she insists. \u201cThey would hand you a mallet and if the spider ran out, you\u2019d just clobber it. That was a job! Otherwise, what do you do? Just let them run free?\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan has done quite a few of the jobs that Mandy tries, it turns out. \u201cChip shop, telesales, Avon lady, dental nurse, packing worming tablets. All kinds of stuff. I\u2019ve been pretty terrible at all of them.\u201d She grew up near Bolton, and had always wanted to act, but for a while, struggled to get into drama school. At one point, she and her friend Maxine Peake decided to have elocution lessons. \u201cWe thought the reason we weren\u2019t getting into drama school was because we were so broad,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Deadpan \u2026 Morgan as Philomena Cunk in Cunk on Earth. Photograph: BBC\/Broke & Bones<\/p>\n How did those lessons go? \u201cWell \u2026 badly,\u201d she laughs. \u201cBut it\u2019s mad, isn\u2019t it, that the thing that was separating me out, I wanted to get rid of.\u201d She realised \u201cfar too late\u201d what made her special. \u201cI think it was when I\u2019d left drama school. I started doing standup, and then I started getting acting parts, and they were always miserable northerners.\u201d It finally occurred to her that what she had been trying to suppress was exactly what people found funny. \u201cThe flat, miserable noise of my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan has played<\/a> Philomena Cunk for over a decade, and in the past, she has said that the two are very similar. \u201cBasically the same,\u201d she nods, today. But it sounds like there\u2019s more crossover with Mandy than you\u2019d think. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of overlap there. I\u2019m probably more like Cunk, because Mandy\u2019s quite brazen. I haven\u2019t got [Cunk\u2019s] social skills, because I didn\u2019t go to public school. She doesn\u2019t care, whereas I do care. That\u2019s the big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n She will freely admit, though, that she loves an awkward moment. \u201cI\u2019m completely happy in silences, as you can probably tell from Cunk. I revel in them, almost.\u201d When she interviews experts for what looks like minutes on screen, she might have been talking to them for hours, waiting for the perfect response to the often mindless questions. \u201cBasically, it\u2019s an improvised conversation, because you never know when they might go, \u2018what do you think?\u2019\u201d She has to second guess what they might say, and work out where she might take it from there. \u201cIf they completely fall into the trap I\u2019ve set, it\u2019s like feeding strawberries to a donkey. It\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n Philomena Cunk is unexpectedly massive in the US. \u201cOh my god, yeah, they love it.\u201d Morgan has done the rounds on the late night talk shows; she got a standing ovation when she walked out on to the Stephen Colbert stage. \u201cIt sounds ridiculous, saying it,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI felt like one of the Beatles.\u201d Cunk is so big on social media that people don\u2019t always realise she\u2019s a character from a TV show. Sometimes, when they meet Morgan, they call her \u201cthe TikTok lady\u201d<\/p>\n From 2016 to 2022, Morgan played Liz in the hectic parenting comedy Motherland. Have they asked her to be in its spinoff, Amandaland<\/a>? \u201cNo.\u201d She leaves one of those perfect silences. \u201cBit awkward,\u201d she jokes. \u201cNo, I think it would be weird if we\u2019d all gone back into it, and called it Amandaland. It\u2019s a different show.\u201d She hasn\u2019t seen it, solely for the reason that she doesn\u2019t watch much comedy. \u201cIt feels too close to home. I can\u2019t switch my brain off from going, oh, I see what you did there. I just ruin it, because I can\u2019t enjoy things.\u201d She prefers documentaries. \u201cI find documentaries really funny, especially ones from the 70s. There\u2019s one that\u2019s purely about people who have got struck by lightning. It\u2019s just superb.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan with Paul Ready, Anna Maxwell Martin, Philippa Dunne, Lucy Punch and Tanya Moodie in Motherland. Photograph: Natalie Seery\/BBC\/Merman<\/p>\n Surely Philomena Cunk has ruined documentaries for everyone? \u201cBut they\u2019re still making them, exactly the same,\u201d she says. \u201cThey make shows and you think, this is exactly like Cunk! How can you do this?\u201d Morgan recently appeared on the celebrity genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, which was surreal for a number of reasons. First, because Mandy had already done a spoof of it called Who Are You, Do You Think, and second, because it is full of Cunk-like documentary tropes. Morgan leans into the daftness of it, doing those long, distant walking shots, and pleading not to have to look over her shoulder for the opening credits. \u201cMy mum said to my auntie, \u2018Diane\u2019s done Who Do You Think You Are, are you going to watch it?\u2019 And my auntie said, \u2018Depends what else is on\u2019. Swear to God. Depends what else is on. None of them give a shit. Keeps me very grounded.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan loves Mandy\u2019s 15-minute episodes. \u201cYou\u2019re in, you\u2019re out, you\u2019ve got your life back. I don\u2019t want anything that\u2019s like, oh, this is 47 seasons and it doesn\u2019t get going until episode 16.\u201d But she will soon be returning to half-an-hour with Ann Droid, the new comedy she has written with Sarah Kendall<\/a>. A year ago, Morgan read an article about the possibility of robot carers for child-free older people in Japan. \u201cI thought, I don\u2019t have any kids. Shit, that\u2019ll be me, ending up with a robot.\u201d It made her laugh so much that they sent the idea to the BBC, who said yes. \u201cThen we had to write it.\u201d Worse, she has cast herself as the robot. \u201cIt didn\u2019t occur to me that it would be difficult, over six weeks, to move like this,\u201d she says, lifting her arms stiffly. She is currently in training with a movement coach. \u201cI spend an hour a day, walking around the house like a robot.\u201d I can\u2019t believe your family don\u2019t care about what you do, I say. \u201cI know! They don\u2019t ask,\u201d she shrugs. \u201cNot bothered.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandy returns on Monday 21 July at 10pm on BBC Two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diane Morgan went vegan a few months ago, so naturally, we meet for lunch at a restaurant in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-3103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}