Cunk on Earth

Cunk travels the world, heading down caves and up mountains in her search for Mankind's first moments, and with the help of a variety of experts she explains how the earliest societies were formed: from the easier ones to spell like Rome and Greece, to the ones that are harder to spell, like Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Cunk tells the story of the birth of two of the world's great religions and learns what came next: the fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Crusades, and Genghis Khan. So a bit of a rough patch for Mankind, if we're honest. Along the way, Philomena asks experts hard-hitting questions about humanity's progress, and stands on or near impressive old ruins and inside museums, before the shot cuts away to some archive of the bits that don't exist anymore or were too expensive to film at.

Continuing her journey through mankind's journey, Cunk visits the allegedly beautiful city of Florence to explore the Renaissance; and she interrogates experts and historians about the revolutions that went on to shape the modern world, including the American War of Independence; and to a lesser extent, the French Revolution.

Cunk continues her ambitious march across the face of mankind into an age of industry and science. With the help of historians, and a science-historian, she explains the scientific breakthroughs of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. She demonstrates the inventions that changed the world, and covers how the US Civil War, World War I and World War II taught humanity how to use its new grasp of technology to shoot, blow up and irradiate itself in huge numbers.

In this, the final episode of her epic journey across history, Cunk takes us from 1945 to the present day (which at the time of writing is Tuesday). Cunk travels the world and meets top experts to examine the Cold War, the Space Race, Globalisation and Social Media. Our recent history is one of polarisation and division as humanity divided itself down the middle – Communism vs Capitalism, Apple vs Microsoft, Beatles vs Stones. Are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of history? Cunk will do her best to find out, on your behalf.

Philomena will tackle some of the most complex concepts to have ever been discovered, including Quantum Physics, Existentialism, Nihilism, Hedonism – and at least four other isms – as well as exploring subjects from the big bang to biology, morals to meditation and art to artificial intelligence. In her search for answers, she'll also examine the lives and works of some of history's foremost thinkers and ground-breaking creatives, from Epicurus to Dostoyevsky, from Sartre to Van Gogh, from Nietzsche to whoever came up with those signs in kitchens that say, ‘Live Laugh Love'. It's a journey that will take Philomena further afield than ever before as she visits sites of significance across Europe as well as travelling internationally for the first time to America (subject to visa approval but fingers crossed). Along the way, she'll be meeting leading experts and academics and not letting them leave until she's got to the bottom of such questions as: what is life, what's the point of life, why are we bothering to find out and when's lunch.