Blast from the past... P

HILOMENA Cunk has plenty of questions about Britain. How did Winston Churchill end up helplessly trapped inside a bank note? Why did they call John Major the Prince of Onions? How does the Domesday Book compare to a Martina Cole novel? And how long would you be off work if you had the Black Plague?

If you’re not familiar with Cunk from her appearances on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, she is the hilariously deadpan alter ego of comedian and Motherland star Diane Morgan.

The TV dimwit (Cunk, not Morgan, just to be clear), created by Brooker, has already given us her views on everything from Christmas to Shakespeare, and now she’s been given her own five-part series.

She says: “I’m going to take you right up the history of the United Britain of Great Kingdom.” It sounds like something straight from a W1A meeting.

Cunk, who cannot pronounce anything correctly, whizzes through our history with a fresh perspective on our nation. It’s the anti-history documentary, a brilliant spoof and everything we need right now.

Her interviews with experts along the way are wonderfully excruciating – she asks political editor Robert Peston a question that leaves him utterly stumped, and asks a professor about the sexual habits of King Arthur.

In this first episode of the mockumentary, Philomena starts with the Big Bang, which, she says, was “probably deafening, but fortunately ears didn’t exist”.

She also ponders how the dinosaurs became extinct and reveals that the Tudors were the Kardashians of their time.

Half an hour of pure comedy gold.