Diane Morgan

Diane Morgan plays Philomena Cunk, a presenter who asks historians serious questions in complete sincerity and demolishes them without appearing to try. Playing stupidity precisely is one of the harder things an actor can do, and this chart says why she can.

She was born at Bolton on 5 October 1975 with four planets grouped in Libra: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury and Pluto, all inside eleven degrees. Libra works itself out in relation to other people and is unusually good at reading a room. Having the two lights plus speech in there, with Pluto underneath, is close to a technical description of the performance: the character's whole method is sustained, unbothered social confidence, delivered to somebody who knows more than she does.

The most exact aspect in the chart is Saturn square Uranus, thirty six seconds of arc from exact, which is about as close as an aspect gets. Structure against disruption, the rule and the thing that breaks it, locked at right angles. In a comedian that configuration is the engine: the joke depends on a format being observed scrupulously while being destroyed from inside it.

Mercury faces Jupiter across the chart two thirds of a degree off, which is speech against scale: the statement made larger than the evidence supports, delivered with full confidence. It is the funniest aspect in astrology and she has it almost exact. Air takes five of her planets, so the chart thinks and compares a great deal, with a single one each in earth and water to weigh any of it down. A comedian who plays unintelligence needs every bit of that: the joke only works if the performer is faster than the character.

What the chart does not contain is anywhere obvious for sincerity to go. Four planets in the sign of other people, with Pluto in the group, belongs to somebody who is always at least slightly performing the room back at itself, and a character built entirely out of that is a better use of it than most people manage.