Channel 4 first presented Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace on UK TV in 29 January 2004. They released it on the internet the day before to US viewers.
Garth Marenghi (Matthew Holness) is a highly successful horror writer of titles such as Juggers, Afterbirth, and, of course, the Slicer series. According to him, “I’m one of the few people you’ll meet who’s written more books than they’ve read.” He is very ignorant but he makes up for it by being even more arrogant. In the 1980s, Channel 4 paid for this TV series about a hospital where horrific things happen. But Channel 4 didn’t air it owing to how “dangerous” it was. Two decades later, TV was “suffering through the worst artistic drought in broadcast history.” So the channel came crawling back.
Garth stars in the show. He is joined by his publisher, Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade). He is loyal but even more of an idiot than Garth. The series also includes Todd Rivers (Matt Berry) and Madeleine Wool (Alice Lowe). Of course, those are the names of the actors. They have different names in the series.
It is a parody of 1980s horror TV. This includes the kind of ridiculous special effects we all love from shows like Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and Chuck E Cheese in the Galaxy 5000 (1999). The show is very funny. But it would probably be more funny if it weren’t so true to its conceit. Holness and Ayoade co-wrote it with the latter directing all six episodes.
All the principals are of note for psychotronic fans:
- Matthew Holness: In general, he’s a comedian. But he wrote and directed the exceptional horror film Possum.
- Richard Ayoade: He’s hard to miss. As an actor, he was in The Watch and The IT Crowd. Darkplace was the first time he directed but he’s done it a lot since then.
- Matt Berry: He seems to be everywhere these days. He too was in The IT Crowd. And most recently, he was in What We Do in the Shadows.
- Alice Lowe: She probably works more than the others. And starting with the excellent Prevenge, she has been writing and directing.
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is great from top to bottom. Here are all the episodes via Archive:
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace front cover via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
We really had a good time watching this one. My favorite thing is how, “today,” the filmmakers are looking back and the production and commenting how ahead of its time it was. (This isn’t far from how some filmmakers talk on DVD commentary tracks.) And their proud social statements. The broccoli alien mist is actually about AIDS, the Ghostly Scotsmen are a lesson about bigotry.
Incidentally, Holness is doing a comedy “book tour” in the UK right now, in character as Merenghi. And where’s the last stop on the tour? In Glasgow!
I saw some video clips him doing that! Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAx3By62Dr8
Also: I highly recommend Possum. It’s kind of a horror film. But it’s much more like a Samuel Beckett play. I needed to watch it twice to grok what was really going on. The film is unrelentingly bleak. Not a joke in sight! But it does have a positive ending.
Somebody sent me that clip! I did a post on this show (proper link to your site of course) and it got all of 50+ readers! Which, for me, is HIGH. There’s fans out there! (You can tell by the audience reaction in the clip.) https://librarydvdlove.substack.com/p/sunday-post-garth-merenghis-darkplace
That was great! I didn’t much the production stuff you mentioned — or much of the fictional lore. I think the show works because Marenghi is a total hack who thinks he is profound. So I don’t think he’s much like King or Barker, even though that is clearly what the show is going for. I think it is more like late-period Michael Crichton, who really did become a total hack.