Greetings Traveller: Tales From Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

By Paul Casey

Greetings traveller. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was a Sci-Fi/Horror spoof aired on Channel 4 in Britain in 2004. Created by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade—who you may be familiar with as Moss from Graham Linehan’s The IT Crowd—Garth Marenghi did not receive the mainstream love of The Mighty Boosh or Peep Show, and yet of all of the sublime, interconnected comedy to come from Britain in the last decade, it may be the greatest.

Matthew Holness portrays the character of Garth Marenghi, author, dream weaver, visionary, plus actor. In the show’s universe, Garth Marenghi wrote, directed, and starred in a show called Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace for Channel 4 in the 1980s. It was rejected, but now “in the worst artistic drought in broadcast history, cap in hand and suitably ashamed,” Channel 4 have asked Garth’s permission to air it. Interspersed with the six episodes of the show, Garth also presents interviews with himself and his publisher Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade) and fellow performer Todd Rivers (Matt Berry).

Marenghi is a hack, a mixture of the worst excesses of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and all of those other, far lesser scribes of airport horror books. On this show-within-a-show, he plays Rick Dagless, M.D., a god damned maverick doctor, dealing with the evil coming through the newly opened gates of Hell in Darkplace Hospital, as well as day to day admin, in, um, Romford.

As has been the tradition with so many of the great comedy heroes to come out of Britain in the last few decades, Marenghi is someone who is unreasonably confident about himself. Like Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge and David Brent from The Office, he believes that his is an adoring public that recognizes his genius. Unlike those two however, Garth Marenghi and the character he plays have no redeeming features. There is no moment of realization where you get a look inside the life of a sad man. Garth Marenghi is full-on bluster, all the time.

With him is his best buddy Dr. Lucien Sanchez, who is portrayed by Mighty Boosh and Snuff Box fellow, Matt Berry via the fictional actor, Todd Rivers. Berry is responsible for some of the greatest moments in the show’s six episodes, with a talent for stealing scenes that he would display so fiercely in his part as zoo owner Dixon Bainbridge from The Mighty Boosh. The impromptu and absurdly good song “One Track Lover” appears in the final episode of the series—with the delicious Lovecraft piss-take title of “The Creeping Moss From the Shores of Shuggoth”—and it is as surreal and hilarious an encounter as Old Greg’s “Love Games” from The Boosh.

Alice Lowe, who has appeared on Rob Brydon’s game show satire Annually Retentive, as well as Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher’s Snuff Box, plays actress Madeline Wool, who portrays the character of Dr. Liz Asher. The story is that Liz has come to Darkplace after graduating from Harvard College Yale, where she aced every semester and got an A. As Madeline Wool, Lowe is the sassy blonde who, although complaining about the extreme sexism and stupidity at Darkplace, secretly enjoys being talked to like a particularly dull lamppost. Lowe’s delivery of the exquisitely written bad lines that she is given is unrivaled, and the episode “Hell Hath Fury”—in which her menstrual cycle brings on telekinetic powers—is some of the finest ironic zapping of misogyny/stupidity since Anchorman. My favorite of her lines is in the first episode, “Once Upon a Beginning,” where she says, “I know you’re lying to me, protecting me, but I’m a big girl now. In a year’s time, I’ll be a woman.”

Richard Ayoade plays actor Dean Learner, who inhabits the character Thornton Reed—not putting on an act, but putting on the truth—the man in charge of Darkplace. Both here and in The IT Crowd, Ayoade approaches comedy in a way which is so idiosyncratic and particular to his abilities, that it’s next to impossible to imagine anyone else being able to fill the role. The undercurrent of sexual perversion that is apparent in Dean Learner’s interviews, as well as the disturbing sense that he may be responsible for Madeline Wool’s “disappearance,” mixes with the autistic genius of his performance as Thornton Reed.

There are also some cameos from Father Ted and IT Crowd creator Graham Linehan as an orderly, as well as Stephen Merchant, co-creator of The Office and Extras, who plays a chef. Mighty Boosh fellows Julian Barrett and Noel Fielding make appearances too, with Barrett as the hospital chaplain and Fielding as an evil monkey man in “The Apes of Wrath.”

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was probably always destined to be a cult show. Its humor relies on an awareness of horror and sci-fi, especially when it turned out the kinds of terrible TV programs which Marenghi spoofs. It also walks the tough ol’ line of writing good bad jokes. There is no straight man/woman here, and the show never lets you know they know things are ridiculous. Apart from them actually being ridiculous, of course.

Although it failed to attract any kind of audience during its original broadcast in 2004, Darkplace found a following and its DVD release, featuring a plentiful bounty of extras and commentaries (all in character), was very successful. From the packaging to the booklet, there is nothing which hints that Garth Marenghi’s Darklplace is completely fictitious, something which This Is Spinal Tap also did brilliantly. This may be part of why it is so effective. In the world of Garth Marenghi and Dean Learner, they earnestly believe that this is a quality show.

There are dozens of classic lines throughout the episodes, but when Rick Dagless, trying to comfort a sick child, says, “We’re doing all we can, but I’m not Jesus Christ. I’ve come to accept that now,” is as good as anything that’s been in a comedy in the last half a century. Or, “I’m one of the few people you’ll meet who has written more books than they’ve read.” Or “Maybe if everyone who’d ever been close to you had died, you’d be sarcastic, too.” Or the pompous quoting of King Lear at the start of a scene. It’s the kind of show that is incredibly smart at being stupid.

If you have a love of horror or sci-fi, or even absurd comedy, you should purchase the Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace DVD, or catch it on Adult Swim, where I’m led to believe it still airs on occasion. If you’re in the UK, then you can watch it on Channel 4’s On Demand service, which is available on both YouTube, and the Channel 4 website.

To my friends and comrades in the US and Canada: you deserve a show like this. I’m Alan Partridge and The Office escaped their British prison, but this won’t. So have a look, and spread the word, and enjoy. Well, I say enjoy . . .