56 - Cool Stuff: Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is like one of those little bits of juicy TV history, a true cult classic that undoubtedly picked up no more than 20 viewers on first airing, but with an obsessive fan following and Channel 4 chucking all their old shit up on YouTube, it still manages to live on.
It’s a mockumentary, a double-layered comedy that’s as blazingly smart as it is hilarious. Conceited “dream weaver” Garth Marenghi, a trashy paperback horror writer who’s written more books than he’s read, produced a television series for Channel 4 back in the eighties, but it was cancelled before airing. (Although it enjoyed a brief run in Peru.)
“A show so radical, so risky, so dangerous and so god-damn crazy, that the so-called powers that be became too scared to show it,” either that or it was so unapologetically terrible in almost every regard. Now, in 2004, thanks to “the worst artistic draught in broadcast history”, the show has been given a second lease of life, complete with spliced in interviews from the cast and preludes from the writer, director and actor himself.
What follows is an eighties styled horror TV show, meticulously crafted to look and sound like it was made on a shoestring budget by a team of inexperienced buffons. Awful acting, lost-lipsyncing, cameras shown in mirrors, obvious props, poor editing and ludicrous special effects. Plus, the dialogue is such a fast paced machine-gun fire of malapropisms, misused phrases and out-of-place idioms, you almost have to watch each conversation a few times to hear every ridiculous line. “Cool it Sanchez, or you’ll get a knuckle supper”.
As it’s a British comedy from the noughties, the cast and special guests are suitably familiar, especially to fans of The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd. Richard Ayoade, Moss from The IT Crowd and Saboo from Boosh, plays Dean Learner - Marenghi’s publisher. He’s not an actor, but Marenghi didn’t want an act - he wanted the truth. Matt Berry, IT Crowd, Boosh, Snuff Box and the talking mountain in the Volvic Mineral Water adverts, plays Todd Rivers who in turn plays Dr. Lucien Sanchez, whose voice drops in octaves as the show goes on and rarely stays sync with his lips.
You’ve also got Matthew Holness and Alice Lowe filling out the cast as Marenghi and Madeleine Wool. Throughout the series, watching the special guests is like playing “spot the famous British comedian”. Oh that’s Julian Barret from The Mighty Boosh, and is that Noel Fielding in that monkey suit? Hey look, that’s Graham Lineham, writer of Father Ted and lover of the retweet button on Twitter. Oh, the chef is Stephen Merchant, writer of The Office. That makes sense.
As you can imagine, for a multi-layered mockumentary about a hospital built over the gates of hell that looks intentionally awful, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace didn’t really scoop up the ratings, so the show was canned after only six episodes. Still, there isn’t a bad minute in there and perhaps its for the best that it managed to go out while in its absolute prime.
All six episodes can be seen at Channel 4 On Demand, who recently uploaded all of their old stuff to YouTube. Which means you can watch the entire back catalogue of Spaced, Father Ted and The IT Crowd, for free and whenever you feel like it. They’ve also got Black Books, but that’s not on YouTube, for some reason.
Watch Garth Marenghi today, or you’ll be up shit creek - sans paddle.
