Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004)

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Director: Richard Ayoade

Screenplay: Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness

Cast: Matthew Holness as Garth Marenghi/Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D; Richard Ayoade as Dean Learner/Thornton Reed; Matt Berry as Todd Rivers/Dr. Lucien Sanchez; Alice Lowe as Madeleine Wool/Dr. Liz Asher

In probably one of the more controversial opinions I'll ever have, I found Garth Marenghi's Darkplace disappointing, a cult gem from Channel 4 that is highly regarded, whose reputation only from six episodes makes it quite depressing I found them slightly amusing but average altogether as I marathoned the entire series.

The premise, even with the DVD release, is that Garth Marenghi (played by Matthew Holness) is a real horror author, possibly a piss take of Dean Koontz or James Herbert¹, who is the definition of a man with his head up his arse, thinking of himself as the messiah of horror who can even have profound insights to help humanity but a tawdry author of terrible ideas and dialogue. At some point, he worked on a TV series which he directed himself and starred in the main role, as the former warlock doctor Dr. Rick Dagless M.D at Darkplace Hospital, who with side characters encounters increasingly weird and horrifying work, only for the series to be canned. In kayfabe Channel 4 in 2004 asked for those episodes to be dusted off, only six as the actual Garth Marenghi's Darkplace series is a one season wonder, but Marenghi in the series-within-the-series was allowed to shoot interviews, mainly with his publisher Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade) who starred as Darkplace Hospital's administrator Thornton Reed too, and later on Todd Rivers (Matt Berry), an actor on the show whose visibly become the stereotype of the older star reduced to drinking a lot.

Darkplace the series, which exists spliced in these interview segments and an introduction to each episode by Marenghi, is a farce that's badly acted with a comical amount of slow motion in the second episode to pad the run time, and with threats varying from new female staff member Dr. Liz Asher (Alice Lowe) going on a rampage with her psychic powers or a "Scottish Mist", leading to Dagless learning to overcome his intolerance to the Scottish and Marenghi having to dodge accusations of racism against the Scottish in his interview footage.

The problem for me with Darkplace is that the structure is a paradoxical one to work with. To create a technically awful programme could lead to making a dreadful show because it is too accurate to the most dreary of this type of programming; instead its deliberately broad, which leads to an ironic tone I have always found tedious, growing when this became more common as a form of parody, and with the inherent issue that, if you are going to parody this type of program, lurid pulp television, it needs to be as accurate to what a terrible eighties horror program should be and work its humour from the tone. The idea, though it's a Channel 4 production, evokes a BBC show if the quality slipped down, to which your material to parody this content should come from any misfire to even when highly regarded work slips in the research, such as the case (admittedly not a Dr. Who viewer but aware of this) when apparently Bertie Bassett, the mascot of a British confectionary company, terrorised Sylvester McCoy in his sci-fi candy lab².

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As much of the issue is that the central joke, that Garth Marenghi is clueless to how bad he is, is driven to the ground, so everything must reflect the tone of this rather than take the tone of Airplane! (1980), of playing everything deathly serious where the broad absurdity rear its head among recreations of an actual disaster film the creators were using for direct reference. The one moment that looks like it's going to match this tone is the final episode, which feels like Nigel Kneale's Quatermass mini-series if someone turned into alien broccoli rather than a blob. The entire premise beyond this is sound and can be built off if it had been done right. Imagining a combination medical soap opera and horror story is amusing, and the little details show there was a concerted attempt at something special but Darkplace is played too broadly on purpose, a lot of the cast and tone too mannered, the dialogue full of quirky moments meant to be funny, which poses another issue (that is a plague of comedy in general) that the plot's not even a basic barebones most episodes to lead to some dynamic tension. Where there is no real plot trajectory, I usually tune out eventually.

Cast wise, it's mainly the core four members who dominate the series barring a few surprise cameos, like Stephen Merchant or Julian Barratt as the hospital priest, emphasising that even before his role in Peter Strickland's bizarre horror film In Fabric (2018) he could add gravitas even to the silliest of material, or add a much needed sense of absurdity to even serious material. Matthew Holness as Garth Marenghi, both the writer and star, is interesting, but I'll be honest in saying the joke of a dumb, egotistic, sexist hack writer does feel somewhat one dimensional at some point, where the series would've struggled if this had gone for more series in making him compelling onwards. Richard Ayoade as his publicist however hits the right tone - off the show he's a sleaze but in a subtle way that's funnier, whilst as the administrator of the Darkplace hospital, Ayoade inflects perfectly a man who cannot act and was allowed to improvise way too much of his dialogue. Matt Berry likewise hits to the right one too, as a hammy actor who adds w-e-i-g-h-t to his vocals in a way that's memorable. Sadly Alice Lowe as the sole female character is undercut by one of the major running gags which emphasises a huge paradox in mocking the un-enlightened nature of past pop culture; the joke is that, reflecting its author Marenghi, the series has incredibly sexist dialogue and views of Dr. Liz Asher, playing her off as the simplistic female staff member, or in episode 2 going full-Carrie to the point people are menaced by staplers and furniture on string, which presents an issue that the character is so marginalised in the mocking of the sexism of the past the show itself marginalised Lowe herself with a very limited amount to the work with, backfiring as a result.  

That latter example with Lowe really works as a metaphor for all my issues with Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, that it spends so much time mocking the chintzy tone that it's marginalised necessary structural details like tone, plotting and content; no matter how bad in look on purpose, you still need to engage with on some emotional level. Out of six episodes, they blur considerably together in terms of none of them particularly standing out. Episode one introduces the premise, where Dagless' warlock past comes to haunt him, which leaves little time to work with, whilst episode 2 falls into the flaws mentioned that, entirely about mocking the show within the show's sexism and (at that point) potential misogyny, it itself unintentionally sidelines and mocks the main female character.

Episode three tries a little better, in which Dagless' past trauma of losing his half-man half-grasshopper son leaves him trying to protect a potentially dangerous eyeball child, whilst Episode 4 imagines contaminated water turning the hospital into primordial ape people. By Episode 5 and 6, whilst not perfect, you do get some of the better episodes. Episode 5 is Scotch Mist, which arguably is still as ballsy today in how it envisions Marenghi's attempt to be tolerant to the Scottish still comes off as offensive, when kilt wearing Scottish ghosts leave oats behind murder scenes and Dagless recounts a nightmarish experience in a fish and chips shop. Episode 6 is probably the one closest, just needing a shove, to what the tone for the whole series should've been if it had played itself as being more serious and less ironic in tone, in which Lucien Sanchez falls in love with a female patient slowly turning into alien broccoli, a highly contagious mutation that does feel like soap opera, Nigel Kneale and a healthy dose of sex humour in a blender if it had be rewritten a little. It at least allows Matt Berry more material to work with, which is for the better; it also has the one actual surprise where the episode abruptly turns into a synthpop music video for the character, which was a completely acceptable example of breaking the verisimilitude I could applaud for its humour.

Altogether, it eventually started to sink in I wasn't gaining a lot from this series. Admittedly, this is a case of acquired taste, because I have always taken an issue to ironic humour; it neither helps I have gladly swam through the shores of technically and artistically incompetent entertainment, able to deduct that this is too broad and doesn't in the slightest look or feel like bad horror. The additional exaggeration instead comes off as patience testing for me, turning it all into a one note joke that has barely lingered.

Abstract Spectrum: Absurd/Ironic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

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1) Not in the slightest a knock against either man, whose work as a horror fan together I need to one day fully invest in; but particurlaly with their commonality in appearing in second hand book stores in the United Kingdom, least in my neck fo the woods, and Herbert's blunt titles and covers does really evoke the absurder, crasser ones Marenghi's has as seen.

2) Kandyman, a creature that, befittingly, comes from the 1988 era of Dr. Who and emphases how actual eighties television, though Darkplace is meant to be the early eighties, could've really played to a deadpan tone from real source material.