CHRIS' QUARANTINE RECOMMENDATION OF THE DAY (4/6/20): GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE

CHRIS' QUARANTINE RECOMMENDATION OF THE DAY (4/6/20): 

GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE

By Chris La Vigna (@Chris_LaVigna)

Garth Marenghi: Author. Dreamweaver. Visionary. Plus actor.

I'm starting off this week's round of Q-Recs with one of my favorite cult classics from across the Atlantic Ocean: the 2004 BBC horror-spoof miniseries GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE. Created by comedians Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, the show is presented to us as recently unearthed footage of a show that was filmed in the 1980s, but shelved by the BBC for being "too radical," and only now seeing the light of day because of the "worst artistic drought in broadcast history." Side note: As someone who came of age in the 2000s, I can attest that TV in the early-to-mid aughts was, for the most part, honestly terrible. 

The host of the show, as well as the star of the titular show-within-the-show, is prolific pulp horror author Garth Marenghi (Matthew Holness), a narcissistic novelist who bills himself as an "author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor" who wrote, directed, and starred in DARKPLACE as Dr. Rick Doulass M.D., a hot shot doctor who is the golden boy at Darkplace Hospital, which we find out in the first episode stands atop the literal gates of Hell, because of course it does.

Each episode is prefaced by an introduction from Marenghi, complete with a reading of a passage from one of his hack novels, and an explanation of the episode's themes and production woes.  Segments of DARKPLACE are also punctuated with interview clips of Marenghi, his publisher Dean Lerner (Richard Ayoade) who plays hospital administrator Thorton Reed and seems to be Marenghi's second-biggest fan (Just after Marenghi himself), and Todd Rivers (Matt Berry), who plays Dr. Lucien Sanchez, the hospital heartthrob who needed all of his lines dubbed in post.

From Left: Barry/Rivers/Sanchez, Ayoade/Lerner/Reed, Holness/Marenghi/Douglass, and Lowe/Wool/Asher. 

Rounding out the show's main cast is Alice Lowe as actor Madeline Wool, who plays the part of Dr. Liz Asher as a stereotypically ditzy blonde who also sometimes possesses psychic abilities.  We don't get any '04 interview clips with her, as we learn from Dean Lerner that she has been missing for some time since the show was filmed (a lot of people who do business with Dean seem to share tragic fates...).

The show is a pitch-perfect spoof of self-serious television dramas of the 1980s, with the added supernatural twist of shows like DARK SHADOWS. Everything from the cheesy visual FX, wooden acting and absurd dialogue, to the awkward blocking and vintage look of the film stock the show is shot on sell you on the premise of this being a forgotten program from the 1980s.  Each shot is chock full of visual gags delivered via intentionally poor filmmaking: close-up shots with way too much dead space above the actors' heads, shots out of focus, background actors missing their marks, etc.

The stories are also absurd even for the most dedicated genre enthusiast: An Ape-man starts an outbreak of people turning into apes by pissing in the water, an eye-monster with a huge dong inseminates a male patient who then gives birth to a baby eye-monster that Rick Douglass bonds with, and most provocatively, a "Scotch Mist" descends upon the hospital (An obvious miniature that you'll grow to love every single time they cut to it for an establishing shot) and brings about a plague of Scottish Ghosts...did I mention that many of these stories function to reveal Marenghi's myriad hangups, prejudices, and delusions of grandeur? 

Don't talk to Garth Marenghi (Matthew Holness) or his mutant eyeball son ever again.

One of the funniest running gags in the show is how Marenghi, Learner, and Rivers all praise the "radical" nature of the show, while juxtaposed with the actual episodes, which are brimming with the kind of sexist and racist jokes that were passable up until like, five years ago. I can't help but imagine that this is Holness' and Ayoade's way of poking fun at the way TV shows in the 80s patted themselves on the back for being "progressive" while also being chockfull of the kind of bigoted humor some mediocre comedian is still trying out an an open mic right now...well, not right now, all the clubs are shut down, but trust me, when the world starts functioning again, they'll be back...

The show, which originally aired on the now-defunct Channel Four of the BBC, flew under most people's radar at the time, but has gone on to become a cult classic, and has a large fanbase in the U.S. thanks in no small part to being aired on Adult Swim (they're also how I first saw THE MIGHTY BOOSH, but that's another Q-Rec for another day...).

You can watch the entire six-episode series on YouTube. Some generous soul by the name of "Billkillerz" made a playlist with all of the episodes, plus a bunch of the DVD bonus content. I highly recommend losing yourself in the supreme supernatural silliness of GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE for a few hours. Ironically, the madness within the walls of Darkplace Hospital will probably brighten up your Monday.