There are certain phrases that will only make sense to the initiated. "She was like a candle in the wind; unreliable", for example, or "I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef".
If you have any clue what I'm talking about, then salutations, friend. Like me, you’re clearly a fan of Garth Marenghi, the "author, dreamweaver, visionary… plus actor" who is the genius creation of comedian Matthew Holness. The quotes above are from Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, undoubtedly one of the most quotable TV shows of all time. The six-part horror parody was originally broadcast on Channel 4 in 2004 and saw Holness bring his infamous best-selling horror author alter-ego - a man oblivious to his own awfulness - to the small screen.
Darkplace was the parody low-budget 1980s TV show, set in a hospital that happened to be located atop a portal to hell. Posited as written by and starring Marenghi as ‘Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D.’, it was packed with absurd, surreal storylines like patients turning into broccoli, a man giving birth to an eyeball and a sinister invasion of Scottish people. Its ‘show-within-a-show’ format saw Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner (co-creator Richard Ayoade) as talking heads, reflecting upon its aftermath years later. It’s an extraordinarily clever and funny series; completely off-the-wall, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before and with brilliant comedic acting from Holness, Ayoade, Matt Berry and Alice Lowe. I wish I could say that I was one of the show’s original viewers, but I came to it on its second wind - after Channel 4 had realised what a cult hit they had simmering, repeated it, and later issued it on DVD.
Garth approacheth, Dublin. pic.twitter.com/l9EjU3ipA7
— Matthew Holness (@MrHolness) March 30, 2023
Up until recently, I would have considered Darkplace a relatively obscure show, considering most people I’ve mentioned it to over the years have shaken their heads in bafflement. Yet when ‘Garth Marenghi’ himself played a short run at Dublin’s Liberty Hall recently, I realised that maybe that’s not the case anymore. The show saw him reading from his new book TerrorTome and fielding questions from the rapt audience, but despite three sold-out shows, it’s safe to say that he’s probably not for everyone.
Darkplace proved particularly formative for me. Around the same time I discovered the joy of its preposterous storylines, series like Nighty Night and Nathan Barley were also broadcast: the former one of the blackest, most underrated sitcoms ever made (Julia Davis playing narcissistic sociopath and beauty salon owner Jill Tyrell, the most brilliant comedy character ever seen on British TV), the latter, a scathing takedown of influencer culture created by Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris that was literally decades ahead of its time.
And then there was the American stuff. You can easily imagine all of the above-mentioned series being broadcast on Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's late-night, adult-oriented block of programming. AS is where I first encountered the joy of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, the sketch show by American comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. (Incidentally, Heidecker recently played Vicar Street on the same night as the first of Garth Marenghi’s Dublin shows.) It was a treasure trove of absurd, fever-dream sketches, weird commercials, quirky special effects and brilliantly eccentric characters like John C. Reilly’s Dr. Steve Brule. 15 years after it was first broadcast on Adult Swim, it remains a beacon of wacky, unorthodox comedy programming.
Almost 20 years after it first aired, I wonder would a show like Darkplace get commissioned these days? It’s heartening, on one hand, to see Irish comics like Tony Cantwell and Peter McGann dabbling in the surreal and poking at the outer reaches of the mainstream in their work. On the other, the tyrannical reign of the likes of Mrs. Brown’s Boys and Michael McIntyre continues unabated. On that note, it seems apt to end on a prescient quote from Garth Marenghi himself: "I fear that we're seeing an end to the quality of television that you and I should be able to take for granted. We are seeing a dumbing-down of television. I think we're living in dangerous times. The horror genre is in decline... Reading is in decline, Literacy, Numeracy; the three Ls are all in decline."
