‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ Will Tide You Over While You Wait For ‘What We Do In The Shadows’ Season 3

It’s difficult to write about comedy. Specifically, it’s difficult to write positively about comedy, the danger being that the writer could easily fall into one of two traps: 1) explaining the joke, which is an empty and joyless endeavor; or 2) pointlessly quoting one joke after another, which, for the reader unfamiliar with whatever show, film, or etc. is being recommended, will present even the best joke in its least funny state, thereby sapping its strength even when finally experienced in the proper context. With all of this in mind, I am here today to recommend to you all one of funniest television shows I have ever seen, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, which has recently been added to Amazon Prime’s streaming service. I fear that to some degree it will be necessary for me to fall into both of the above-mentioned traps.

The central character of the show is, naturally enough, Garth Marenghi. Created by Matthew Holness (who plays Marenghi) and Richard Ayoade, the character spoofs a very specific kind of person: pompous and supremely untalented 1980s horror writers. His general appearance – ostentatiously full head of hair, large glasses, leather jacket – reminds me of old book jacket photos of any number of writers from the era, writers both good and bad. The reason for this is that in the ’70s and ’80s there was a major boom in the genre, kicked off by the huge success of a handful of writers, most prominently Stephen King, which led to a lot of horror writers, those both deserving and undeserving, getting published and ultimately fancying themselves rock stars of a sort. This is the foundation for Garth Marenghi. The character was introduced in a pair of stage shows at comedy festivals: Garth Marenghi’s Fright Knight in 2000, and Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead in 2001. The success of these shows in turn led to a six-episode run on England’s Channel 4, from January to March of 2004. The premise of the TV show is that prolific novelist Marenghi (“I’m one of the few people who’ve written more books than they’ve read”) wrote, produced, and directed a paranormal drama set in a hospital. It never aired in Britain (it did have a brief run in Peru), but now, due to the dire state of UK television, the networks have come crawling to Marenghi, begging him to let them run his show now. In addition to the actual stories told in each episode, behind the scenes interviews with Marenghi, producer and actor Dean Lerner (Richard Ayoade), and actor Todd Rivers (Matt Berry) are woven through the proceedings.

Six episodes isn’t a lot, of course. But each episode is so rich in its comedy, and in its performances, that they can be watched repeatedly without fear of diminishing returns. The comedy in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (“Darkplace” being the name of the hospital, and portal into supernatural horrors, where all the action takes place) is many-layered: it’s a spoof of the horror genre, a beautifully absurd send-up of filmmaking incompetence, a satire on pomposity and delusion, and more. On top of this, each of the main actors plays two different roles – Matthew Holness plays not only Marenghi, but also Dr. Rick Dagless, Darkplace‘s stiff-jawed hero who has seen endless tragedy in his life (“Maybe if everyone you’d ever loved had died, you’d be sarcastic, too”); Richard Ayoade plays Lerner, Marenghi’s publisher and producer, as well as Thornton Reed, the hospital administrator; and Matt Berry is both Rivers  and Dr. Lucien Sanchez, Marenghi’s closest friend (though they do still sometimes have punch-ups). The only important figure missing from the talking head segments is Alice Lowe as actress Madeline Wool, who plays Dr. Liz Asher, because Wool went missing years ago and is presumed dead. Otherwise, the gang’s all here.

If cheap and poorly made television done with a knowing wink sounds like old news, it’s never been pushed to these hilarious limits before. Some of the funniest moments in the show come from the way the camera is placed in just the wrong place, or a shot is framed is ineptly as possible. And Marenghi’s horrible writing is often perfect, the result of a pretentious, stupid man not bothering to check his own work for awkward phrasing (“If that’s how you treat your friends, imagine how your treat your enemies! Worse, I expect!”) or inaccuracies, as when Liz is introduced as having studied medicine in college and boasts “I’ve just graduated from Harvard College Yale. I aced every semester, and I got an ‘A’.” Further, in his introductions and interview segments, Marenghi believes that not only has he made great art, but that he has said important things about the world. In the fifth episode, “Scotch Mist,” Marenghi claims to be saying important things about racism. This, in an episode that is blatantly racist against Scots.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was, in a sense, a harbinger of the cult favorite film, and subsequent Hulu series, What We Do in the Shadows. That show, in addition to also featuring a wonderful performance from Matt Berry, is a horror comedy in the same tradition as Darkplace. While Holness has shown a genuine interest in horror, having written serious horror fiction, and even wrote and directed Possum, an excellent and unsettling horror film from 2018, his work as Garth Marenghi is pure comedy, about horror. Other horror comedies, like Shaun Of The Deadand An American Werewolf in London, have moments of actual horror, that give the audience chills and remind them of the dangers faced by the characters. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace isn’t interested in anything like that. Its ambition is to be funny from beginning to end, and it succeeds.

Bill Ryan has also written for The Bulwark, RogerEbert.com, and Oscilloscope Laboratories Musings blog. You can read his deep archive of film and literary criticism at his blog The Kind of Face You Hate, and you can find him on Twitter: @faceyouhate

Watch Garth Merenghi's Darkplace on Prime Video