Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a comedy series made for Channel 4. Created by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, it is a parody of the horror genre and revolves around the character of Garth Marenghi himself, a writer of pulp fiction played by Matthew Holness.

The series' premise is that in the mid-1980s, Garth Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner made their own TV series on a shoestring budget. Set in Darkplace Hospital in Romford, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace tells of the adventures of Dr. Rick Dagless, MD, as he fights the forces of darkness while simultaneously coping with the pressures of running a modern hospital. In spite of the programme's obvious flaws - wooden acting, cringe-making scripts and amazingly poor special effects, to name but three - both Marenghi and Learner still regard the series as a masterpiece. But nobody else does, which is why it's taken nearly 20 years to reach the screen.

Of course, in reality the series is a deliberate send-up both of the horror genre and of 1980s TV production. Each episode also includes interview sections set in the present-day, in which Marenghi and his co-stars comment on the show-within-the-show, which provides an extra layer of character comedy.

The show's stars are:

• Matthew Holness as Garth Marenghi, who plays Dr. Rick Dagless, MD
• Richard Ayoade as Dean Learner, Garth's publisher, who plays Thornton Reed, Administrator and occasional Samuel Jackson lookalike
• Matt Berry as the actor Todd Rivers, who plays Dr. Lucien Sanchez, improbably handsome with the disconcerting habit of losing lip-synch
• Alice Lowe as actress Madeleine Wool, who plays Dr. Liz Asher, stereotypical fluffy blonde with occasional psychic powers

A few of other actors have recurring roles in the show-within-the-show: Kim Noble appears in every episode as "Jim", a hospital worker whose main function is simply to listen to Dagless reel off a lengthy speech and respond with a "yes" or other monosyllabic reply, and Julian Barratt appears in several episodes as the hospital's padre. Graham Linehan and Stephen Merchant also have minor recurring roles as the hospital porter and chef respectively.

Many of the show's jokes rely on the viewer recognising that the script reflects the views of the Garth Marenghi character, for example the characterisation of Dr. Asher as a frail woman liable to burst into tears at the slightest provocation, or the bizarre portrayal of the Scottish people in Scotch Mist.

The episodes broadcast to date are as follows (all written by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and directed by Richard Ayoade):

1. Once Upon A Beginning - one of Dagless' old colleagues turns up on the wards, and all hell breaks loose - literally.
2. Hell Hath Fury - Inanimate objects come to life, endangering Dagless and his colleagues.
3. Skipper The Eye Child - the birth of a giant eyeball brings out paternal instincts in Dagless, but threatens to kill him.
4. The Apes Of Wrath - the hospital staff mysteriously turn into monkeys.
5. Scotch Mist - a mysterious fog heralds the arrival of Scotchmen out to wreak revenge on Dagless.
6. The Creeping Moss From The Shores Of Shuggoth - a cosmic broccoli outbreak threatens to turn everyone into (iron-rich) vegetables.

External links

• Darkplace (http://www.garthmarenghi.com/darkplace/default.htm) page on the "official" Garth Marenghi website

• BAFTA Nominated Score (http://www.bafta.org/craft/announce.htm) by Composer Andrew Hewitt

• Save Darkplace (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/thegoalrash/savedarkplace) the unofficial fansite