In the 1980's the horror writing genius and self confessed "sooth"
Garth Marenghi penned a ground-breaking series of tele-plays. Of the 64
episodes written, only 50 managed to make it into production during the
two-month filming. Marenghi's aim was simple: "To change the evolutionary
course of mankind over a series of half-hour episodes". However, Merenghi
claims that his series was too ground-breaking, and too shocking for the public,
and for the past twenty years direct government intervention prevented the shows
from ever seeing the light of day. That is, until now. Channel 4
(and E4) are now for the first time running six episodes from the series, and
Garth Marenghi has said he is willing to be personally held accountable to God
for the consequences.
Ok, so for those of you who haven't spotted it yet (and to be honest you
might want to get your doctor to check if you are special needs child if that's
the case), it is of course a spoof. But, oh what a spoof.
At a time when to some people new television comedy comes in the shameful
shape of dross like "Mad About Alice" or "My Family", Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
is utterly refreshing.
The series is set in a hospital in pre-apocalyptic Romford in the 1980's,
where Dr. Rick Dagless (Played by the fictional Garth Marenghi) battles
against various supernatural phenomena. If you wanted to understate the
style of this spoof horror you might describe it as "tongue-in-cheek" comedy,
but that would be as over-simplistic as describing Fawlty Towers as
"Man-in-hotel" comedy. (There's some form of clever, observant analogy in
there, so please feel free to rework it yourselves to make it work. This
may suit those of you who are good at those sliding-tile puzzles.)
But there's far more to the format of this show than
simple spoof-horror. The fictional show is encased in an entire fictional
production story. During the show at various intervals the programme cuts
away to straight-faced interviews with Garth Merenghi and the cast who discuss
what the audience are currently seeing, creating more priceless hilarity.
The tone of this is very comparable with the cut-away interviews with the
fictional staff that feature throughout 'The
Office'. This is not the only similarity that this show has with Ricky
Gervais
' work. The more observant
amongst you will recognise Garth Merenghi as the actor who played the
Nascar-racing IT Technician in The Office. (Although admittedly if you ARE
keeping such carefuly indexed and detailed recollection of 'bit parts' in The
Office it's possible you might need a few more hobbies.) In addition to
this, Stephen Merchant also pops up to play small parts.
The series not only pokes subtle fun at the horror genre, but also takes the
embarrassingly bad features of early '80s television shows for all they're
worth. Dialogue that is deliberately written to achieve a level of
ultimate 'cheesyness' is delivered with all the poor timing, poor acting and bad
audio dubbing/synching you could wish for. Special effects go beyond
simply looking cheap and models looking unrealistic, they become an essential
element of this wonderfully unique comedy in their own right.
If you are only able to watch one television comedy per week (and you
probably have your own bizarre reasons if this is the case), then watch this
programme. It's that simple. What you have here is a comedy that
deserves to be as important and as acclaimed has shows like The Office have been
over the past few years.
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace can be seen Thursdays at 10:30pm on
Channel 4 and at various times on E4.
