Post by The Collector on Sept 26, 2006 9:20:23 GMT
No bugger watched this when it was on BUT it get's a reapeat next week (3rd oct C4).
Good stuff!
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
UK, Ch4/Avalon Television, Sitcom, Colour, 2004
Starring: Matthew Holness, Alice Lowe, Richard Ayoade
Back in the 1980s, horror writer Garth Marenghi wrote, directed and starred in the terrifying Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a TV series so radical, risky and 'goddam crazy' that 'the powers that be' suppressed it. Now 20 years on, as a result of the worst artistic drought in broadcast history, the show is being aired for the first time in the UK.
This, anyway, is the gospel according to Marenghi, as he introduces his long-lost series to a new generation. To spice things up, he has filmed new interviews with the major participants, such insights into its making popping up between scenes.
The show itself turns out to be a cheesy 1970s-80s-style dabble into the world of horror, set in Darkplace Hospital, where the haunted Dr Rick Dagless (Marenghi) faces a nightmarish evil which stalks the hospital and threatens to destroy the world. Aided by colleagues Dr Sanchez and Dr Asher, who turns out to be psychic, and sometimes hindered by the no-nonsense boss Thornton Reid (played by Garth's publisher Dean Learner), Marenghi juggles the punishing hours of medical work with his clandestine battle against the dark forces.
Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness - winners of the 2001 Perrier Award with Garth Marenghi's Netherhead - adapted their pretentious horror-writer character, like a super-egotistic Stephen King, for this lively and sparky C4 spoof, the root of the humour being that Marenghi is rubbish and so is everything in which he's involved. He genuinely believes that Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a groundbreaking masterpiece considered too dark for the 1980s by some faceless government department (MI8?), whereas we can see that it's a tawdry, badly written, appallingly acted, ham-fisted slice of hokum with wobbly sets, useless special effects and inept sound dubbing.
Good stuff!
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
UK, Ch4/Avalon Television, Sitcom, Colour, 2004
Starring: Matthew Holness, Alice Lowe, Richard Ayoade
Back in the 1980s, horror writer Garth Marenghi wrote, directed and starred in the terrifying Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a TV series so radical, risky and 'goddam crazy' that 'the powers that be' suppressed it. Now 20 years on, as a result of the worst artistic drought in broadcast history, the show is being aired for the first time in the UK.
This, anyway, is the gospel according to Marenghi, as he introduces his long-lost series to a new generation. To spice things up, he has filmed new interviews with the major participants, such insights into its making popping up between scenes.
The show itself turns out to be a cheesy 1970s-80s-style dabble into the world of horror, set in Darkplace Hospital, where the haunted Dr Rick Dagless (Marenghi) faces a nightmarish evil which stalks the hospital and threatens to destroy the world. Aided by colleagues Dr Sanchez and Dr Asher, who turns out to be psychic, and sometimes hindered by the no-nonsense boss Thornton Reid (played by Garth's publisher Dean Learner), Marenghi juggles the punishing hours of medical work with his clandestine battle against the dark forces.
Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness - winners of the 2001 Perrier Award with Garth Marenghi's Netherhead - adapted their pretentious horror-writer character, like a super-egotistic Stephen King, for this lively and sparky C4 spoof, the root of the humour being that Marenghi is rubbish and so is everything in which he's involved. He genuinely believes that Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a groundbreaking masterpiece considered too dark for the 1980s by some faceless government department (MI8?), whereas we can see that it's a tawdry, badly written, appallingly acted, ham-fisted slice of hokum with wobbly sets, useless special effects and inept sound dubbing.
