Clever comedy about dreadful drama.
The central conceit of the show is that it was too much for TV back then, as the dreamchild of horror writer extraordinaire, Garth Marenghi(played by Matthew Holness, also co- writer) and his publisher, the 'flamboyant' Dean Learner(Ayoade). Marenghi Himself had played Dr. Rick Dagless, chief surgeon with a dark and tragic past, along side his best friend, Dr. Lucien Sanchez, played by the would-be singer, Todd Rivers(Matt Berry in reality). As legend would have it, the show remained in the vault, save for a brief run in Peru, until the world and Channel 4's executives caught up with the dangerous and subversive vision of Garth Marenghi, who is presented as having wrote, directed, starred in all six episodes. Even the theme music is presented as being 'based on tunes originally whistled by Garth Marenghi', brilliantly sending up the sense of inflated self-importance attached to many vanity projects of the time.
I remember as a kid watching newsreel footage of the early twentieth century, along with 50's sitcoms and 60's sci-fi, wondering how tv from the 80's would look to me as an adult, and now I know for sure it is every bit as hilarious as Harry Enfield's 'Mr Chorlmondley-Warner and Grayson' was in the late 80's, and then some. The series evokes those times perfectly, using the camera, sound and editing techniques, lighting, and peculiar speech patterns that conjure up images of shows such as 'Tales Of The Unexpected', 'Dempsey and Makepeace', 'Doctor Who' and 'The Professionals'. Even the running gag that sees Thornton Reede having to fend of calls from random sex cases (arranged, of course, by Dagless and Sanchez) is a straight lift from 'Starsky and Hutch', proving that the key to really capturing that 80's feel is to bring in elements from just before and after that period. In fact, by the second time the oddly comforting original Channel 4 station ident card and tune was used, I had almost forgotten that twenty years had elapsed since last I heard it.
I can't tell for sure if the character of Marenghi is based on Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Herbert in particular, or any of the legions of horror writers that arose around that time. I probably can't see him as a pisstake of Stephen King specifically because I do actually love King's books, but can't help but notice the series did come out not long after King's 'Kingdom Hospital', in which he also starred in am minor role. The inspirations for a character such as Marenghi were probably all too easy to find in the many writers of a genre in which the line between macabre masterpiece and ridiculous rubbish is so thin.
Part of the shows brilliance is in the little touches; I actually watched the series a few times before i realised the fog swept, late night driving scenes were actually meant to be Dr Rick Dagless driving through the hospital grounds in a golf buggy. The series itself looks and feels like it was made by an unholy alliance between Ed Wood, Aaron Spelling and the unknowable forces of the ITC media group. The made up stories of the fates of various actors, crew and 'techies' are well thought out, wickedly amusing, and probably ring true for anyone who has read 'Hollywood Babylon' or spent even five minutes researching the internet on the types of character who floated around the c-class showbiz set in those days.
Another theme of the show was to send up of the type of bullshit, chummy talking head interview and somnambulant voiceover track DVD extra which seemed to be attached to every release in 2004. The actual dvd commentary for Dark Place proved that you can actually make a second audio track worth listening to, as long as you stay in character when you record it, like Spinal Tap or Alan Partridge and Lynne in the Series 1 DVD of " I'm Alan Partridge".
One thing that put a couple of my friends off the series at the time was the character of Dean Learner, who was the most obviously gay-despite-being-married man since Freddie Mercury, although they were more offended by 'Man to Man with Dean Learner', a sort of follow-up with some of the same characters. Although I didn't enjoy this show as much as Dark Place, I believe the homophobia complaints on both are unjustified, as they merely poke fun at the closeted/in denial and thus bizarrely predatory figures who hid their sexuality behind a disdain for women in general, and the series as a whole is simply holding a mirror up to that most naively futuristic of decades, the 80's; a period when many were shocked to find men with names like Rock Hudson, Liberace and Tyrone Power had been gay all along. The episode 'Scotch Mist' was also a brilliant comment that, despite Dean Learner's Thornton Reede(Ayoade), being a black man in a position of authority, racism on TV, particularly concerning relations between England and Scotland, wasn't entirely off the agenda. Similarly, the fake cast's treatment of the character Liz/Madeleine Wool(Alice Lowe), are hilariously contemptuous of feminist values and seem to indicate that the makers were ready to embrace anything, except the idea that women are men's equal. Another thing I now find ironic is that the parody of a show with borderline racist/chauvinistic tones fits so well with early Channel 4, a station that seemed to be pushing the boundaries of acceptance at the time, but is now probably better remembered for the ill-judged paedo-fest that was 'mini-pops'.
All in all, 'Garth Mareghi's Dark Place' was brilliantly conceived, perfectly produced and ultimately deserved a lot more than the single Bafta nomination it got (for its music), which is why I am even now ranting about it in this blog. The show isn't particularly hard to pick up, either in the shops, or the internet somewhere, as it had an extended run on US cable station, Adult Swim, showing episodes 1 to 6, then simply going back to the beginning again for almost two years straight. That's how good it is.
Visit the official website of the show
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