Garth Marenghi's Dark Place

Solius

(• ___ •)
Staff
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
92,417
Does anybody remember this show? I've just been downloading it and watching some of the episodes.

For anyone who doesn't know it's set in a Hospital called Dark Place where strange things go on. It's basically really badly made on purpose. It was made in 2004 but it pretends it's an old 80's series that was unearthed and is actually quite funny. It's got Richard Ayoade in it (Moss from IT Crowd).

Stuff like cheesy lines, bad special effects, blatant scene cuts in the middle of a shot, extras staring at the camera sometimes, etc.. They do it really well. I think it was a good idea but it never got commissioned for another series on Channel 4 though it gained a following on the internet which prompted channel 4 to re -show the episodes and release a DVD set.
 
Brilliant show...I downloaded them all a couple years back and regularly try and show them to friends who haven't seen it...Very few get it thought which always annoys me!

The music is excellent too...spot on..

"Garth is the most significant artist that I've ever worked with .....& I've worked with Lulu, and 4 other people!!"

 
I'm Garth Marenghi. Author. Dreamweaver. Visionary. Plus actor.

Brilliant show. The guy who plays the head of the hospital, and is in IT crowd, great at acting shite.
 
I remember watching this years ago, pissing myself laughing in the process. It became a bit of a private joke between me and a friend of mine (mainly because no one else seemed to know what the feck we were talking about.)

Pleased that it's had a surge in popularity recently.
 
Xander45 said:
Brilliant show. The guy who plays the head of the hospital, and is in IT crowd, great at acting shite.
Click to expand...

Richard Ayoade, him and Mathew Holness (Merenghi) were a stand up duo from Cambridge Footlights, they won the Perrier Award at Edinburgh for a couple of their Darkplace shows before it moved to TV. He's been in everything worth being in too, his comic timing is superb. So far Holness is the only one of that crew (the Nathan Barely, Boosh, IT Crowd lot) to have not appeared in any of the others...but both of them are brilliant comic actors

The Darkplace Wasp film spin off from Man to Man with Dean Leaner



"I'll make sure they build a statue of you in the middle of Romford, well not in the middle we'd never get planing permission, but maybe next to that big Odeon"

"Thanks Dag, I like that big Odeon"
 
There's an interesting early post Footlights sketch show with them & fellow alumni Mitchel & Webb called 'Bruiser'.. you can find it on youtube (it also had Simon Pegg & Martin Freeman in and and one of the writers was Ricky Gervais)...it was petty much all of thems first TV stuff

It's not as good as the contributors suggest... but it's interesting

YouTube - Bruiser - Episode 1 - part 1
 
Mockney said:
There's an interesting early post Footlights sketch show with them & fellow alumni Mitchel & Webb called 'Bruiser'.. you can find it on youtube (it also had Simon Pegg & Martin Freeman in and and one of the writers was Ricky Gervais)...it was petty much all of thems first TV stuff

It's not as good as the contributors suggest... but it's interesting

YouTube - Bruiser - Episode 1 - part 1
Click to expand...

Wow, that's quite something. Strange to see them all branching off on their own now, although all of them are successful to one degree or another.
 
apart from the one girl no ones ever heard of....

Yeah I find stuff like that interesting too...Holness & Ayoade went on to Darkplace and through that later Nathan Barely, Boosh & the IT crowd

Mitchel & Webb (and Coleman) went on to Peep show obviously,

and Gervais & Freeman went onto The Office and everything that came after that

and Pegg, who had small roles in later eps I think (he's listed in the cast on wiki at any rate)...had already done Big Train & Spaced which later led to Shaun

So most of the good comedy of the last 10 years came out of this little show no ones ever heard of.....in a way (i'm clearly over exaggerating it's impact! - For a start Holness/Ayoade & Mitchell & Webb were already double acts from Footlights)

but it's interesting that none of them worked with each others 'clique' again...though Pegg has a few cross overs with Freeman & with Chris Morris' lot whom Holeness & Ayoade work with a lot

You could make a small claim for it being a latter day 'That was the week that was'...but that would be a bold shout
 
Mockney said:
but it's interesting that none of them worked with each others 'clique' again...though Pegg has a few cross overs with Freeman & with Chris Morris' lot whom Holeness & Ayoade work with a lot
Click to expand...

This was the bit I found most interesting - they all paired up and then went their separate ways. Despite having a common origin and having worked together in the early days, it seems that once they'd moved off into pastures new they stayed that way.

To be fair, you can kind of see why - Holness/Ayoade joined a clique with people like Matt Berry, Rich Fulcher, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, and the humour they create is very abstract and appeals only to certain tastes, whereas Mitchell & Webb went into a different branch entirely. Their sketch show is much more run-of-the-mill, even if it is clever, and Peep Show is a standard comedy, particularly when you compare it to the sitcoms of the other group, like the Mighty Boosh and the IT Crowd.

I think they've kind of "specialised" now, and so regrouping wouldn't really work as they tend to have separate fan bases who like rather separate types of comedy.

Same with Gervais, although I could see him working fairly well with Mitchell and Webb (better than he'd work with Holness and Ayoade, anyway).
 
Count Duckula said:
To be fair, you can kind of see why - Holness/Ayoade joined a clique with people like Matt Berry, Rich Fulcher, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, and the humour they create is very abstract and appeals only to certain tastes, whereas Mitchell & Webb went into a different branch entirely. Their sketch show is much more run-of-the-mill, even if it is clever, and Peep Show is a standard comedy, particularly when you compare it to the sitcoms of the other group, like the Mighty Boosh and the IT Crowd.

I think they've kind of "specialised" now, and so regrouping wouldn't really work as they tend to have separate fan bases who like rather separate types of comedy.

Same with Gervais, although I could see him working fairly well with Mitchell and Webb (better than he'd work with Holness and Ayoade, anyway).
Click to expand...

I always thought David Mitchell would get on with Chris Morris, who sort of took a lot of the other lot under his wing with Nathan Barely and subsequent Armando Iannucci stuff like Time Trumpet and came out of relative seclusion to be in the IT crowd. He seems to have a similar sharp, biting intelligent comedy similar to Morris & Peter Cook, but certainly less surreal...

Yeah Holness was in The Office as ILC said, in a little cameo playing a rude IT technician...Interestingly, the character he played in The Office, was a character from 'Bruiser' ....Thats very interesting that as it stands to reason that Gervais probably wrote that character

Cos that makes me interested in how it all developed on that show...I imagine Mitchell & Web wrote their own stuff mostly, and the Wiki entry on the show says they were the main writers, with Ayoade & Gervais as the other ones...which means Holness & Ayoade would likely have worked mostly with Gervais (...possibly) and obviously Freeman who clearly formed the closest bond with him. I've no idea what point I'm trying to make here, but I found it all very interesting ...But the way they went (into the surreal) was diametrically opposite to the way Gervais went

In my head I imagine a massive Mitchell, Webb & Gervais ego clash and fall out with Holness, Ayoade, Pegg & Freeman all choosing Ricky's side and Olivia Coleman choosing M&W....I've no idea why I image this though, I'm just going off on flights of fancy now

I suppose this kind of thing happens a lot though....That Was The Week That Was I mentioned, but Not The 9 O Clock News is another good example. Smith & Jones went off and did their thing (With Andy Hamilton who was one of the writers, who later created Drop The Dead Donkey), while Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and John Lloyd (The Producer) went off and did Black Adder...and their paths seldom crossed again, except for Comic Relief stuff ...and until Smith Directed the first Bean Movie.

Damn, I forgot how not going out on the weekend turned me into an obsessive
 
Mockney said:
I always thought David Mitchell would get on with Chris Morris, who sort of took a lot of the other lot under his wing with Nathan Barely and subsequent Armando Iannucci stuff like Time Trumpet and came out of relative seclusion to be in the IT crowd. He seems to have a similar sharp, biting intelligent comedy similar to Morris & Peter Cook, but certainly less surreal...

Yeah Holness was in The Office as ILC said, in a little cameo playing a rude IT technician...Interestingly, the character he played in The Office, was a character from 'Bruiser' ....Thats very interesting that as it stands to reason that Gervais probably wrote that character

Cos that makes me interested in how it all developed on that show...I imagine Mitchell & Web wrote their own stuff mostly, and the Wiki entry on the show says they were the main writers, with Ayoade & Gervais as the other ones...which means Holness & Ayoade would likely have worked mostly with Gervais (...possibly) and obviously Freeman who clearly formed the closest bond with him. I've no idea what point I'm trying to make here, but I found it all very interesting ...But the way they went (into the surreal) was diametrically opposite to the way Gervais went

In my head I imagine a massive Mitchell, Webb & Gervais ego clash and fall out with Holness, Ayoade, Pegg & Freeman all choosing Ricky's side and Olivia Coleman choosing M&W....I've no idea why I image this though, I'm just going off on flights of fancy now

I suppose this kind of thing happens a lot though....That Was The Week That Was I mentioned, but Not The 9 O Clock News is another good example. Smith & Jones went off and did their thing (With Andy Hamilton who was one of the writers, who later created Drop The Dead Donkey), while Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and John Lloyd (The Producer) went off and did Black Adder...and their paths seldom crossed again, except for Comic Relief stuff ...and until Smith Directed the first Bean Movie.

Damn, I forgot how not going out on the weekend turned me into an obsessive
Click to expand...

Good stuff that; I find it quite interesting. The most interesting examples, of course, are the ones like you've given - where nearly all the people involved do end up being equally famous/successful (well, almost, if you discount Gervais), but by going entirely in their own direction and then barely working with each other again, if at all.

It's less interesting if just a few of them make it and the others fade away into obscurity.
 
yeah...it's like when you find out 2 famous people went to school together, you think "ooh, were they friends?...did they perhaps share a glance once in a corridor once? could they tell there was something different about them?"...:lol:...god that sounds incredibly gay, but you know what I mean

Another interesting titbit is that Richard Ayoade directs the Arctic Monkeys music videos...just thought I'd throw that out there
 
Mockney said:
yeah...it's like when you find out 2 famous people went to school together, you think "ooh, were they friends?...did they perhaps share a glance once in a corridor once? could they tell there was something different about them?"...:lol:...god that sounds incredibly gay, but you know what I mean

Another interesting titbit is that Richard Ayoade directs the Arctic Monkeys music videos...just thought I'd throw that out there
Click to expand...

Also Paddy Consadine was in an Arctic Monkeys video and in 'My Wrongs' directed & written by Chris Morris.

More linkage.
 
Oh yeah, he won a Bafta for that..but I haven't seen it. Is it funny? cos Consadine can be very funny
 
Mockney said:
... David Mitchell ...
Click to expand...
I saw Magicians (written by Armstrong and Bain, starring Mitchell and the other bloke from PS) recently, and thought it was dinstinctly average. Have you seen it?

In my opinion it's Ayoade and Holness who are the superior comedians to emerge from that "collective", but then I have a leaning towards the more aburd type of humour.

Anyway. Are the Armando Iannucci shows any good? I just finished watching the Time Trumpet which was occasionally hilarious/brilliant.
 
Laphroaig said:
I saw Magicians (written by Armstrong and Bain, starring Mitchell and the other bloke from PS) recently, and thought it was dinstinctly average. Have you seen it?

In my opinion it's Ayoade and Holness who are the superior comedians to emerge from that "collective", but then I have a leaning towards the more aburd type of humour.

Anyway. Are the Armando Iannucci shows any good? I just finished watching the Time Trumpet which was occasionally hilarious/brilliant.
Click to expand...

I'm a Mitchell and Webb fanboy, I have to admit :D Even though I do love the IT Crowd, Dark Place and The Mighty Boosh.
 
Laphroaig said:
I saw Magicians (written by Armstrong and Bain, starring Mitchell and the other bloke from PS) recently, and thought it was dinstinctly average. Have you seen it?

In my opinion it's Ayoade and Holness who are the superior comedians to emerge from that "collective", but then I have a leaning towards the more aburd type of humour.

Anyway. Are the Armando Iannucci shows any good? I just finished watching the Time Trumpet which was occasionally hilarious/brilliant.
Click to expand...

Well, in my opinion, I think Ayoade and Holness are cleverer and more original. David Mitchell is clearly very clever but the sketch stuff is all very formulaic (although good) and he's at his best on panel shows when he can rail against something. I find it very interesting that he never works with Iannucci & Morris' bunch who are the brains trust in TV comedy terms. You'd think political and social satire would appeal to him.
Ayoade and Holness are obviously more in tune with that than some of their work suggests. They have created some fantastically weird and fully formed characters (If you watch Man to Man with Dean Learner, Holness plays about 4 genuinely funny characters) and I think they're more interesting than the rest of them. From the rest of that group, Gervais, Pegg, Even Mitchell & Webb, are best playing themselves, and usually do.

The it depends on the style of comedy you like really, but yeah I agree with you that those two are a cut above the rest...certainly when it comes to fleshing out their creations.

As for Iannucci, he is brilliant, but it is all sort of the same stuff. The Thick of it is better than the Armando Iannucci show though, as are the early Brass Eye and Day to Days. The show is somewhere in the middle with regard to content and tone, and quality.
 
Mockney said:
Well, in my opinion, I think Ayoade and Holness are clever and more original. David Mitchell is clearly very clever but the sketch stuff is all very formulaic (although good) and he's at his best on panel shows when he can rail against something.
Click to expand...
Yeah, haven't I seen him on QI?

I echo your sentiments on Man to Man, it was very, very good.

I'll have to have a crack at the Thick of It, hopefully I'll find it cheap on dvd somewhere.
 
it's quality. Haven't seen it in years though.

Incidentally the black guy from this and IT Crowd is in a starring role in a new American film with Ben Stiller and Jonah Hill, The Watch I think, though it looks a bit shite
 
Really love the fist couple of episodes but struggle to sit through an entire series like I do with other shows as it's all a bit the same.

At it's best it truly is laugh out loud stuff though
 
You must log in or register to reply here.