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“Something was pouring from his mouth. Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper-smelling blood. His blood. Blood.. blood.., blood… and bits of sick.”



This week’s recommendation is Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, a 2004 British horror-comedy TV show. It was created by Richard Ayoade, whom you may know as Moss from the IT Crowd, and Matthew Holness. The latter plays the titular Garth Marenghi, a spoof of pulpy horror writers. Within the world of GMD, ‘Darkplace’ is a TV Show written, directed by and starring Marenghi that was shot in the 80s before being shelved. GMD is presented as Darkplace, broadcast in Britain for the first time, intercut with interviews from the members of the cast.



Within Darkplace, Dr. Richard Dagless (Played by Marenghi) does battle with the supernatural in a monster of the week format. Everything in the fictional show is intentionally terrible, in the funniest way possible. Lines are overacted, lines are underacted, sets are cheap, plots are demented, camerawork is bizarre and the whole story revolves around the author’s troubled-but-cool-and-badass self-insert character. All the while, the madness is intercut with Marenghi and the cast interjecting with straight-faced commentary, as if they’re reflecting on a masterpiece that was ahead of its time. I won’t spoil too much, but some personal favourite moments and lines include:

• "I haven't acted since. Some would say I didn't act during, but er, er, those would be unkind people”.
• A character calling a cat from offscreen, only for it to be thrown into the shot by a crew member.
• “I think I’m gonna die” – A decapitated head sitting in a pile of gore.
• 30 seconds of horribly spliced shooting clips while dramatic music plays, followed by “Well, that’ll stop him”.

These all happen in the first episode, and there’s many more I left out.



The world of Garth Marenghi goes beyond GMD, first having appeared in the stage shows Garth Marenghi’s Fright Knight (2000) and Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead (2001). After GMD, the character appeared on Man to Man with Dean Learner (2006), a spoof chat show created by Holness and Ayoade that stars Marenghi’s publisher. In recent years, there have been three books and a short story published by Holness under the Garth Marenghi name:

• Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome (2022)
• Garth Marenghi’s Incarcerat (2023)/li>
• Garth Marenghi’s Busted Earth (2025)
• Garth Marenghi’s Throttle and Bribes (2025)

Holness has done various other interviews and appearances in-character as Marenghi, and as April 2026 is currently doing a book tour for Busted Earth.



The official Garth Marenghi website can be found here.