“Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace” is a British cult television series that first aired in 2004. It was created by Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade and is presented as a parody of low-budget, cheesy 1980s supernatural and medical dramas. The show is presented as if it were a rediscovered “lost classic” from the 1980s, complete with intentionally poor production values and over-the-top acting.
The series is framed as a retrospective interview with Garth Marenghi, a fictional horror author played by Matthew Holness, who believes himself to be a literary genius. He discusses his failed television show, “Darkplace,” which he created, wrote, directed, and starred in. The show-within-a-show, “Darkplace,” is a hospital drama set in a haunted building where supernatural and absurd occurrences happen regularly. Marenghi plays Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D., the hospital’s physician and action hero who battles supernatural forces, even though he often appears comically inept.
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace Quotes
1- Garth Marenghi: I’m one of the few people you’ll meet who’s written more books than they’ve read.
2- Garth Marenghi: In times of conflict, when you’re up against an aggressor… be he human, be he inhuman, whoe’er he be; often he’s both…
3- Garth Marenghi: Back in the 1980s, I wrote, directed, and starred in “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace,” a television program so radical, so risky, so dangerous, so goddamn crazy that the so-called Powers That Be became too scared to show it and gypped me, much in the same way that women have done ever since they sniffed out my money.
4- Garth Marenghi: Listen, I’m a writer. If I want to start a sentence with a full stop, I will!
5- Garth Marenghi: I’m Garth Marenghi. Author. Dreamweaver. Visionary. Plus actor. You’re about to enter the world of my imagination. You are entering my Darkplace.
6- Dr. Rick Dagless: The doors of Darkplace were opened. Not the literal doors to the building, most of which were closed, but evil doors, dark doors, doors to the beyond. Doors that were hard to shut because they were abstract and didn’t have handles. They were more like portals, really. From this day on, I’d have to fight these forces of darkness . . . and deal with the burden of day-to-day admin.
7- Garth Marenghi: Greetings, traveler. I’m Garth Marenghi, horror writer. Most of you probably know me already from my extensive canon of chillers, including “Afterbirth,” in which a mutated placenta attacks Bristol.
8- Garth Marenghi: You know, my books are all essentially about what ifs. In Black Fang, I asked “what if a rat could drive a bus. And what if it, and its rat brethren, took over and ate Parliament.” When I wrote, directed, and starred in tonight’s episode of Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, I was asking another what if. Now, I won’t tell you which *what if* it is, but it’s basically along the same lines, but with a different animal. Without giving too much away, think Planet of the Apes.
9- Garth Marenghi: I’ve always loved the great tragedies, King Lear, The Poseidon Adventure, Superman 2.
10- Garth Marenghi: As a horror writer I don’t ask for much. I just hope I’ve changed the way you think about life.
11- As a horror writer I don’t ask for much. I just hope I’ve changed the way you think about life.
12- “Monkeys were put here on Earth by God to entertain us. That’s all we know, Rick. THAT’S ALL WE KNOW, RICK“
13- Dean Learner: I got a script, read it, it scared me senseless, I looked at Garth straight in the eyes, never been afraid of holding a mans gaze, it’s natural, I said; “This is going to be the most significant televisual event since Quantum Leap.” I do not say that often.
14- Garth Marenghi: The broccoli had gone. But the hurt remained.
15- Tomorrow I’d tell her she’d lost weight, or her hair looked nice, whichever seemed more plausible at the time.
16- Garth Marenghi: I realized that man needs to keep in touch with his primal urges, whether through sport or through violent movies. But a man must not let his beast be his master. Otherwise you’re no better than Bill Wyman.
17- Garth Marenghi: Greetings, traveler. Who am I? Perhaps you have met me twixt sleep and wake in the penumbra of uncertainty you call unconsciousness. Or perhaps you met me at a book signing.
18- Garth Marenghi: I portended that by the year 2040, the world might see its first female mechanic. And who knows, she might even do a decent job. Still, I wish her the very best.
19- Garth Marenghi: This place was dark, damn dark. Hence Darkplace.
