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is garth marenghi's darkplace completely laugh-free?

Started by madhair60, June 06, 2021, 04:09:40 PM

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madhair60

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on June 06, 2021, 09:25:21 PMAddendum: The forum should be warned: The opener poster doesn't think Airplane is funny. And he fucks dogs - purely so that the dogs cum - he makes special care to ensure he doesn't.

cumbled!!

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: bomb_dog on June 06, 2021, 09:53:39 PM
Saw the Darkplace show live and thought it was great. The tv series wasn't a patch on it, but it's fun in one episode bursts.

Edit: probably wasn't called 'Darkplace' at the time but Garth Marengi was the lead character. Can't remember now.
"Fright Night" or "Netherhead", probably. Wish I'd seen them (or they'd been filmed).

Joe Oakes

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on June 06, 2021, 10:16:00 PM
"Fright Night" or "Netherhead", probably. Wish I'd seen them (or they'd been filmed).

A portion of one of these was performed on TV as part of a BBC Edinburgh showcase thing.

Jittlebags

Yes, I think Alice Lowe talked a bit about this on RHLSTP.

Ferris

It's brilliant.

Thinking there are literally zero laughs is a baffling opinion.

non capisco

"If that's how he treats his friends imagine how he treats his enemies, worse I expect!"

Been meaning to give this another go since listening to the Rule Of Three episode about it. I don't think I saw the entirety of it when it went out, in those days you'd get thrown in jail tutted at on here if you said you liked something that was made after 1992. Was this the first thing Matt Berry did his familiar thespian bellow in?

Ferris

Quote from: non capisco on June 07, 2021, 01:00:49 AM
"If that's how he treats his friends imagine how he treats his enemies, worse I expect!"

Been meaning to give this another go since listening to the Rule Of Three episode about it. I don't think I saw the entirety of it when it went out. Was this the first thing Matt Berry did his familiar thespian bellow in?

Yeah, he was filming it while still working in London Dungeons (and expecting it to go nowhere) apparently.

He did a Q&A at a live screening I was at (with QDRPHNC formerly of this parish actually) and it came up.

zomgmouse


amateur

I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

Swoz_MK

Quote from: neveragain on June 06, 2021, 04:28:48 PMThe follow-up Man To Man With Dean Learner, now that really was bad.

It has its moments, Glynn Nimron & Randolph Caer especially. Holness is great in those episodes. Always nice to have a bit more Garth as well.
Ayoade is pretty crap throughout.

More praise for the Darkplace commentary from me. Matt Berry creating a skincare range for people of colour called "Ethnic Cleansing" and the subsequent corpsing is a highlight, and mention of Lexington Steele is always welcome.

zomgmouse

Yeah wasn't the hugest fan of Man to Man but it did give us Steve Pising (pronounced "pissing").

DrGreggles

My only recollection of MTMWDL is that Holness is a bloody good guitarist.

Greg Torso

Well I hope madhair has learned his lesson and is willing to admit how wrong he is.

petril

Quote from: zomgmouse on June 07, 2021, 10:10:50 AM
Yeah wasn't the hugest fan of Man to Man but it did give us Steve Pising (pronounced "pissing").

was worth it just to find out how they'd get "on with the Pising story" in

the pretentious old Ess Eff Actor type was good fun as well

Lost Oliver

It's brilliant.

"I had a cat once. I dropped a sofa on it. It was a write-off, so I stood on its head."

Ferris

Speculating on a what happened to their co-star who is mysteriously absent from the to-camera pieces and never discussed other then in passing terms

Interviewer: You think she's in Eastern Europe?

Dean: No, I think she's buried in Eastern Europe. [pause] If she got a burial.

The in-character episode commentaries go further and heavily imply Lerner has something to do with her disappearance, but the writers and actors left a lot unsaid and trusted the audience to fill in any blanks themselves.

The Mollusk

Quote from: Swoz_MK on June 07, 2021, 09:10:06 AM
Ayoade is pretty crap throughout.

What? But he's normally brilliant!!!

It is amusing that his best performance is in a show where he's supposed to be doing a shit job of acting.

Ferris

I love all his self-congratulatory luvvy stuff.

"I've never acted since. Some would I didn't act during! ...but those would be unkind people, I did my best..."

And also his intro scene about "not putting on an act, but putting on the truth" with the hard cut to his terrible opening line.

Bad Ambassador

Contains one of my all-time favourite comedy lines:

"
Spoiler alert
When my wife died, I was so upset I could barely finish my lunch.
[close]
"

Mr Banlon

"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."


Bazooka

Quote from: Greg Torso on June 07, 2021, 11:01:43 AM
Well I hope madhair has learned his lesson and is willing to admit how wrong he is.

Nah he needs stopping dead, he just said Mario 64 is not good in the nerd forum.

The Mollusk

Marenghi's pathetic attempts at self-aggrandising or appearing sexy or cool are so good:

"I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef."

"I didn't even have time for a shower, just a quick rinse round the key areas."

"I'm one of the few authors who's written more books than he's read." - This one is ridiculously Gervaisian.

The Mollusk

I joined the forum at the time when this was on the telly and I recall among the criticisms there was a lot of flack aimed at it not being a valid parody because it was mocking a specific type of thing which didn't exist to begin with. I remember finding that criticism really bizarre. The show has the imagination to create something very similar to existing tropes whilst being niche enough to be convincingly ludicrous, much in the same way a lot of genuinely awful horror/sci-fi stuff tries its best to be bold and original but fails to convince anyone of its credibility because it's so poorly put together. That stuff very much does exist and Holness nailed the nerdy self-importance of its creators perfectly. I can concur with others here that the episode quality dips in the second half of the series but overall the vision and the effort put in to create this fake show and the little "real" world that surrounds it is brilliant and a joy to get immersed in.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Bazooka on June 07, 2021, 12:43:06 PM
Nah he needs stopping dead, he just said Mario 64 is not good in the nerd forum.
It's just madhair being madhair (i.e. wrong).

I was a potheaded media studies pillock when Darkplace was first broadcast, so it was almost custom designed to appeal to me. I gave it a rewatch some years later, half expecting it to be a huge disappointment, but it stood up well. That was a fair whole ago though, so perhaps I'll give it another viewing.

I remember two of the episodes having very similar plots (Scotch Mist and the broccoli one, I think) and I was never sure whether that meant Marenghi was short of ideas, or Holness was.

Ferris

Marenghi - he explicitly mentions the broccoli one is "similar to last week's" in the opening monologue then glosses over it.

Not to toot on about it too much, but I love the layers of gags in there. Whenever someone walks left out of shot the sound engineering has the footsteps pan right. How many people will catch that joke? Or the celebration in the hospital bar (ha!) where Dean is (inexplicably) the barman - Dag & Rick order drinks and Dean just pulls them fully-made from under the bar. Nice bit of silly physical jokey stuff.

...which is later shown in the in-fiction "making-of" documentary with Lerner screaming at prop guys "just get the drinks ready and put them under there, no time to mess about!" (paraphrasing) so the silly gag from the actual episode is a result of Dean's directorial incompetence which he still doesn't think is incompetent.

That plus Dean's incredulity at being told that yes, usually TV networks ask people to make TV shows for broadcast rather than the other way round ("well this is news to me, sweetheart!").

There's a lot to love about it, and it makes up for times where it is a bit shonky.

GoblinAhFuckScary


druss

Haven't seen it for years, liked it at the time. This thread has made me want to give it another go, I will report back as to whether I laugh.

Mr Trumpet

"Ahmed very sadly died... shot in his own apartment."

Can't remember whether that was from the show itself or one of the brilliant DVD extras.

madhair60