"Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" is another original and hilarious comedy show that could only have been made in Britain. It shares a lot of its random humour and imaginative story lines with "The Mighty Boosh". Appropriately, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt have guest appearances here, the latter of which steals every single scene he's in. The whole cast is amazing, though. From Matthew Holness as the ridiculously narcissistic title character, Matt Berry (who might be a bit of a one trick pony, but really gives the performances of his life on this show) and the ever so underrated Richard Ayoade, who also directed and co-wrote the whole thing (which kind of makes him the real life Garth Marenghi, come to think of it). You won't see such great bad acting anywhere else.<br /><br />The show makes fun of Stephen King-like horror writers and cheaply made detective-, hospital- and horror-series all at the same time. What comes out is a weird mixture of doctor-cops who run around a cursed hospital with guns trying to deal with all sorts of spooky occurrences and creepy creatures (while having to deal with the burden of daily admin). Garth Marenghi himself calls it "flat out, balls to the wall-horror".<br /><br />Every single line, every bad editing cut, every cheap costume is a big laugh. From the music to the hair to the stupid story lines, the show is dead on in its observations of a typical weekly TV series from the late 70's and early 80's.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this kind of humour didn't seem to resonate too well with a mass audience, so another series is rather unlikely. That's too bad, because I'm sure they could have come up with another set of six fantastic episodes. As it is, the show is a hidden gem for those who get it and will become even more of a cult favourite over the next few years.