Belatedly 'Man to Man with Dean Learner', & 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace'.

One of the troubles with playing catch-up on all the British Comedy stuff I've seen and loved over the years is that I've sifted out much, focussed on new upcoming shows, and it all looks a little too much like everything's worthy of an A+.

Well, back in 2004, just before Twitch started, when 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' aired, 'Kingdom Hospital' was on and it seemed ironically to be parodied in such a timely fashion, and the show itself was little-advertised and hidden away. It's also an unusual show, breaks with a lot of typical comedy show elements and has its' own way of going about things, yet it's clearly got student appeal for it's intentional naffness. Yes, it's a pulp sci-fi parody, made to look as though lost in the vaults and rediscovered. I absolutely loved it, hit and miss though it certainly is, refreshing, well-observed and just nicely different.

Unfortunately the show has taken quite some time to make it to DVD, and has suffered a delay from the intial date of July 2006 which looked likely to be because of a belated USA license for broadcast. In truth, the follow-up series, 'Man to Man with Dean Learner' (Marenghi character Learner, played by Aoyade, giving interviews with old friends, all played by Holness apparently) was filmed just before the Summer of 2006 and is now due to air from October 13th 2006 on Channel 4 here in the U.K (originally slated to appear later in the Summer of 2006) - a few days before the new release date of the DVD. Richard Aoyade and Mathew Holness then began to appear elsewhere - both feature in Iannucci's 'Time Trumpet' series which was likely filmed some time ago- and they've clearly put a lot of work into the extras for the 'Garth Marenghi' DVD too; specifications say there's a commentary on each episode, about an hours worth of special features, plus English Subtitles.

I will be tuning in for the new series, and although I've already seen 'Darkplace' a few times I am tempted by the rare substantial work that's gone into making it an experience worth having yet again, in a slightly different fashion.

'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' delayed October 18th R2 UK DVD at Amazon.co.uk [Driect Link].