“Something was pouring from his mouth — he examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper-smelling blood, his blood. Blood. Blood. Blood…. and bits of sick” — Garth Marenghi, author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor.

So begins the batshit, gloriously silly Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. The six-episode show ran on the BBC in 2004, and features a whole bunch of writers and actors you’d recognise from The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd and other luminaries of British comedy. And you can watch it all on YouTube for free, and you absolutely should, and here’s why.

It’s slightly difficult to explain precisely what the short-lived but much beloved horror-comedy Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace actually is.

At its most basic, you could call it a parody of bad eighties low-budget horror television, full of terrible special effects, tinny synthesiser music, rampant and casual sexism. Kinda like an absurd Twilight Zone.

And that could have been funny enough, I guess.

But it’s only half the story — instead, the concept of the show is that we’re getting a kind of behind-the-scenes DVD extra introduction and commentary from famous horror novelist Garth Marenghi, who is re-introducing his short-lived television show or “lost classic”(read, cancelled) Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace to the world, after the network begged him to bring it back (they were desperate).

He describes the show as being “so radical, so risky, so dangerous, so goddamn crazy, that the so-called power’s that became too scared to show it, and gipped me, much in the same way that women have done since they sniffed out my money.”

So, as well as getting to see the fake show itself, we also get to hear from the actors and producers and writers behind the fictional Darkplace — a slightly complicated setup that says something about the risks the real writers were willing to take, with a comedy a little harder to explain on the box, almost destined to become a cult-classic rather than a Big Bang Theory megahit.

So, it’s less about creating humour from parody — although that can be quite good in itself — but about exploring the massively delicate ego and flagrant lack of talent of the author Garth Marenghi, who might be the funniest and most absurd comedy character ever invented.

Garth Marenghi, Author Of ‘Brain Jerk’

“I’m one of the few people you’ll meet who’s written more books than he’s read,” he tells us in a classic Marenghi-ism, a back-handed boast-cum-accidental insult.

Garth Marenghi is a fairly sad character, a kind of proto-MRA who talks himself up in order to cover his own insecurities. His talking-head moments are some of the funniest of the show, and feature some truly beautiful readings from his books, such as ‘Afterbirth’ the story of a mutated placenta which attacks Bristol.

Played by Matthew Holness, one of the two creators of the show with Richard Ayoade, the character of Garth Marenghi is just a joy to watch, and really is the driving force of the show. However, we actually learn more about Marenghi’s character from his alter-ego in the fictional Darkplace show, in which he also acts, as well as writes and directs. Dr. Rick Dagless M.D is a hero, martyred by being the smartest person in the room and also the only person willing to make the tough choices, haunted by his past mistakes.

In sketch writing, there’s a term called “hat on top of a hat” which describes the act of putting a joke on top of another joke, and hoping that the second “hat” makes the first funnier. But the term comes from the fact that it’s not funny — it’s just unnecessary. You’re never going to need two hats. One will always do a better job if it’s a good hat.

The genius of Garth Marenghi is that from the outside, the many layers of meta-textual jokes that create the core of the show could seem like hats upon hats — except they’re not. Not only is the setup hilariously funny, but we also learn more from this complicated setup, that helps inform the humour. It really is very funny.

Not Acting, Giving Us The Truth

So much of the joy of Darkplace is about extremely well-written bad writing, featuring some of the best performances of terrible acting you’ve ever seen.

Exemplifying this is Richard Ayoade’s character Dean Learner, who plays hospital boss Thornton Reed. Ayoade’s entire performance is a masterclass in how to act badly on purpose. He is awkward and stilted and it’s genuinely hilarious.

In fact, the entire cast is masterful at doing this kind of humour. Matt Berry’s Dr Lucien Sanchez plays a wonderful second-mate, exemplified by an absurdly over-acted and smooth voiceover. Meanwhile, Alice Lowe’s uncomfortably outdated token female and primary love interest Dr Liz Asher has some wonderfully blank stares and the weirdest hair on TV.

“She Was Like A Candle In The Wind… Unreliable”.

As well as all this, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace has some of the funniest absurd one-liners in the biz.

“I had a cat once, I dropped a sofa on it — it was a write-off, so I stood on its head.”

There are elements of The Mighty Boosh‘s love of surreal imagery: “As I rounded the corner, I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef.”

But as well as that, the show has a real passion for weird wordplay, which might be one of the reasons writers tend to love the show:

“Do you understand?”

“As crystal”

Argh, why is that so funny?

Anyway — this goddamn show is very funny and if I haven’t convinced you that it’s very good, I don’t care. You should go and watch it all for free right now, or you should go and make other poor choices.

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Patrick Lenton is the Entertainment Editor at Junkee. He tweets @patricklenton.