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    Dr. Rick Dagless, MD/Garth Marenghi 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_52675.jpeg
Played by: Matthew Holness

Dr. Rick Dagless, MD

  • The Ace: Brilliant doctor, war veteran, skilled musician, master marksman and former warlock. Dag has done it all.
  • All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: Justified in that Marenghi is a novelist.
  • Author Avatar: Dagless is a very obvious one for Marenghi.
  • Badass Longcoat: Is rarely seen without his doctor's cape and cowboy boots, even when he's not even wearing pants.
  • Byronic Hero: He spends most of his time angsting about the pain he feels, but when push comes to shove, he always saves the day.
  • Captain Obvious
    I ran the only way I knew how - by moving one foot in front of the other in quick succession.
  • Carpet of Virility: It's the eighties.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: What he's supposed to be in theory. In practice, not so much (well, not the chivalrous part).
  • Combat Medic: Due to the frequent supernatural events in Darkplace Hospital, he spends more onscreen time using his revolver than he does actually treating patients.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Carrying a revolver at all times in a hospital aside, he brings a flamethrower to Renwick's funeral.
  • Cultured Badass: A gunslinging occult doctor who coolly quotes Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: He had a son, who was part-grasshopper, who jumped too high one day and didn't see the helicopter passing overhead. He claims that just about everyone he's ever loved has died, driving him to become the sarcastic, brooding Byronic Hero he is.
  • Deadpan Snarker: "Maybe if everyone who'd ever been close to you had died, you'd be sarcastic, too."
  • Delusions of Eloquence: Garth is quite fond of trying to sound erudite, and failing catastrophically (mostly due to explaining what any remotely exotic word means).
  • '80s Hair: The show is pure '80's kitsch, so this trope is a necessity.
  • Friend to All Children: He's shown giving aid to small children around the hospital, ostensibly saving their lives and giving advice.
  • Heartbroken Badass: He claims that he's lost everyone he's ever loved. We don't know what happened to his wife, but we do know that his half-grasshopper son jumped too high one day and was killed by a helicopter.
  • The Hero: Obviously. He's Garth's character, after all. What else?
  • Ignored Expert: His advice about burning Renwick's body is ignored by Reed, who rants at him telling him that he's a livewire maverick. It's only when Renwick comes back to life that he believes him.
  • Infallible Narrator: Dag is, of course, never wrong in his narration, thanks to his being Garth's Author Avatar.
  • Informed Attractiveness: He isn't ugly, of course, but, by conventional standards, Sanchez is the better looking of the two and just before the musical number, Sanchez wishes he was "More attractive, like Dagless". This can presumably be put down to Garth Marenghi's massive ego.
  • Informed Attribute: Doesn't Like Guns, even though he seems to always have one.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's supposed to be this due to the death of his son (and possibly his wife as well) and with his treating of child patients. However, the way he treats other hospital staff, he comes across as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk.
  • Large Ham: He takes a Serious Business approach to every line, treating even the most mundane of sentences as if it were the most important thing in the world.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Invoked in-universe. Dagless simply wears the same clothes as Marenghi does in the interviews, only with a doctor's labcoat instead of a leather jacket—He wears the leather jacket or one suspiciously like it to the funeral in the first episode.
  • Mage Marksman: Dag is apparently a former warlock and is shown in a flashback with Renwick in a Satanic ritual. He's also always in possession of a Hand Cannon, which he tends to use quite a lot.
  • Marty Stu: In-Universe. It's telling that being the world's greatest doctor is only the tip of the iceberg.
  • Mr. Exposition: He's effectively a mouthpiece for Marenghi's writing, with a heavy level of Purple Prose in his internal monologue.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Every word out of his mouth has him describe his every move, such as the quick wash he has before going into the hospital, as if it were relevant to the plot.
  • Narrator: He narrates the episodes, which makes sense, as Marenghi presumably wrote the script as being from his point of view like a first person narration from one of his books.
  • Noble Bigot with a Badge: He hates women and Scottish people, but he's a damn good doctor.
  • Obvious Stunt Double: Dagless has one during the chase scene during "The Apes Of Wrath". Lampshaded, since apparently Marenghi didn't want to overexert himself as he sweats easily.
  • Parody Sue: Of both the heroes of old low-budget horror and sci-fi shows and films like Quatermass, and of shows like Casualty or E.R. He is more specifically a parody of a real Sue: Peter Rickman of Kingdom Hospital.
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: Rick expresses casually sexist and racist views obviously shared by the (fictional) writer Garth Marenghi himself.
  • Purity Sue: Invoked. "You're the most sensitive man I know, and I know God."
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: He's a reflection of his (ineptly bigoted) creator's views.
  • Red-Headed Hero: Briefly in the Scotch Mist episode. One of the mist's effects is to dye his hair ginger. It's only temporary, as the Scots assure him it'll grow out.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: It helps a lot that Dag's comes loaded with Bottomless Magazines.
  • The Scrooge: He's tight with money, insisting he be paid back for coffees bought for colleagues and buying off brand batteries for hand fans.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: He states the he fought for his country in The Vietnam War.
  • The Smart Guy: He's the world's greatest doctor and generally is the one who figures out the situation as required.
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: His huge tinted eighties glasses aren't quite Cool Shades, but they would have been an indicator of his being The Smart Guy during that era.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Smokes in the middle of a hospital cafeteria (right next to a No Smoking sign) and ashes into Sanch's coffee cup on top of it.
  • Stepford Snarker: "Maybe if everyone who'd ever been close to you had died, you'd be sarcastic too."
  • Would Hit a Girl: Punches Liz in the face when he tries to escape from the rooftop with his Giant Eye baby. He also slaps her to calm her down from her hysterics.

Garth Marenghi

  • Author Filibuster: He regards subtlety as a mortal enemy and is incapable of incorporating his themes in any manner more complex than having the characters spout off long, awkward monologues where they express his exact views. At one point the pacing is brought to a screeching halt so he can explain why buying non-name brand batteries is a bad idea.
    "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards."
  • Billed Above the Title: When it comes to his novels, Garth Marenghi's name is evidently more important than whatever lame One-Word Title is beneath it.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Garth Marenghi is a successful novelist (though it's more down to his talents in self-promotion rather than writing), but he's mad as a brush.
  • Celebrity Paradox: At one point, one of his books turns up in the staff room and Dagless ends up reading it as a Psychic Block Defense against Liz's Psychic Powers. Liz herself mentions that Garth is her favourite writer.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: He believes the government is controlled by rats and that wearing deodorant causes pores to be blocked up, resulting in bad breath and internal sweating, which in turn causes cancer.
  • Copiously Credited Creator: In-Universe. The show credits Garth Marenghi as writer, director, producer, star and even sneaks in a composer credit ("based on melodies whistled by").
  • Department of Redundancy Department: All the time. He seems incapable of writing anything without repeatedly over-stressing the same points until it reaches a point of absurdity.
    Garth: (reading an exerpt from one of his own books) ...his eye sockets were filled with maggots. Maggots? Maggots. Maggots.
  • Giftedly Bad: In case you haven't noticed, he's an utterly atrocious writer whose unwarranted success has driven his ego into the stratosphere, when all is said and done.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Always seen wearing a swaggy black leather jacket in line with his bad boy image.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: Has some pretty obvious problems with women and it bleeds through to the Darkplace characters, who often make chauvinistic comments totally out of the blue.
  • I Just Write the Thing: Similar to the reputation of one of his primary inspirations, Stephen King, Marenghi's splurges out a single draft of a story with total spontaneity, hence his self-proclaimed profession as "The Dreamweaver".
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Marenghi is very fond of this trope.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Insists he's an utter genius but this series tells otherwise. At the opening of one episode, he says he is "one of the few people who have written more books than they have read".
  • The Napoleon: Not Dagless, for once. Garth Marenghi insists in interviews that he is six feet tall. Cut to Todd Rivers laughing hysterically.
    "He's barely five foot and wears lifts!"
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: He's a send up of notoriously schlocky British horror writers who were popular in The '80s, such as James Herbert and Shaun Hutson.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: One of his literary "techniques" is ripping off ideas from dead authors whose work is no longer subject to copyright.
  • Real Men Eat Meat: He claims he eats so much meat, he has a "meat tooth" instead of a sweet tooth.
  • Significant Anagram: His name is an anagram of "Argh Nightmare", which is fitting for a horror writer.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: One of the more entertaining aspects of the show is just how far up his own arse Garth Marenghi is and how outlandish his justifications are.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Garth certainly sees himself as this, as he goes out of his way to wear all-black and writes every other character to praise Dag's unrivalled sex appeal.

    Dr. Lucien Sanchez/Todd Rivers 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d6af594fd7e3e2b0e395aa8f1c9083a1.jpg
Played by: Matt Berry

Dr. Lucien Sanchez

Todd Rivers

  • The Alcoholic: Todd Rivers, who hasn't worked since this show. The commentary tracks imply that he was drunk during filming, as he seems to have no memory of making the show and in a number of the interview segments, he's sipping from a glass of whiskey.
  • Classically-Trained Extra: Is a classically trained actor who obviously doesn't think much of the show, which explains why his lines are so often poorly done or dubbed over. In the extras, he talks about the challenges of acting on stage.
  • Loveable Sex Maniac: Accusations of Todd being a sex pest severely damaged his already fading career, which he seems to be most bitter and stringently in denial about.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: While he's very much his own man, his acting style is heavily based on Tom Baker on his off-days, including drawing out his vowels and striking a pose at any given opportunity.
  • Only Sane Man: Only when compared to Garth and Dean, of course, but Rivers seems to be the only person involved in the production that realized that it was awful, but is too polite to mention it.
  • Token Good Teammate: Garth is a raging misogynist, narcissist, and miser, while Dean is an implied Serial Killer who has a history of child and animal abuse. Outside of being The Alcoholic, Todd is a reasonably normal guy, and he doesn't say anything negative about Darkplace despite being clearly embarrassed by it.

    Liz Asher/Madeline Wool 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/919d6f816abf70f88609e4b16661fbbe.jpg
Played by: Alice Lowe

Liz Asher

  • All Women Love Shoes: She's the only woman in the main cast, Garth needed to put all these clichés somewhere.
  • Ancestral Weapon: In "Scotch Mist", she gives Rick a knuckleduster that was her mother's to defend himself against the Scotch.
  • Brought Down to Normal: After her psychic rampage, Dag performs a lobotomy on her to disable her telekinetic abilities with no apparent side effects to her intelligence. However, she still retains Psychic Powers, such as mind reading.
  • Butt-Monkey: Is the victim of Marenghi's very blatantly chauvinistic writing. In one scene she screams and Dagless punches her in the face. She responds with "Thanks! I was hysterical!"
  • Doesn't Like Guns: Unlike Dag, this isn't explicitly stated, but she is the only member of the main cast not to use a firearm of any kind, unless you count using her Psychic Powers to turn Sanchez's own guns against him.
  • Dull Surprise: Tends to blurt out her lines in a fairly flat monotone in what seems to be an attempt to just get them out of the way, though she's not nearly as bad as Dean as Thornton in this regard.
  • Dumb Blonde: Despite the fact she "aced every semester and got an A", she almost always acts as The Load. This may have something to do with her lobotomy.
  • Easily Forgiven: After she rampages with her Psychic Powers around the hospital and is given a lobotomy to remove her telekinetic abilities, the rest of the staff make light of the fact that she killed the temp.
  • '80s Hair: Par the course with her large blonde perm.
  • Female Misogynist: Due to Garth's chauvinistic writing, Liz often makes vaguely sexist comments towards herself, such as thanking the men for taking away her psychic powers and criticizing herself for basically expecting respect from them.
  • Informed Attribute: She's written as a Hysterical Woman, but Madeline isn't very good at hysterics, meaning that her boss's default response looks like a serious overreaction.
  • Ivy League for Everyone: In her own words, she attended "Harvard College, Yale."
  • Menstrual Menace: When she's on her period and everyone else berates her, her Psychic Powers are amplified to the point where every random object in the hospital is a threat to everyone.
  • Neutral Female: She just sort of exists, except for the one episode where she went mental and rampaged with her psychic abilities. After that, and her lobotomy, the Aborted Arc is never returned to. She's the only main character that isn't always armed.
  • Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Especially in episode two.
  • Psychic Powers: She can make use of telekinesis until Dag gives her a lobotomy to remove that power when she rampages around the hospital. Afterwards, she still retains some of her powers, such as the ability to read minds.
  • The Smurfette Principle: A symptom of Marenghi's sexist writing.
  • Your Makeup Is Running: Every single time she cries.

Madeline Wool

  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: The (fictional) actress, Madeleine Wool, disappeared without a trace after the filming of Darkplace. She is (emphatically) presumed dead by her fellow cast members. Dean Learner speculates that she's "buried somewhere in the Eastern bloc. If she got a burial." The awkwardness of the remaining cast members around the subject and the fact that they're all incredibly shady to begin with suggests that there's a pretty sordid story behind the disappearance.
  • Never Found the Body: She disappeared off the face of the earth after the show, though Dean is implied to have killed her and speculates that she's buried "somewhere in the Eastern bloc."
  • Noodle Incident: Madeline Wool is implied to be murdered, and the other actors' hesitance suggests they had a hand in it.

    Thornton Reed/Dean Learner 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0fed48a72819767412b6b0d85bc5d484.jpg
Played by: Richard Ayoade

Thornton Reed

  • '70s Hair: Dean wears a seventies-style 'tache to make Reed look like he's supposed to be older than the others.
  • Aside Glance: Very frequently, mostly to read cue cards.
  • Badass Longcoat: Wears a long coat from time to time, along with his badass shotgun.
  • Captain Obvious: "I want to see both of you in my office five minutes ago!" -checks his watch- "So you'd best hurry up!"
  • Camp Straight: Dean Learner maybe. Thornton Reed is seen groping Liz's ass at the funeral in the first episode.
  • Cold Ham: He tries to be a Large Ham, but just doesn't have the acting chops.
  • Cool Old Guy: He's supposed to be one. Despite being the youngest man in the main cast.
  • Covert Pervert: Reed is seen groping Liz while comforting her.
  • Crazy-Prepared: He brings a shotgun to a funeral.
  • Da Chief: Thornton Reed is clearly written this way in spite of being the administrator of a hospital rather than a police precinct.
  • Dull Surprise: A side-effect of Learner's complete inability to act with his face.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Every one of his rants.
  • Groin Attack: Reed apparently lost a testicle in The Korean War.
  • Filming for Easy Dub: Learner is such a poor actor that his lines are redone constantly, creating visible continuity errors.
  • Jive Turkey: Made hilarious by Learner's nasally English accent. "My ass is grass, and Wanton's got a lawnmower, ya dig?"
  • Large and in Charge: Richard Ayoade is 6' 2'' and thus the tallest of the main four. It's not pronounced as much as Dean Learner but as Thornton Reed it's emphasized how much he towers over Dagless and the others. Fitting as he is their boss.
  • Large Ham: Again, he's clearly meant to be played a Large Ham, but Learner is such a hilariously bad actor that it doesn't entirely work.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Thornton Reed is an inept but well-meaning hospital administrator and one of the main heroes of Darkplace. His actor, Dean Learner, is... decidedly less likeable in the reflective interview sections.
  • Not-So-Badass Longcoat: Wears one to the funeral. Most likely to conceal his shotgun.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He's probably supposed to be this, but his treatment of Liz torpedoes any illusions of that.
  • Retired Badass: In his backstory, he lost a knee and a testicle in The Korean War and, apparently has been a Desk Jockey for the last decade.
  • Ridiculous Procrastinator: He takes so long to pour a glass of water that Dag is able to work out that it's the water turning everyone into apes.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: His favorite weapon. He even brings it to a funeral.
  • Soul Brotha: Thornton Reed is probably intended by Marenghi to be played as a Soul Brotha; he says in the first episode that if Dagless doesn't pull through, "My ass is grass! And he (Won Ton)'s got a lawn mower, ya dig?". Dean Learner, due to his monotone, nasal voice and general lack of acting ability, cannot quite pull this off.
  • Waistcoat of Style: He's probably the most stylishly dressed character in the show. Dean Learner, not so much.

Dean Learner

  • Affably Evil: If you somehow ignore his torrents of horrible opinions and apparent self-incriminations, Learner almost seems like a harmless dandy.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Learner is quite camp, but denies in almost a Suspiciously Specific Denial that he is gay.
  • Bad "Bad Acting": Learner says he's not an actor, and he means it.
  • Cigar Chomper: Learner doesn't smoke cigarettes, though. He doesn't want to get cancer.
  • Jerkass: He once punched one of the on-set child actors, and it's implied he murdered the person who financed the show ("Achmed", who was interested in "moving pictures"), Garth's second publicist, and Liz's actress.
  • Fashion-Victim Villain: Invoked, namely with his stupid slanted beret. Even the unseen camera crew behind the interview sections insult his ridiculous fashion sense to his face.
  • He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: Admits to doing this when filming Renwick's death scene.
    Learner: I don't know whether someone close to Garth had exploded, whether it was a colleague or a pet. But you could tell that scene meant a lot to him, there were tears on set. Not from Garth, he was strong for the crew. But I wept, I'm not ashamed of that. It's, I suppose, one of the many burdens he has to bear as an artist in bringing us this gift.
  • Never My Fault: Complains about the police forcing him to suffer the "indignity" of legal trouble for actions he heavily implies he actually was guilty of.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: You may be forgiven for assuming that Dean Learner is just a comically inept actor out of his depth judging by the way he plays Large Ham Thorton Reed, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Learner is an extremely troubled man with no redeeming traits beyond his childish reverence for Garth. In contrast to his timorous onscreen performance, his demeanour in the interviews is totally self-assured.
  • Sissy Villain: He's a prissy, soft spoken dandy who has almost certainly killed multiple people and confesses rather offhandedly to serious acts of child and animal abuse.
  • The Sociopath: Dean Learner indicates that he has no sense of morality and throughout the series implies that he has murdered a number of people in order to stay close to Garth Marenghi. He's proudly vocal about his past acts of animal and child abuse, such as when he stepped on his cat's head after dropping a sofa on it. Worse, he's very heavily implied to be a paedophile as he gives his unpopular opinion that girls who lie about their age should be imprisoned or sent to correctional institutions. This possibly gives context for his status as the worst actor on the show, because he doesn't feel authentic emotions.
  • Stalker without a Crush: Is way too into Garth Merenghi to the point that he admits to having punched a child for having disrespected him and its implied he murdered Garth Merenghi's manager in order to stay close to him.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Garth Marenghi. He's Garth's biggest fan (perhaps the only remaining one in the world) and is constantly hyping up his work as being up there with the literary greats.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is a light-hearted and goofy satire of cheesy '80s TV, but Dean Learner is all but outright said to be a seriously disturbed murderer and paedophile.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Dean Learner remarks, in a distressingly off-handed manner, that he violently struck one of the child actors who appeared in the show, hard enough to leave a visible bruise. It was photographed and it's strongly hinted to have contributed to the cancellation of Darkplace.

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