Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Characters

Characters

• Matthew Holness as Garth Marenghi, author, dream weaver, visionary, plus actor, who plays Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D.: 'Dag' is a Vietnam and Falklands War veteran and former warlock. He also keeps a Magnum revolver on him at all times.
• Richard Ayoade as Dean Learner, Garth's publisher, who plays Thornton Reed, a hospital administrator who bears a trademark shotgun and answers to unseen hospital boss "Wanton". His acting is horrendously bad in the series and whilst those people 'in the know' of the joke behind the series think it's put on, Richard himself said in an interview in the Scottish Metro that "My acting really is that s**t. I'm not pretending". The character Dean was in the Korean war, in which he lost a testicle and became a POW.
• Matt Berry as Todd Rivers, an actor who plays Dr. Lucien Sanchez: Improbably handsome with the disconcerting habit of losing lip-synch, with coiffured hair, and a voice an octave lower than it should be. He generally uses an automatic pistol (with a backup in a leg holster in case his original turns on him). He served with Dag in Vietnam.
• Alice Lowe as Madeleine Wool, an actress who plays Dr. Liz Asher: stereotypical fluffy blonde with occasional psychic powers (sometimes exacerbated by P.M.S.). Madeleine Wool has disappeared since the making of the programme. It is implied through the in-character episode commentaries that Dean had something to do with her disappearance.

A few other (real) actors have recurring roles in the show-within-the-show: Kim Noble appears in every episode as Jim, a hospital worker whose main function is simply to listen to Dagless reel off a lengthy speech and respond with a "yes" or other monosyllabic reply, and Noble's real comedy partner Stuart Silver appears as "The Extra": a character whose name is unknown and has been a doctor, receptionist, keyboard soloist and barman. Julian Barratt also appears in three episodes as the hospital's vicar, whom Dagless refers to as "Padre".

Graham Linehan and Stephen Merchant appear twice as the hospital porter and chef respectively. Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt also appear in Episode 4, "The Apes of Wrath".