Author, TV star and comedy screenwriter Matthew Holness on bringing back his most famous character

“Do you remember when Bruce Lee was fighting Chuck Norris in Enter the Dragon?”

“Erm, no I don’t remember them fighting in Enter the Dragon.”

Simon the I.T. guy was in iconic comedy The Office (UK Version) for a matter of seconds, but the portrayal of the all-too-familiar caricature by actor Matthew Holness is revered and quoted up and down the land by fans.

Meanwhile, Matthew, Canterbury born and Whitstable raised, was already on a journey to cult status under his own esteem in Channel 4’s tongue-in-cheek, retro-clad, bizzare-athon Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

Matthew’s character Garth is a horror writer/dream weaver of much acclaim, only, of course, he’s not and remains completely unaware of his distinct lack of talent. Well, more than 20 years on, Matthew has resurrected the role for the release of new book Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome. With a schedule of gigs (including in Tunbridge Wells and at Faversham Literary Festival) to compete with any popular touring comedian, or hard-working band, it looks like Garth’s return has been eagerly awaited.

“We didn’t really anticipate touring,” says Matthew. “It’s just very fortunate that it has still got its following. Because I really didn’t know. I thought, well, I guess I’ve just got to pitch it to the people who loved Darkplace. But it’s just been really nice to see there’s been a lot of younger people that are maybe just discovering the show and like the character. It’s given it a new lease of life, which I really didn’t expect.”

While Matthew would be only too happy to admit that he isn’t a household name in the UK, he probably should be. He has trodden the same path as the greats of British comedy. Having attended Whitstable County Juniors, and the now closed Chaucer School in Canterbury, he graduated from Cambridge but more importantly was vice-president of the infamous Footlights theatrical troupe that sprouted the careers of the Monty Python crew, the Blackadder crew, the League of Gentleman crew, the Peep Show crew, the Inbetweeners crew and an absolute shedload more. He also won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award (a top gong at the Edinburgh Festival) in 2001 for the stage version of Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead.

Shortly before committing Garth to screen, Matthew played an IT department nerd (there’s a theme here) in sketches from the one-series-only sketch show Bruiser starring Olivia Colman, Martin Freeman, David Mitchell and Robert Webb - the first of a few steps to cult stardom.

“I was very, very lucky, I guess,” he recalls. “I think Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were fans of Garth Marenghi. They came along to see the London show and I think series one of The Office had gone out… and then shortly after that they offered me the role of the IT technician. So it was a huge stroke of luck.

“I’m hugely proud of being involved in it.”

In 2004, Channel 4 aired the first and only season of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, taking the retro faux horror sitcom to the masses. Well, not quite the masses, more… cult.

“I’m quite pleased because most of the stuff I love has always been cult,” says Matthew. “Part of me would hate to have a successful show, and I know that sounds odd, but I actually like being able to go down the street and not really be bothered that much, it’s quite nice. I think the mechanics of cult fandom are sort of in the show anyway - it’s kind of a show about cult TV and about cult fandom and cult books. So I feel it was destined to be that sort of thing.”

The genius of Darkplace was its multilayering. From Garth’s story through to the fictional show-within-a-show and ‘present day’ interviews with the cast. Those who have seen it will recall its brilliantly questionable special effects and purposefully bad editing but also because of the (now) monsters of comedy that it would unleash onto the world - Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry and Alice Lowe as well as appearances from Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and Stephen Merchant.

“Of course, you don’t know this at the time,” says Matthew. “Everyone’s very ambitious at that age. It was such a different environment then, TV was totally different. There were fewer places to do things and there’s now so much choice, there’s so many different mediums you can absorb your comedy from. Those days there were fewer choices, so I think people who were working in comedy were often in each other’s shows. And you all kind of got to know each other on the circuit and doing live work.”

The feel of being among like-minded comics remains, even in the age of streaming.

“I think it’s always that way, for whatever generation of comedians, even up to today,” says Matthew. “I think you’ll find that if you pick people out from, you know, Stath Lets Flats, they’ve probably all been doing live shows together.

“It’s a very difficult profession to do on your own. And I think that at that early stage, when you were trying to make it, I think it’s strength in numbers. In fact, the first show I did, Bruiser, when I was with David Mitchell and Robert Webb, they were very kind and said ‘We would really like Matt to be in it if that’s OK’.

“So, you know, that slightly sounds like nepotism and old boys’ network, which it is to some degree, but I do think that still applies to most things. It’s kind of the people that you share a common sensibility with that you end up working with, and hopefully you’ll get on.”

THE REPRISALIZER

“Technically, I’m a Man of Kent [rather than a Kentish Man] - I looked it up when I was doing research for something,” says Matthew, who based one of his favourite pieces of work in his home county.

The short film A Gun for George again sees him take up the role of an author but this time for a book about an uncompromising detective looking to clean up the mean streets of Thanet. While the Austin Allegro, moustache and sideboards point to the setting of 1979, the shots filmed at the now-demolished Richborough power station and the sorry-looking car park behind Arlington House are long before Margate’s cultural revival.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not finished,” says Matthew. “I’d love to carry on with it at some point. It’s odd because at that time filming it, Margate was very sort of run down. It’s rejuvenated now and is a very busy, vibrant sort of place. But certainly at that time it was pretty dismal. I love Margate and always have, you know, with the wonderful brutalist tower block that’s there. And the car park was like something from Get Carter. It was a wonderful location to set the world of The Reprisalizer in. I hope to go back to it. I love the world of that character. Of all the things I’ve done, I think writing and directing that short film was the best. The thing I most enjoyed doing.”

The tour of the TerrorTome will see Matthew revert to the live version of Garth Marenghi, with readings from the book followed by a Q&A with the audience… all while in character.

“We started off doing the character live, and those shows were always fun because we would never ever let on that it was a fictional character,” he says. “So a lot of our early audience would come along, expecting it to be a real show by a real horror writer trying to frighten you and doing it abysmally badly.”

The skill of the writer obviously remains - the book has sold really well - while the skill of the live performer… well, unscripted audience interaction will really put it to the test.

“I must admit, there have been a couple of occasions in the live tour,” says Matthew. “The nice thing about the audience is they’re quite sharp. And some of the questions are very, very funny. And I have corpsed a couple of times.”

To avoid the wrath of Marenghists we had to ask whether Garth would be back on our screens in the future.

“Darkplace won’t be coming back,” he says. “But who knows, let’s see how the next year goes with books and touring.”

And while a return to TV might not be too far off, for now, staying in the realms of ‘cult show’ is fine by Matthew,

“I think people who do love the show will probably always love it,” he says. “[Being classed as cult] doesn’t bother me at all. I like that. Because it’s about the love of shows and a love of culture that no one else really likes. I think that’s the whole point of it.”