'Live from his luxury penthouse apartment in London's
'glittering East End, Dean Learner,
'club owner and publisher of high-class gentlemen's magazines
'invites you to join him for an exclusive Man to Man.'
'Please welcome Mr Dean Learner.'
Good evening and welcome to Man to Man with Dean Learner,
where each week, I'll give you an exclusive invite
to my £5 million penthouse apartment
and introduce you to one of my VIP friends from the world of the arts
slash entertainment.
What a guest I have for you tonight.
I first met him when I was working at a horror publishing house called
Beelezebooks.
Now, my background had been in high-quality upmarket erotica
for the discerning connoisseur, so I wondered, understandably,
whether I'd feel at home at a company that dealt exclusively in horror.
Well, I had no idea how quickly the horror community -
and it is a community -
how quickly the horror community would wake up to the idea
of scary porn.
I wanted to release books that would give the reader a boner,
but leave him too terrified to do anything about it.
Within the week, I had coined the phrase,
"books that will scare you stiff".
We had opened up a new herotica division
and our sales just went silly.
How could things get any better?
Well, I'll tell you for how.
I met a young, hungry,
vital writer called Garth Marenghi and we fell in like at first sight.
Thenceforth started a writer/publisher relationship
that has continued to this day and has developed into
one of the most important and meaningful friendships of my life.
Certainly in financial terms.
How could I sum up this titan of terror, this grand duke of darkness?
It would take me an eternity, which I quite simply don't have.
So please welcome Sir Splatter himself,
the fright honourable Garth Marenghi.
Can I just say that when I entered,
the floor should have been covered in dry ice to give the impression
that I don't have feet.
So just bear in mind, I may or may not have hooves.
< Sure.
That's Satu's fault, I made the mistake of giving her
an additional task.
Are you all right there?
Yes, Dean.
If you get frightened with any of this talk of horror
just pop your ear muffs on, OK? All right.
No, not yet... Oh, she's gone.
She's gone.
Satu's my primary partner, by the way.
I'm having actually to downsize the harem here at Dean Towers
because I'm converting some of the girls' bedrooms into an indoor skating rink.
So, sorry, Garth. Now, it's an historic occasion today
and I'm truly humbled to be hosting it
because this is Garth's first public appearance since his terrible accident
of which more in the dueness, of course, if you feel able.
Perhap. Perhap.
And you look marvellous, by the way, the surgery's been really well done.
< Which one is the new ear?
Pardon?
Oh, pardon! Lovely, that's priceless.
You've kept your sense of humour, which is so wonderful.
You have to, don't you?
When people come up to me and say, "What's Garth Marenghi like?"
They expect me to describe this dark figure.
"He writes these twisted, brilliant, but very gory horror stories
"like Stump or RIPPER.
"The guy must be sick."
But you've provided me with more hootage than any man I know.
With the possible exception of Freddie Starr.
It's been my lifeline over the last few months, Dean.
I've been blessed with gallowsian humour.
In fact, as I said to you before I came out,
I think I've broken every bone in my body, except my funny bone!
I thought that would get a better response.
Anyway, it's like when I was in the ambulance going to the hospital,
I was still up for the crack, was I not? The ambulance driver turned round
and he said, "Please, Mr Marenghi, will you stop talking
"or we're going to crash, what you're saying is that funny."
I can vouch for that because I was in the ambulance with you
and I thought I was going to die!
I said, "They're going to have to get two body bags ready,
"this guy's critically ill and I'm dying of laughter!"
This show's wonderful, Dean. It's such a reflection of the wit
and sophistication that's in you.
Thank you for that unprompted compliment.
Now let's talk about what you were doing at the start of the year,
if we may, before what happened happened.
Sure, well, in early January I wrote Return Of The Coil,
about a woman who circumnavigates the portals of hell
via a cursed contraceptive device.
In late Jan, I wrote the sequel, Return of the Coil 2, Re-entry.
In early Feb, Hell Bent, my novella about a homosexual demon
searching for acceptance within his own diabolical community came out.
Both literally and figuratively.
Yeah. And there was a bit of a hold up with that one, wasn't there,
at the printers? We originally wanted everything printed on black rubber,
but that meant you needed to apply talc each time you turned a page
and we thought it was a bit tacky, a bit route one.
We ended up going for a glittery dust jacket
with complimentary nipple ring, which I...
Yeah.
Which I thought worked well.
It does. And then late Feb, the two sequels came out.
That was Hell Benders and Hell Benders 2, The Boys Are Back.
< And you've got a new book coming out now.
Let's have a squizz at a clip.
You know, it frightens me how many novels of terror I've written.
Now you can buy all 436 in one easy to read volume.
'From Garth Marenghi, who brought you Slicer,
'Slasher, RIPPER, and many more, comes Garth Marenghi's The Oeuvre.
'With a reinforced spine made from a genuine cat bone.
'It comes complete with these detachable balancing sticks,
'allowing you to read safely and adjustable brackets for easy storage.
"Order now and you'll receive this attachable index
'and chapter one of Garth's new novel.'
If you only buy one Garth Marenghi book,
buy this one, which is all of them.
"Garth Marenghi's The Oeuvre.
'The only book you'll ever need.'
It's a phenomenal work rate. How do you manage it, Garth?
How do you keep getting inspiration?
Cheese.
I eat a lot of cheese, which gives me these fantastic vivid dreams.
A lot of writers will smoke pot.
If I hit a wall, I'll generally reach for the Emmenthal or the Dolcelatte.
Wash those down with beer and pickles, have a nap, wake up,
chap two awaits.
The only downside is I tend to put on two stone a novel.
But if you type as fast as I do, you can generally sweat out
a stone of that, so it evens out, more or less.
I'm exactly the same with mackerel.
I can't stop at one, I'll eat four or five at a sitting.
So I always make sure I forewarn my dining companion
that I'll need at least an hour for things to settle afterwards,
cos the last thing anyone wants
is for that mackerel to re-emerge during the physical act of love.
Well, you know, you are very lucky with your metabolism,
because mackerel would sit very heavily on me.
I mean, I was approached to be the face of Ginster's pies,
which is hugely flattering, of course, but I had to turn it down
because the sheer number of freebies would have been a death sentence.
At the end of the day, I'm not a salesman, I'm a shaman.
I'm a dream weaver. My job is to question,
like Poe Edgar Allan, is all we see or seem but a dream within a dream?
I don't know, what did he say?
I don't think he had an answer, to be honest,
I think that was the point. Are you real?
Yes.
But are you?
Oh, stop it, Garth, you're creeping me out!
Perhaps you're asleep
and this is a nightmare. How do you know you exist?
Wow, it's interesting, isn't it?
It's like that question, if a tree falls
in the forest and I'm not there and it makes a sound, but I don't hear it,
but someone records it and plays it to me at a dinner party,
does that mean I'm still in the forest?
And if I am, then why can't I just take a piss in the garden
rather than queuing for the toilet?
And that's if the toilet even exists,
I've been trying to use it all fucking night!
I'm starting to doubt the existence of the toilet, quite frankly,
at this stage in the proceedings.
You see?
Can you feel it? I'm getting you to ask questions.
Get a Portaloo is what I'm saying.
If you're going to have a party of that size, get a Portaloo.
Cos I don't want to spend my entire fucking evening in the corridor!
And if philosophy can solve those questions then it's worth it.
But thus far, it can't.
So I'm fucking busting...
...and what's Plato doing about it? Nothing.
You see?
You see, you're asking questions.
<lam.
My mind's abuzz with possibilities.
It's like peeling an onion, but it still doesn't answer the question,
does it, Garth, as to why horror?
Couldn't you do the same kind of questioning in whodunits or porno?
Well, how tong's a piece of string?
That's true.
I've always been attracted to the dark side of life. At school,
some boys would pull the wings off flies,
I'd also perform autopsies.
I think it's cathartic for me.
If I wasn't writing, I'd probably be out on the streets carving people up.
But I see myself as a ferryman.
Society is my cargo, you, Dean, are the first mate.
All aboard!
But you, as well as being a writer, are an actor and a director.
Correct.
And you were working on a feature film.
Correct.
< Called War Of The Wasps.
You've earned yourself a third correct.
And I remember very clearly reading the script
and I said to you, Garth, "I love this.
"I love this script. I was sick twice and then I got the runs.
"We have to make this movie."
What gave you the idea?
Well, one day I saw a wasp
and I thought, "What if that wasp waged war?"
And then the piece really wrote itself.
Sure and could you describe the general premise of the film?
Sure, well, I play Ken Dagless, a renegade insectologist
and part-time horror writer who's thrown out of the Romford Creepy-Crawly Institute
for his radical paper on daddy-longlegs.
He's then drafted in to the secret service counter-insect unit to fight off
what turns out to be an invasion of giant cosmic wasps.
To cut a long story short,
Dagless ends up luring them into outer space via a giant sticky bun.
Sure, sure.
And are the wasps a metaphor?
A meta for what?
No, sorry. A metaphor.
Yes, yes, let's say they are.
We're living in dangerous times, Dean.
We're living in a climate of fear. Kin is pitched against kin
and we're forgetting what is actually the real threat.
Right, which is?
The Dutch.
They look very peaceful,
they appear to be keeping themselves to themselves, but I'm watching them
and it's a good job I am because no-one else is.
And if any aren't too sky high
off home-brewed weed to be watching this, heed my words, I'm on to you.
So, in short, the wasps represent the Dutch?
Yes, because everyone knows that for years now,
the Dutch have been trying to fuse their kind with wasps
to create an insectoidal super soldier.
The Government are trying to be hush-hush about it.
They actually pulled the film from production,
which just proves the Dutch are already running wild.
And we'll be able to see an exclusive clip of the film
the Government doesn't want you to see after the break.
Keep watching the skies!
Welcome back to Man to Man with Dean Learner.
I'm joined in the Man to Man mansionette by Garth Marenghi,
and, as promised, we're going to show a sequence from War Of The Wasps,
Garth's allegorical rendering of a potential future war with the Dutch.
In this sequence, Ken Dagless...
Whom I play.
...is leading a helicopter attack
on the renegade swarm, and if I remember rightly, which I do,
your mission objective is to fire a giant canister of insect repellent
up the queen wasp's back entrance and then detonate it with torpedoes.
Wrong. I actually detonate it using a 30 calibre Browning M19 17A1
hood-mounted machine gun.
Apologies.
Incidentally, for you at home, you probably won't be able to assimilate
the density of the imagery in one viewing, so keep up.
Well, let's take a look.
Charlie, Echo, Bravo, Delta, Sanchez, Bugenhagan, stay close.
How long before the Queen reaches the kiddie hospice, Reid?
It's Sod's law that that hospice was built
right next to Britain's biggest jam factory,
which in turn was constructed next to the Houses of Parliament.
And don't forget, Dag, the one woman you love is trapped in there with them.
Plus, in addition, a couple of the kids have got whooping cough.
Good luck, ladies. I wish I could be up there with you,
but I've got a bad back.
You heard the man. Let's tag us some jaspers. Fall in.
3 o'clock, Bugenhagan, bank left. Try and draw their fire.
Sanchez, dip it low. Let's make them disappear.
Try this for size.
Jesus Christ, wasp on my tail.
Can't shake this one, Dag.
I told you to bug off.
Nice work.
Watch out, the other side.
Dag!
I'm OK. I've lost my repellent though.
Help! Help!
What is it, Bugenhagan?
There's too many! There's just too many!
Keep still, don't annoy them, and they'll just fly away.
No, Bugenhagan.
Aaaargh!
- Jump, man! - Aaaargh!
Oh, no!
Bye-bye, Bugenhagan.
Sanch, it's just you and me now, buddy.
Sorry to break up the tender moment, you fart knockers,
but there's a Killer Queen wasp out there that's hornier than a bitch in season
and we need to frack her bug-eyed yellow-bellied heiney
before she hunts that hospice.
- So get pronto, Tonto! - Copy that.
I've got her. She's in my sights. Bloody thing's jammed.
I'm going to have to fly up the business end myself.
You know I have do, Dag.
Look, I'll make sure they build a statue of you right in the middle of Romford.
Well, not the middle, we wouldn't get the planning permission,
but maybe next to that big Odeon.
Now, listen, don't talk, we've not much time. In a minute,
you are going to see my chopper hanging out of that jasper's arse.
You're not going to want to shoot, because your best buddy's up there,
but you have do, cos you'd ask me to do the same thing.
Sorry, Sanch, I didn't get any of that, you're breaking up.
Look, I'll just shoot you when you're up there.
This is for every time I've tried to drink a can of cider in the park.
Brilliant.
Lovely. Lovely.
Now, since that film, you've turned your considerable gifts
to the world of fine arts and your new exhibition,
Imaginearta Horrificarta,
has opened at the Canvey Island Arts Centre.
That's right, that's right.
And it's been wonderful,
because we've got people of all shapes and sizes, all ages, all shit for it together,
and sometimes they've actually walked out, it's that terrifying.
Well, that is an achievement,
and indeed, sometimes people have been so terrified, they haven't even showed up.
- See, I take that as a great compliment. - Sure.
Did you look to any other artist for inspiration at all?
There's usually something quite profound in there I missed first time.
I thought it was tremendous and what I loved so much about it
is that you provide very extensive notes alongside the paintings
which is great, because there's no need to interpret them at all. I mean, it's all explained.
There's nothing like subtext or anything,
so I whizzed round the whole exhibition in 15 minutes.
Well, people are very busy, Dean, they don't have time
10 go to an exhibition and think as well, $0, and 10 be honest,
there's nothing worse than a work of art that leaves you asking questions.
I was barely thinking.
Thank you.
But the exhibition had to close, didn't it,
because you had an accident when you were working at your home studio?
Do you feel able to discuss this at all?
Well, you know, it was a small thing.
A silly thing really.
You're amongst friends, Garth.
Well, I'd just sculpted a 40-foot statue of my head and it fell on me.
You know, it could have happened to anyone.
Sure, sure. And I understand you were actually trapped
in your own left nostril for most of the day.
That's right, yeah. When Pam, my wife, came home from work,
she cut me out, but I did go for five hours without food.
Jesus Christ.
And then I called you to call the private ambulance
to take me through to the hospital to test me for concussion,
which actually didn't turn out to be concussion, it was just I was hungry.
And actually, when we were in the ambulance,
as we alluded to earlier, you kept cracking these hilarious jokes
and in the end, the ambulance did crash.
That's right, but that comes with the territory if you're an artist.
You know, if it's good for Vince Van G, it's good enough for me.
And since then, you've been working at your home studio on a new collection, haven't you?
Yeah, and I have to say, the new collection's pretty damn primal.
Sure. And we took our Man to Man camera crew, well, cameraman,
let's be honest, to document Garth's fresh brush with horror.
Come on, that was witty. Unbelievable!
Greetings, Traveller, and welcome to my house o' horrors.
Or perhaps I should say my converted attic o' horrors.
I come up here in the morning and the first thing I'll do is I'll strip off
and then ['ll try to catch visions.
This is entitled Famine.
It's very easy to paint famine. Just keep it thin.
I don't know if you've seen, but there's a little skull at the bottom,
so any Hamlet fans that are watching, that one's for you.
This one over here is called the Taxman.
These people are from the VAT office.
This one here is a Valentine present to my wife, Pam.
It's called Consummation.
This is just paint.
This is my most recent painting.
It's my vision of what the family Marenghi would look like without skin.
As I've always said, a family that plays together, flays together.
That's the face of a reader deprived of Garth Marenghi novels,
and what these are are a cross between my eyeballs and my sperm,
so it's my visions that are giving birth and impregnating the minds of millions.
I was so enraged one day, I came in,
I just span that. It used to be like that.
I just did that. I've never put it back, and I won't.
Now, I must warn you, don't, whatever you do, go in that corner.
No, it's all right, don't. It's just we've got a lamp there.
This has been a short, but disturbing journey around my studio d'art.
Thank you very much for coming.
I hope to see you again soon, but for now, get out,
get out, for the demons are coming.
Terrific stuff there, Garth, and you've got a new exhibition,
Aluminartum Diabolicartum.
- That coming soon, isn't it? - Mm-hmm.
Best of luck with that.
Don't need it.
Well, all that remains for me to do is to thank once again
my super guest, Garth Marenghi, for talking to me, Man to Man.
Pleas'.
And to thank you very much for watching. Thank you very much.