Original subtitles

First horror novel really is the Bible.

It's certainly the first locust novel. As far as I'm concerned, there is only

one horror writer, Garth Merengue.

You know, by here.

A bit more. A bit further.

By the end.

That's what this kind of stuff is. What I hope that my fiction achieves now is

more of the slight chill.

You know, the kind of...

You know, for example, if that was Dawn Waters, you know, rather than... I would

hope that it would be right.

Really?

But hang on, I thought... And

if I can achieve that, then I will die a very

happy man.

Shakespeare was a horror writer. Shakespeare dealt in the realms of the

fantastique, as does Garth. They're both imaginers. They're both ferrymen.

They both explore worlds. That's what they do.

I have no truck with snobbery at all. To me, it's all the same.

Literature, porno, dog racing. And the way that he writes, you know, those

nightmares down, is almost childlike.

And that's what makes it frightening for me.

It's like if you, a young son, you know, or a daughter, and they come bursting

into your room, you know, one in the morning, screaming and crying.

They've had this awful nightmare.

And you say, what happened?

And they say, oh, this man came down with dish mops on his head, and blah,

blah, blah, blah. Do you know what I mean? It has a certain, you know...

certain horror than if I was to wake up, you know, my girlfriend and say,

listen, I just had a nightmare.

This man came down from the sky with a, I don't know, pitchfork, stuck me up the

arse with it.

Next thing I knew I was, I don't know, on someone's tongue.

Jeremy, you wouldn't give a shit.

That's, that's it.

Garth has made a lot of people read, a lot. I mean, most people who read

books hate reading.

Garth makes people who hate reading, read.

And they won't read anything good, but they'll read Garth.

I will generally put in punctuation.

I see that as my job.

Garth does one draft.

He doesn't want to dull it by constantly revising. He'll do one draft, and he'll

often elect to omit punctuation.

That's his call.

I will put in commas.

I won't put in semicolons. This isn't Joyce.

I will omit dashes. Again, this isn't French writing.

I will make sure that sentences start with capital letters, that's what

called. I will make sure the book is long enough, or should I say thick

That could be a question of adding more words, it could be a question of making

the paper thicker.

Depends what we've got time for.

I, in consultation with Garth, will view the cover.

Are there too many skeletons on this cover?

Is this skull big enough?

Could we fit more maggots on?

Should bits of this book be pop -up?

questions like that.

So it is creative.

Horror is dead.

I beg your pardon?

What did you just say?

You should stop writing... No, no, no, no, no. You said horror is dead. Horror

is dead. No, horror's not dead, my friend.

You're dead.

You're dead inside.

If you think horror's dead, you're dead inside.

Horror's not dead at all.

Horror's alive. Here I am. The horror genre, I think, is in a lot of trouble

the moment in the fact that it's been...

made pretty obvious to me that nobody's buying the books anymore.

I mean, Slyker, Garth's first novel, sold over a million copies.

His last novel sold 173 copies.

Mail order.

And it was mail order only.

My books did not sell 173 copies last run.

London Fiends sold 219 because some of those were mail order.

173 was after the returns came back.

Last run of Garth's books.

he was able to give every reader a free jumbo mug, and that's demeaning.

Salman Rushdie doesn't have to give everyone a free jumbo mug.

I mean, the literature sells itself, by and large, although a mug wouldn't go

amiss from Salman.

People aren't buying videos.

The kind of films that are made of spoof.

So it's really possibly had its day.

I love working with women.

Well, hang on, let me rephrase that.

I admire the women I work with. Let me rephrase that.

I will work with women.

Just because I fall out with every woman that I work with doesn't mean I don't

love working with women.

I love working with women. And if women work the way I love, then we'd get on

like a house on fire. But the trouble is women have a different way of working

to me.

They do not like anything I like.

I've been criticised for only employing women at Devil Press, even for heavy

lifting. Now, I work better surrounded by beautiful women.

Yeah, that's one thing you cannot bounce back from.

You can be a boozer, OK? You can, you know, even drink, you know, drink dry

these days.

If you're a sex pest, you're finished.

There's nowhere else to go. You can't be an actor after that. You can't go back

on the TV.

You're a sex pest and you're through.

Best thing to do is to piss off to Spain or something.

That's what I'd do, I think.

You've had trouble at Deans with underage girls. Yes, I have, I have,

right.

The main problem has been... I personally believe that, really, from 13

and up... ..turn the other way.

It's not a popular view, I know.

Most older women put up with a lot of nonsense, I've found. Younger women

days certainly do not.

And I can vouch for this.

It's quite funny now I think back, but a few weeks ago I had a blazing row with

my young girlfriend.

I called her father a thief, which in actual fact he is. You know, there was

argument there.

She took huge offense to that. Didn't say anything that night.

Anyway.

Next morning, she poured scorching coffee on me.

OK? Now, most men would have gone through the roof of that.

Got up, I put my trousers on, grabbed the car keys and I went on holiday.

OK? And since then, she's mellowed and it's been fine.

I personally believe that girls who lie about their age, and I'm talking about

14, 13 -year -olds here, should be imprisoned.

Or certainly sent to some kind of corrective institution.

Because they're playing with fire.

And if you play with fire, little girl, you're going to get burnt.

Gus, I know you once said one of the most beautiful things someone said to

was that they'd actually climaxed while reading one of your books. That's right,

yeah. It was me. I said that to you, didn't I?

I write themes about making love.

Now, some people might think that's just titillation. It's not screwing, it's

making love. It's making love.

And can I just say, you've not made love until you've made love to Mr Jean

-Michel Jarre. Well, that's true. It's like making love underwater, but, you

know, with more control.

In the sex scene, a phrase I do like is her dock, because that's got a nautical

theme that I feel fits in with the dock, with the saltiness of the entire

endeavour. Her dock, my ferry.

Yeah.

Wet dock is too much. And I've seen someone do that. That's pushing it. Stop

dock.

I've read someone refer to it as a harbour.

I thought that was too ornate.

Well, that's, you know, that sounds more vampiric, certainly.

It just sounds like you're going to be more there for a couple of days.

Yeah.

Move on, because I don't want to talk as... You know, it can be sordid. I'll

make love all day. I won't talk about making love all day.

So I'll make love for as long as I can these days.

Which actually is quite a long time by the time I manage to get anything going.

All right, all right, all right.

You've started him off.

It's a sad, sad day. I don't want to hear about it anymore.

I don't want to hear about it, please. Let me tell you, this is a sad day. I

know it's a sad day. It's a sad day for Dean.

A sad day for Dean.

When I had to say... Love, get a cab, it's not happening.

No woman has survived in any one of the last three books of yours.

Beg pardon?

Well, the women always buy it. The women do not buy it. They die heroically.

Do you think that's going to be a problem when you're trying to... Look,

right, we're talking about London things, right? I presume you're talking

the story about the wasp recess.

Yeah. Okay, all right, so the wasp priestess dies, but she was evil.

Okay, so does that count as a woman? She's half wasp. So shall we say I'm

knocking the wasps?

Shall we say that? All right, I'm knocking the wasps as well then. I'm

the wasps and I'm knocking women.

Okay?

The female woman in that, the heroine, so the two women in that book for a

start, well, half woman, half wasp priestess.

If you include the wasp priestess, that's half woman, half wasp. So you've

one and a half women in that book, all right, who show a hell of a lot of

spirit, who are feisty, who can get the job done.

The wasp priestess, I mean, you've really got to read some

books, my friend. You have no idea.

It is true that a lot of the female characters do end up dead.

in dark place. But if you look at their, you know, their character, they're not

all what they seem.

Broccoli woman, she appears, you know, on first look to be a perfectly

beautiful, healthy young lady.

She's not. She's made of broccoli.

You know, she's hiding something.

I'm not saying that sex is the cause of their death.

I'm not saying it's because they have sex that they die. I'm saying they have

sex and then they die.

Put it this way.

When you are making love, everything is potent,

okay?

You probably won't know that, but take it from me, all right?

When you're busy doing it, everything's potent.

You are raised to the highest pitch of experience, okay? You're at a knife edge

the whole time.

You know, it's a knife edge as to whether or not you're going to...

I can't say that.

Put it this way, you're out of control.

Or can be out of control. Now, all I'm saying is that at such extremes, the

chances are you're going to do something stupid like die afterwards.

I grew up in the shit.

Yeah? I could tell you about all kinds of shit. I can tell you about horse

manure, I can tell you about dog poop, I can tell you about human excrement too,

because I've seen it and I've smelt it and I've talked to the guys who made it.

So up yours, pal.

I work a 24 -hour day. I dream, I get up at around 9, read the papers

till 10, breakfast till 11.

And then there's a bit of admin I need to do. And then I hit the typewriter at

about quarter to 12.

And then I break at half one for lunch, which Pam usually makes.

And then we'll go into town during the afternoon.

I might read a bit in the afternoon.

And then it's really dinner.

And then it's, you know, thinking about dreaming again.

It's nice to see you back in the black leather.

What do you mean, back in the black leather? Well, on Darkplace, you wore a

doctor's cape.

I've always liked black leather. I like the buffalo, I like cows, I like that

food group.

And, you know, I like to wear what I eat, in a way.

There's always a roast in our house, either on the table, hot, with gravy on

stove, or in the fridge, cold and ready for the slice.

They often say to people, you've got a sweet tooth.

With me, they say, you've got a meat tooth.

And they're right.

I love meat.

Pam loves meat.

The children don't love meat, but that's what we cook them.

And until they can afford to buy their own vegetarian food, they're just going

to have to lump it.

You use humour brilliantly.

Thank you.

And, I mean, how do you write such funny jokes?

Oh, well, if I hadn't been a horror writer, I think I'd have been a...

you know, sort of musical comedian type.

I'm very funny in conversation.

People love what I say. They find them very funny. I'm just blessed with a

natural wit.

Sorry,

do you try your jokes out on anyone? I don't have to.

They just come naturally. I do try them. If I find a joke that works, I'll

repeat it.

I don't have to try them out. I mean, I know they're going to work.

You've got a very funny anecdote about your first pet.

I used to take him... for walks up the road and I used to let him off the leash

and he'd run into the mud and he'd get muddy and he'd get dirty and he'd be

barking and I'd have only just cleaned him earlier you know and he'd come back

and he'd be thinking because he'd been rolling in god knows what probably cow

turd something like that

And I remember one day he came bounding back and I said, get away, I'm not

getting anywhere. I ducked out the way and he tried to hump a child.

And we nearly had him put down.

I grow bloody sick of how many times, how many bloody letters I have penned

sent off and received no reply to.

So this was always a kind of, for the government.

Sorry, what are you upset about, Garth? The fact that they never replied to me.

Who?

Them.

Who have you been writing to? The people.

The people who hide it from us.

Oh, what, the government?

Yes. I'm not going to call them that because I don't believe they govern.

You've got a funny theory about who is running the country.

I certainly have.

Who's that?

Right.

Garth has many strange theories.

Broccoli coming from space is just one.

I don't like broccoli. I don't eat it as a rule.

It's very fashionable now to eat.

It could easily come from space.

I'm sure that's nonsense.

Not many people know this, but there's a theory going around that wasps were the

originators of life on this earth. We actually come from wasps.

There's a part of wasp in all of us. However, there are some pure...

who are of this earth. I think I'm from this kind who view the wasp as, you

know, our clan enemy.

So I see myself as a crusader, a vigilante against them. They're

creatures. They're very evil too. And they think. It's a hive mind.

We're all part of a hive mind. Did you know that?

We are.

I know that you have a chill corner in your house. Mm -hmm. What have you done

there? It's very simple.

And if you're a serious student of the fontostique, you'll take heed.

You take a corner of your house, and you have your chilli books there, and you

sit in your chair, and you can pick up a candelabra, probably for about a couple

of quid now, if you go to one of these garden places.

Put that beside you. Black candles.

Make sure you've got some extinguisher or something, should there be an

accident. And I recommend the music of Iannis Exarnis,

Bohor I.

Put that on and I guarantee you a nightmare.

Do you think that's the thing many people in the world are trying to

No.

I think Garth, in terms of calibre of artist, will be remembered up with the

very best.

He'll be remembered in the same breath as Rick Astley.

He'll be remembered in the same breath as Maureen Littman.

I would like my remains.

scattered among the tables of my club.

And what does Garth want to hear?

Garth wants to have his remains blown out of a medieval horn.

I am self -taught.

In fact, I've made it a point of honour never to learn anything from anyone

else. My mother...

God rest her, even though she's alive, but let's make sure that God helps her

get some rest.

Brought me up on her own.

Worked a number of jobs.

She was a quick fit fitter.

She was a pool cleaner.

And she was a taxidermist.

And she did taxidermy night.

If there was a rush job on her stuff, she would be called in.

And that's just the nasty stuff that's getting the gristle out, that's getting

the bone out, that's getting the innards out.

And she would do that through the night, come back, clean a pool, get down quick

fit, and then same again.

Nice to see you both, gentlemen.

Hello. Oh, it's good to be seen, Paul.

You've been a team for a long time.

Yeah, too long. Let's talk about how that first happened.

Well... Why Dean, Garth? Well, he... Why not?

I knew who he was because he was making the papers from a very early age, and I

was only 15, 16.

The magazine that I was working on was called Dude, and it changed its name to

Feather.

More English.

And it was a mixture of erotica and fantastique stories.

I got a story by Garth Marenghi, writing under a pseudonym at that time, so I

didn't know who he was, called Face Bottom.

I read it, and I thought, there's something here.

And not only is this a very haunting story about a guy whose face is

half the bottom, but it's also an allegory of the Biafra conflict.

This is very exciting, isn't it?

Let's give him a call.

Come into the office, please.

Came into the office, met, got on, and he just signed my chest.

We never had anything written. He signed my chest right there and then.

In retrospect, I should have got something in writing.

It was hubris on my part.

But we've never looked back. We parted briefly, Garth and I, in the 80s. Garth

for a while thought that he could do better with another manager.

And that manager died.

And then he came back to me.

I wanted to stand for Parliament because I believe that there is a voice yet to

be heard in politics.

That is the voice of the liberated man.

I got seven votes in total, which is a shame because I know more than

seven people.

Society deems driving drunk unacceptable.

That's the society we live in, so we have to accept those rules.

What do you think about it?

I am personally capable of controlling a car no matter what level of

intoxication I'm up to. That's a gift I have.

At the moment, the law denied me from exercising that gift.

I've had a lot of trouble with censorship in my life.

I don't believe in censorship.

I don't believe in self -appointed judges.

I don't believe in judges.

I don't really believe in appointments.

My style is an eclectic mix.

Some of it comes from 20s golf. Some of it comes from Al Capone.

Some of it comes from the future.

And some of it comes from feeble landlords.

I've been smoking cigarettes since I was 12. But you've never smoked a

cigarette? No.

I don't want to get cancer.

Where did the cap angle come from?

This is how a man wears a cap.

I mean, I could put it flat on, but, you know, I'm not a potato farmer.

It looks slightly camp.

Slightly camp?

Yeah. Well, that's your call, friend.

I don't think it looks camp.

I think if you speak to people who know me, I'm nothing if not camp.

Thanks very much. Thank you very much. It's a shame to end on that tone.

It's quite a shame, because I was enjoying that, and you've kind of soured

Never mind.

Dean.

It's like any art form, there's a lot of sitting around.

You know, one gets, you know, dependent on certain things.

I started to drink, you see, in 1979 and things got worse up until about,

I'd say, 1994.

The work kind of dried up and I became, I think, a bit of a joke due to my own.

Bad behaviour, I would imagine.

They simply don't make parts for people like Todd anymore.

The parts got smaller.

That's what happened, and he's got bigger.

I did have to file for bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy is not such a bad thing. People have this stigma about

I mean, it's there to actually protect one. The thing is, if you're not on

something which is on BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, whatever, then people think that

you've died.

OK, I've done a lot of theatre.

Things, you know, for no money, which I thought was good. What can you throw at

me now? I've been imprisoned.

I've been bankrupt.

I haven't worked for many a long year. I've been dropped from every single

record company that I was with.

Do you know what I mean? What else have you got?

I suppose you could say that I'm a sex pest.

That's about the only thing left.

You won't get any proof on anything like that.

The question is, would I want to know the real me?

Who knows that?

I don't want to appear bitter about any of this because, you know, that's a very

sort of easy way out.

I'm not bitter at all.

But, you know, certain things do really get me down.

I tend to sort of change my opinion on acting the older I get, but there are a

few rules that I've stuck to.

from, you know, basically from day one.

It is like beats. Acting is like beats. Standing on the stage is the best kind

of training an actor can ever get. Try telling that, you know, that to an actor

now, you know, they'll think, you know, you're a fool.

All right then, Mr. Senso from EastEnders or whatever, you know, get

on, you know, stage in front of 500 people. That's how many you can get on

stage these days. I doubt even that.

And, you know, reach the man right at the back of the hall, you know, and at

same time see the intimacy for, you know, the first row.

You know, that's not easy.

Can't learn that kind of thing on TV, I'm afraid.

The thing that I normally do is, I mean, I think of myself as being a human drum

kid.

I can actually play the drums, which makes it much easier to describe to you.

So it's as if...

I'm either sad at the drum kit, and I'm going...

And you're keeping up with the, usually 4 -4. 4 -4 is

much easier, because other people know what 4 -4 is. Once you start to, you

know, change and waltz and things, people don't know where the fuck they

So, you keep it, say 4 -4, and you, uh, and you say the line, something like,

Scotch Mist?

What's Scotch Mist?

If somebody like Michael came, his beat would be obviously very simple and would

be a... Where it's just, you know, like a march,

if you like.

Whereas somebody like... Who do I like?

Christopher Walken, for instance.

He would have something completely different, more of a...

You see what I mean?

What about Garth and Dean?

Garth and Dean?

They wouldn't be aware of any beats or any kind of style at all.

Garth would just be...

Dean's would be...

Just imagine somebody mentally retarded sat with a drum kit. Imagine the noise

that they would make.

That's what you got with Dean, I think.

A good actor, I think, is always somebody who is very easy on the eye. I

just mean, you know, looking good. I mean, in terms of easy to watch.

But at the same time, has a kind of edge.

You're not quite sure what they'll do next.

And that's all down to timing.

I could read the same lines to you in three or four different ways, and I...

pretty much guarantee you would only remember one of the actual performances.

I could read two flat and two, you know, how I would normally do them.

That's all it is.

The words, I think, are pretty much, I wouldn't say immaterial, but

it is all about speech patterns, gaps that you leave, air that you take,

that kind of thing.

Very, very short line, but it meant so much, you see.

And your sort of talented, young, 23 -year -old TV actor would probably

read that in the cab on the way to the job. That would be the first time he'd

have actually seen that, I think.

Got on set, stood against his opposite, waited for, I don't know,

probably a second to make sure that the camera was back on him or whatever.

And then would give you a reading of, you and he were buddies, weren't you?

Looking at him.

Which is always a very, very selfish way to act, but it's what I see every day

now. You and he were buddies, weren't you?

Sort of thing. As opposed to possibly looking at the door, which I believe the

theme was, looking back at him.

Back at the door.

You and he were buddies, weren't you?

Need I say more?

Need I say more?

I mean, I turned on, what was it, the other day, that bloody awful

cognizant, what's that called? Yeah, and the most ugly, disgusting -looking

people, men and women, this fat bloke, I haven't got a clue what his name was,

red in the face. I had to turn the bloody thing, I couldn't hear a word he

saying. And it was all that type of thing.

And then this Cockney Sparrow, like young Barbara Windsor type, dyed black

looked like a fucking raven, near enough.

And, you know, this is supposed to be, you know, serious stuff. I never seen

anything like it. It was like a pantomime, my friend.

Really awful.

And I understand 12 million people actually turn on to that every single

Is it on every day? I imagine it is now. You know, most of these things are.

It was. It was like a, I don't know, like a modern day freak show.

You know, that's what you've got to basically contend with. I'd rather

bow out gracefully.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.