Born to be Bad. Very Bad.

I’ve been wracking my brains, trying to find ways to explain to you how utterly dreadful Bad Girls the Musical is, but it seems my literary skills have failed me.

Maybe it’s because my mind and facial muscles haven’t recovered from the simultaneous extremes of switching from eyes-and-jaw-agog disbelief to stomach-clenching hysterical laughter and then back again. I’ve never really been a big fan of the so-bad-it’s-good genre, and this is so bad it's bollocks.

For just a few shorts seconds at the beginning it looked like it might just be fantastic. The show opens with an impressive projection of the prison set from the TV show - it whirls around like an enormous vortex as the sounds of slamming cell doors, footsteps and shouting echo loudly around the arena. Then it fizzles out abruptly to be replaced by a scrawny looking actress who is gradually joined by further members of the cast for an interminably long, sad face song called “I Shouldn’t be Here.” Funnily enough, by this point, I was thinking the same.

Thankfully for us, Toblarina and I had the privilege of our own private box. Not only did that mean we could sneak in wine and snacks, we could also bitch, point and make Statler and Waldorf type comments to each other throughout the show, cheering loudly when the content was particularly poor.

Pound for pound, we did get value for money laughs wise, but it was the laughter of mockery, not joy. We’ve been trying to remember if there was a story line, but all I can recall is the endless singing, the pathetic attempts at punch ups (they fought like girls) and the prison warder having the worst Scottish accent EVER.

Try as I might I can remember nothing of note from the first half, but I clearly recall the horror of the second. Inexplicably, soon after the interval, the show shifted from prison squalor into razzle dazzle Broadway mode. Picture, if you will, a chorus line of glamorous prison guards stick twirling, tap dancing and squawking on about something called “Jailcraft.” I just about dropped my spicy cashew nuts onto the heads of the bewildered-looking saps in the sixth row.

I’d say you couldn’t make this shit up but some poor bastard already did. It makes me wonder what horrific mental torture their mind must bestow upon them. There must be some kind of NHS therapy they can apply for.

Back to the prison for the final scenes there was a tough-cookie new inmate, some nonsense about a fire and an escape in a passing helicopter … followed by a collective sigh of relief that it was all over.

Leaving the building the audience could barely look each other in the eye, and the staff seemed mortified with embarrassment. I have to feel sorry for the cast, it’s the actors’ equivalent of a day job with Greenwich Council, I’ll give it two weeks before it closes.