The Spice Girls' new musical Viva Forever! has been hit with scathing reviews - with critics branding the West End show "a prize Christmas turkey".
Mel C, Mel B, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham showed their support for the big-budget stage show on Tuesday by walking the red carpet at the Piccadilly Theatre and joining the cast onstage for the curtain call.
But the majority of critics felt the production was sorely lacking in girl power, with The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts giving it just one out of five stars.
He wrote: "What a disappointment. The Spice Girls were fun, full of beans... They were can-do, can-just-about-sing. What they lacked in the harmony department, they made up for with vim, va-voom and hip-clingy Union Jack frocks. So how come this new musical featuring the group's songs is so drudgy, so sour and focused on failure?"
Paul Taylor of The Independent called comedienne Jennifer Saunders' script "charmless, messy, lacklustre", and quipped: "Viva Forever! forever? I rather think not."
The Daily Telegraph's Charles Spencer didn't hold back either, branding the plot "insultingly banal".
He wrote: "This musical is tawdry, lazy and unedifying, and one could sense a miasma of disappointment emanating from an audience of up-for-it Spice Girls fans realising that they had paid top whack to see a clunker."
And The Guardian's critic Alex Petridis says the Spice Girls' back catalogue let down the show: "There aren't enough memorable hits in a career that lasted for three albums to support two hours of theatre... The lyrics are required to drive the action on, and these lyrics are appalling."
