Loserville, Garrick Theatre, review - Telegraph I really wanted to like this show. Original new musicals, as opposed to productions that, in the words of Monty Python's Spamalot, have been "lovingly ripped off" old movies are a rarity in the West End these days. The trouble is that Loserville, which proves almost insufferably bright and bouncy, leaves you with a weary feeling of déjà vu and indeed déjà entendu. Even the show's advertising campaign attempts to lure the punters in by suggesting that it is like Grease, Glee and the often sublime TV comedy The It Crowd rolled into one. The trouble is that it isn't as good as any of them. Once again we are back at an American High School, and this time the year is 1971. The jocks bully the nerds, who are obsessed with the then brave new world of computers and the TV series Star Trek. Michael Dork, a self proclaimed "geek in a garage," is trying to find a way of making computers talk to each other and we just know that by the end of the show he is going to have invented email. Meanwhile his best friend Lucas (there's a clue in the name) is writing a science fiction novel and from the bits of it we hear, it's clear it will morph into the Star Wars films. These aren't the kind of guys who expect to have girlfriends, but then Holly enters their lives. She has beauty, brains and glasses, and wants to be the first woman astronaut. Lucas gracefully declares himself hors de combat, leaving the field free for Michael, though needless to say the course of true love doesn't run smooth, especially when the repellent, self-regarding Eddie, who has a rich daddy who's a hot shot in computers, puts his oar in. The show has been written by Elliot Davis, and James Bourne, the latter generally regarded as "the talented one" from the boy band Busted. Several of the numbers come from Bourne's 2005 album Welcome to Loserville with his subsequent outfit Son of Dork. The songs are pop-punk lite, and some of the tunes undoubtedly worm their way into the memory. After two hours however their tinny joie-de-vivre has become intolerable. Meanwhile the designs, with garish costumes and a backdrop of electronic circuitry, resemble a shotgun marriage between Playschool and Dr Who. The young cast dance and sing with astonishing energy, but can't disguise the fact that their characters are walking, talking clichés. Aaron Sidwell is a likeably nerdy, needy hero, Stewart Clarke a comically repellent villain, while Eliza Hope Barrett makes an attractively spunky heroine despite being hamstrung by a totally unpersuasive plot twist. Steven Dexter's cartoon-like production is relentlessly and brash and for much of the evening I found myself gazing longingly at the exit sign, desperate to escape this derivative pop-culture pap. The one thing that can be said in Loserville's favour is that its off-putting title tells you all you need to know about the show.