While it has been cruelly suggested in some quarters that the multitalented Mariah Carey’s recent psychiatric breakdown was merely an elaborate charade staged in order to escape compulsory attendance of the Glitter premiere, Moviehouse is most certainly not among that number. This is for the obvious (when you see it) reason that if anyone is stupid enough to lend their name and time to a project like this in the first place, shame must surely be an emotion beyond their limited grasp.

The plot: after being dumped in an orphanage by her chain-smoking, booze-guzzling, blues-warbling and all-round bad mother, Billie Frank (Carey) grows up dreaning of a glittering musical career, but winds up being signed as a lowly backing singer by a sleazy producer (Howard) in early-’80s New York. However, the influential DJ Dice (Beesley) soon realises that Billie is the one with the real talent, buys out her contract, and before long starts banging her brains out.

If you’re wondering how Mariah rates as a thespian, it’s unlikely that Glitter can be entirely trusted to provide a fair reflection, with such memorable dialogue as ‘Let’s sing another song!’ and ‘I want to see more of her breasts!’ For all its awfulness, Glitter never even manages to attain so-bad-it’s-brilliant Showgirls proportions, and lacks even the look-at-this kitsch value of previous Popstars cinema excursions (Vanilla Ice’s Cold As Ice and MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em leap quickly to mind).

Ultimately, Glitter is as much fun as a dildo covered in sandpaper, and genuinely makes Madonna’s filmic output look almost decent. Cinema simply doesn’t get worse than this. A must see.