People of Liverpool have their say on Desperate Scousewives

It's fair to say that most Liverpudlians had been eagerly awaiting the Monday night premiere of Desperate Scousewives, the latest addition to the reality-drama genre filmed on their own turf.

But reaction to the show in the last few days has been almost entirely cynical, with criticism levelled squarely at the 'poor acting' and 'unrealistic portrayal' of the city and its people.

The first episode of the eight part E4 series followed model Amanda Harrington and her side-kick Chloe Cummings (cousin of model and WAG Abbey Crouch), as they spent a day preparing for the Juice FM Style Awards in Liverpool.

Viewers were also given a glimpse of the player lifestyle led by leading man Joe McMahon (dubbed as the show's very own The Only Way is Essex star, Mark Wright).

He is caught up in a love triangle with journalist ex, Elissa Corrigan, and new girl Layla Flaherty.

Fights, fake tan, scouse-brows and kitchen bleach made up much of the material of the season opener, sculpting an ever-so-shallow story-line, the likes of which have enraged locals.

Jodie Lundstram's bellowing declaration in the first scene of the series that she was 'back' was deemed as being somewhere between ridiculous and hilarious to most Scousers, one of whom quipped, "You're back? I didn't even notice you'd gone!'.

In a street poll, most people asked hadn't heard of any of the cast (with the exception of Amanda Harrington who has a column in the Liverpool Echo) before the show aired.

Already, there seems to be a consensus that Layla Flaherty is the worst of the scousewives, with more than one viewer calling her 'an embarrassment' after her performance lingering around club promoter Joe before asking him back to her place.

One viewer tweeted: 'Oh my days what is Layla doing she defo puts the 'desperate' in desperate scousewives!!'

ClickLiverpool.com took to the the City Centre in the aftermath of the Scousewives scandal to find out just whether the city's latest TV star's should be points of pride or sources of shame.

Clare Doyle, a 26-year-old visual merchandiser said she thought Layla's bunny boiler storyline was 'the only thing happening in the show' but that, "even that was ridiculous".

She said, :"The men are a disgrace, Joe is nothing on Mark Wright. In fact, it's not even on the same level as TOWIE.'

'It's cheap, tacky and downright shocking'

20 year-old Ryan Prendergast, a student from Liverpool agreed with her: "The lads in the show are nothing like the Liverpool lads I know."

Gillian Turner, a 28-year-old shop assistant from Liverpool One insisted the show was utterly ridiculous in its portrayal of Liverpool girls as well: "It didn't represent scouse girls at all. No girls walk around here on a Monday with rollers in or get ready for a night out in lingerie! It was terrible."

"It's given Liverpool a bad reputation and we're going to have to defend ourselves for a long time now."

Thirty three year old shop assistant Kerry Standford agrees that the show has had a negative impact:

"There are a lot of good things to be said about Liverpool, but this programme didn't show any of them.

"All it did was show the world some stereotypical scousers. I'm glad I live in Cheshire!"

Indeed, an encounter between Amanda Harrington and Jaiden Micheal got pretty nasty and ended with Amanda throwing a drink over the "bitchy blogger" - not the kind of behaviour Liverpudlians want to be associated with.

The one slightly positive remark about the show came from 17-year-old Anya Dottie who said she wasn't embarrassed by it. It turns out, however, that's mainly because "hardly anyone from Liverpool was in it".

Along with critical remarks on the cast's poor acting, many Liverpudlians commented on the 'unrealistic' and 'exaggerated' scouse accent that the girls put on.

Made in Chelsea's Caggie Dunlop suggested that the accent was unfathomable, tweeting: "Watching desperate scousewives... I need subtitles" with another viewer adding: "Layla Flaherty on #Scousewives moved to #Liverpool from #Galway just 5 years ago & found a scouse accent! #megacringe"

With many a scouser refusing to watch the show next week, it seems likely that the Desperate Scousewives cast won't be ascending the reality-star 'ladder of fame' anytime soon. Or if they do, it'll be for all the wrong reasons and the people of Liverpool won't be forgiving.

It looks like it's off to a great start...

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