His show is over.

Billy Coull, the wannabe impresario behind Glasgow’s comically grim Willy Wonka Experience, is standing, shivering and stuttering, outside his hiding place.

It’s just 5C but the 35-year-old is wearing nothing but a black T-shirt, plaid pyjama bottoms and an air of contrition. He has had, he admits in a throaty whisper, a terrible week.

Coull marketed the Willy Wonka experience using plush images generated by artificial intelligence that bore no resemblance to the reality

STUART SINCLAIR/THE MEGA AGENCY

His business has been humiliated. Many of the grand stories he has told about himself have unravelled. He has left his family home. Plans for a destination wedding in Turkey this June are off.

Friends are now cancelling their bookings.

Coull’s nightmare began after his immersive Wonka experience — marketed using plush images generated by artificial intelligence that bore no resemblance to the pathetic reality — ended