The Young and The Restless | Enjoyably incarcerated

I discovered this when I was incarcerated and issued a prison jumpsuit coloured the same as the sweet juicy citrus in the city recently.

The warden led me to a sparsely furnished cell, though there was a tin cup on a shelf also holding a Bible that I could check my reflection in for suitability of my new outfit.

Not that it mattered how I looked.

I was in a darkened facility made of stone and iron.

And everyone else in my cell block was wearing the same unflattering get-up anyway.

Obviously. That’s how prisons roll.

You might be curious as to how I wound up in the lock-up on a weekend in Melbourne.

I could tell you that what happens on a girls’ trip stays on a girls’ trip.

But that would make for a very short column and I’m a classic oversharer anyway, so, I’ll elaborate.

Firstly, I was grateful my friend was chucked in the same cage as me.

It made it bearable.

Dare I say it; it made prison fun.

She actually smuggled a bottle of vodka in and we quickly found an inmate who could flip it into — without exaggeration — the most delicious cocktails I’ve tasted this side of the barbed wire wall.

We were in Alcotraz.

Not to be confused with the actual hardcore island facility Alcatraz off the coast of San Francisco.

The vodka my friend smuggled wasn’t real. The bartending inmate was a member of a very talented cast.

The jail setting, as authentic as it looked, was a themed bar in the city, also known as Cell Block Five-Nine-Two.

The staff members make it clear via disclaimer in an introduction shortly after arrival and the stuffing of our jackets with their fake bottles of alcoholic contraband, that the idea of the worldwide chain of establishments is not to glorify criminals and incarceration.

Instead, they suggested that we view the whole immersive experience as though we are an audience watching them perform a workplace comedy, which we could interact with when invited.

They did not break character for the two-hour duration and their performances were outstanding.

Each cell, which could fit up to six guests-cum-prisoners inside, was assigned its own bartender-slash-waitperson who made us four different cocktails each using the base spirit of our choice.

We stayed seated, enjoying our direct-to-cell service (think table or room service) while we watched a rogue inmate argue with the injustice a tough warden — who dropped the most hilarious and sometimes deadpan improvised one-liners — cast upon him.

We witnessed corruption in the ranks. Some inmates were subject to cell searches to find prohibited items. One celebrating a birthday had a little more of an interactive starring role.

The only time we had to leave our scene-setting cramped little quarters was to visit the bathroom, which had all the touches I’d imagine a real prison does, and when we were called to the warden’s office for a parole review.

After on-the-spot scrutiny and further interrogation over the answers we’d filled in on our prison record cards and a few jibes about our made-up names and appearances, we were all denied parole and sent back to our cells to finish our sentences.

We were escorted there via a line-up room where we had our mugshots taken (on our own phones by the warden himself).

While it was theatrical from start to finish, three main acts were performed in the corridor between the two rows of cells that lined the outer walls during our sentence.

If you go, time your toilet breaks around the entertainment because I promise it’s worth seeing.

We were a party of two, so we were chucked in a cell with a couple of strangers also in a small group.

Our cellmates were lovely, but going to this in a group of four or six friends would probably make for an even better time.

Otherwise, I can’t fault our time served within the brick walls of this bar behind bars.

We did time and it was the greatest time.

I can’t think of a better themed bar experience I’ve had, and there’s been a few throughout the years.

Like the citrus twist in our contraband-curated cocktails, a twist in the story saw us all released on to the streets of Melbourne.

Usually, we’d kick on after any other two-hour experience with the night still so young.

But we chose to bask in our new-found freedom by heading straight back to beds comfier than the ones in our cell, in our motel rooms.

Alcotraz has the key to locking in a fulfilling enough experience on its own.

Hopefully it won’t be thrown away.