By Anna May

What better platform for performing arts students to showcase their talents than a series where they can unashamedly boast and bitch their way through each day without a care.

If you think the students here are over the top for the sake of the cameras, yes they are. However, having associated with a fair few performing arts students, their petty spats and catty rants behind each other’s backs are really not a far cry from the norm as far as they’re concerned.

There’s a lot of competition at these schools and boastful attitudes do tend to become completely acceptable and part of the general banter between budding performers. Nowhere else would they have the opportunity to brag as openly as they do, because back in the land of the non-singing, non-dancing, non-acting nine-to-fivers, they would be seen as precocious and conceited.

Just watching rival friends, Pia and Megan, bitch about new girl, Rachael, will probably have you hating them. Pia, especially, goes all out to promote herself as the most confident and outspoken of the bunch and you can just tell she’s loving the cameras and the excuse to push herself in everyone’s faces. To be fair to her, she’s actually quite entertaining.

Stage school owners and teachers, Donna and Bonnie, are obviously elated D&B Academy of Performing Arts is being thrust into the limelight and there’s no doubt they’ll have all discussed how they can make the best of their air time. What we’re seeing here is an amusing little production by these very eager divas.

Sadly for Pia, she doesn’t get her own way in the first episode. In spite of professing to be the perfect choice as lead singer for the girl band she’s auditioning for, Megan and Rachael get picked along with another girl who didn’t even sing because she has ‘nodules’! What an insult!

One smashed vase later, get ready for sparks to fly between Pia and anyone she chooses to snap at. Not forgetting a not so impromptu rendition of Fight Song as she consoles herself in private…not.

If you’ve ever spent a few hours in a room packed with performing arts students, you’ll know they can’t keep it in. By this I mean their enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm and it’s not long before you feel like you’re trapped in a scene from Fame or Glee. If there’s a microphone, they’ll fight over it. If there’s a car in the way, they’ll dance across it. I’m not joking.

If you recognize Rachael, it's because she was a former contestant on The Voice. Sorry to say I didn't, but here's her chance to remind us all why Kylie turned her chair.

Also, check out past X-Factor contestant, Casey. He came fifth with Stereo Kicks, but now wants a second chance at the big time by joining the cast…um I mean school…to learn even more about how to be a pop star. Undoubtedly, he feels he desorves ta be on dat stage. Sorry.

All in all, I think Stage School is worth a watch. Episode one will give you twenty minutes to find out if you’re in or out. I’m in, but only because I find the energy and positivity of these kids a pleasure to behold. Yes, it feels contrived and cheesy in places, but so what. I don’t care.

Stage School - E4