Fame show reveals hopefuls

Eleven of the 12 contestants have been unveiled

Contestants on the upcoming reality talent show Fame Academy are to include a teacher, gas fitter and truck salesman, the BBC has announced.

The show will see the group of 12 ensconced in a £35m mansion while they hone their musical skills ready for a career in showbiz.

Aged between 18-31, the 11 named contestants include a mixture of students and performers and working people.

	:	BBC Fame Academy
Meet the contestants

The 12th contestant will join them on Friday when the public vote in the final housemate during the first show.

Seen by some as the BBC's effort to rival ITV's Popstars: The Rivals, Fame Academy will see live performances as well as Big Brother-style reality footage.

Spending much of their time being coached, the contestants will meet showbiz guest tutors such as Anastacia and Enrique Iglesias.

Winner's luxury

Poorly-performing contestants will be picked up by their tutors and then face eviction by the public and their peers.

Tattooed father-of-four Nigel Wilson is the oldest

They will be fighting to win a £1m record deal and life in the lap of luxury.

Two of the 11 contestants have already had record deals. Ainslie Henderson, 23, from Hawick, Scotland, had a band called Suburbia who were signed to a small Los Angeles label before splitting up last year.

Singer-songwriter Marli (short for Marilena) Buck, from Lancashire, has had two record deals and works as a nursing assistant and counsellor at a hospital for people with eating disorders.

Tattooed father-of-four Nigel Wilson, from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, is the oldest of the contestants at 31, and with a job selling trucks to Africa is likely to be one of the show's characters.

Also among the show's slightly more unlikely contestants is 28-year-old Ashley House, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, an economics teacher and committed Christian who reads the Bible every morning.

There will be at least one committed Christian

The other contestants include 18-year-old student Katie Lewis, from Bristol, 24-year-old account manager Lemar Obika, from London, 22-year-old Northern Irish Malachi Cush and 19-year-old drama student Naomi Roper, originally from the Scottish Borders.

The roster is completed by Inverness-born 23-year-old IT engineer Chris Manning who lives with his parents in Poole in Dorset, part time beautician Camilla Beeput, 20, from north-west London, and Pippa Fulton, a 20-year-old stage school student from Hull.

The contestants were among 12,000 hopefuls who vied to take part in the gruelling show.

The lucky 12 will be given four hour vocal coaching sessions, intensive song-writing tutorials and exhausting dance and exercise classes with Kevin Adams.