Bring The Drama review: Bill Bailey hosts a show with the usual reality TV gimmicks, but at least it takes the gloss off the private school thesps trend

Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic West, Tom Hiddleston – even Superman Henry Cavill – all went to private schools.

So did Dominic West and Damien Lewis. Tom Hollander and One Day's Leo Woodall.

And it's not just the male stars. Rosamund Pike, Emily Blunt, Emilia Clarke and Juno Temple also went to fee-paying schools.

It's a trend Peter Capaldi was bemoaning in a recent interview. He told the Observer earlier this year that “there’s a kind of smoothness, a kind of confidence that comes from a good school. That’s what you’re struck by: they seem to know how to move through the world recognising which battle to fight, where to press their ­attentions.

“But it can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious. I like more neurosis.”

Bring The Drama – hosted by Bill Bailey – also wants to see its actors real-life neuroses. Eight aspiring screen thesps have been picked from “thousands of applicants” - people of all ages and all walks of life who, for one reason or another, put their acting dreams aside when real life got in the way.

There's Luca, for example, who gave up a scholarship at a New York drama school when her mum died.

“I decided I wasn't emotionally ready to go,” she tells us.

Chris, meanwhile, a powerhouse of repressed emotions and drive, is deaf and finds that “acting helps me build more confidence, being deaf in a hearing world”.

So far, so reality show normal.

Everyone has a back story, and there are the usual tropes of these kind of things: countdown music, massive pauses before a judge makes a decision, false jeopardy as the final, climactic scene must be shot inside three hours.

But Bring The Drama is actually genuinely dramatic.

Our eight hopefuls have to do a bit of actorly training – this week, learning how to stage and act in a fight that would look convincing on camera.

Then they have an audition to decide who will be cast in the lead roles for that week's scene, and then there's the scene itself – on location, in full costume and make-up and with top TV professionals.

The screen wannabes are clearly desperate to succeed – trying to get away from their day jobs as baristas or police officer or healthcare worker and follow the dream they have always nurtured.

That desperation sometimes shines through, and Kelly Valentine Hendry, the expert casting director who decides which actor plays which role, sometimes has to rein them in.

But the whole process – although obviously compressed into a reality TV-friendly format – is a fascinating glimpse into the TV system and also provides a clue as to why private schools are dominating the acting hierarchy.

In press ahead of the show, most of the hopefuls said they had to get a 'proper' job. Janice, for example, said: “What held me back when I started the journey into both writing and acting was that I had responsibilities, children, bills to pay and a job.”

And yes, private school graduates have some of the same stresses, but by virtue of a more affluent background, they have more time to practice, more time to rehearse, more time to fail.

Bring The Drama may not find another Oscar-winner – or even a TV Choice award-winner – but it may give some new voices a chance to tell their stories.

To make acting a bit rougher. Which would please Doctor Who, at least.