MS JUDY Bolton wants her 15 minutes of fame.

Keen to appear on TV show Big Brother, the 51-year-old therapist and mother of two enrolled in New York's new Reality Television School.

"I want the 15 minutes of fame that everybody wants," Ms Bolton told Reuters during a break in the three-hour course.

Ms Bolton, who said she liked The Amazing Race but was worried about the stunts, was aware of the irony of attending a course to learn to be real.

"You say to yourself: 'What do you need that for, when reality really means being one's self?'" But she and many others are lining up.

In London, the Central School of Speech and Drama - which has made its name teaching traditional theatre to the likes of Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench - has been deluged with reality- television wannabes.

It received 4,000 applications this year for 47 places in its undergraduate acting programme.

Mr Geoffrey Coleman, head of acting, said most of them had come to the wrong place.

"There are quite a lot of people who are, unfortunately and quite frankly, deluded," said Mr Coleman.

"There are no 15 minutes of fame here. This is about a lifelong career, a lifelong journey into the art."

But acting coach, performer and producer Robert Galinsky opened the New York Reality Television School, after helping animal-groomer Jorge Bendersky prepare to compete on Animal Planet's The Groomer Has It.

Mr Bendersky came in third, and now gives students at Mr Galinsky's school his top 10 tips, which include learning how to apply make-up, prepare outfits and alert camera crews to what you plan to do so they don't miss it.

Mr Galinksy said criticism that his school was training people to be themselves was naive.

"Reality TV is not reality, everything is concocted and contrived, and it's just an unscripted drama," he said.

"So, if you think you're watching real people being real, then you're already way off base."

He dishes out "eight commandments of reality television" to his students, which include: "show confidence, not cockiness", "say 'yes' as often as possible" and "never say 'I am an actor'."

Mr Billy Garcia, a former contestant on US series Survivor, told the students reality television was a good way to have fun and make money.

"Two years later, I'm still making a buck off it," he told them.

Reality TV has spawned endless hours of hit-TV viewing around the world, in the past decade.

Big Brother, which aired in the Netherlands in 1999, is widely credited with cementing this TV genre.

The concept has been a ratings hit, watched by more than two billion people in 50 countries.

And with new shows come new reality-TV stars, seeking their 15 minutes of fame.

Ms Kristina Powis, who recently moved to the New York suburbs from Alaska and who works part-time in a gym, said that she would be heading home after the course to remove "actress/model" from her business card, in line with Mr Galinsky's commandments.

"I see that (reality TV) would fulfil the reason why I want to get into acting in the first place," she said.

"I have that desire to express myself, to get what's inside outside and there's no more raw, real way than reality TV." - REUTERS