Work for it. Fight for it. Hustle for it. Help yourself to it, since it was clearly always going to come to you anyway. Love it, abuse it, lose it -- fame's the game.

Worth playing? If you've the guts, the stamina. Worth watching? Always -- and Fame's the name of the musical that we, the gutless ones, can watch. It is being performed, brilliantly, at the Oxford Apollo until January 4.

Our focus is the New York High School for the Performing Arts -- aka 'the Fame Academy' -- as it was 20 years ago. Its seedy premises (designer Adrian Rees) are receiving what will prove to be the final intake of students before the move up in the world it received from Fame, the huge film hit from MGM.

So who do ya love? Carmen, assuredly. Great dancer, great singer -- she gets a sassy, wise-cracking performance from Yasmin Kadi. Eyes fixed firmly on stardom, she's "gonna live forever", as she sings in the classic Michael Gore/Dean Pitchford song Fame -- the only number borrowed from the movie.

Alas, she is destined to be quickly proved wrong, as drugs claim another victim. One more instance of what Neil Young called "the damage done".

And we care. For this is the clever, compelling feature of the musical, which was conceived and developed by David De Silva, with book by Jose Fernandez, lyrics by Jacques Levy and music by Steve Margoshes. We care because we really get to know the kids from Fame.

We meet them as they sign up for their course -- very much the cream of the crop of New York's young talent -- then follow them through the ups and downs of their academic and personal lives.

Most appealing, perhaps, is the illiterate young Tyrone Jackson, who was superbly portrayed by Lewis Davis, plucked from the ensemble to replace an indisposed Chris Copeland. Tyrone's ballet dancing skills having been spotted by the observant teacher Miss Bell (Anna Stolli), he forms an unlikely partnership with the snooty Iris (Cathie Carday) who arrives at school in her father's limo.

But will his academic failures cost him his place on the course? We wonder and worry as his lack of progress is closely monitored by the fierce but essentially loving teacher Miss Sherman (just hear her sing These Are My Children).

Paul Spicer, meanwhile, excels as Nick, the former soap star determined to make it as a classical actor, if his starry-eyed fan Serena (Julie Atherton) will allow him time to study. How well he works is seen when he replaces the cocksure Puerto Rican Jose (Ben Heathcote) who has been hopelessly miscast as Shakespeare's Romeo.

We also follow the brilliant classical musician Schlomo (David Randall) as he flirts with the world of rock. We sense that somehow he will find his way back to conformity and to the Juilliard School, just as we know that the food-obsessed fatty Mabel (Leigh-Anne Stone) is always going to manage that fifth Lean Cuisine dinner.

Great comedy is provided by Leigh-Anne, which is just as well, since this show can sometimes seem rather dark-hued for Christmas entertainment. But it is a tremendous piece of teamwork under director and choreographer Karen Bruce, and must certainly not be missed.

CHRIS GRAY