After a month of fighting and boozing, the X Factor finalists are nearly ready to head off to boot camp. Remember, there has been a bit of shake-up to the format after stand-in judge Nicole Scherzinger persuaded Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh to bump the usual over 25s category up to over-28s, after seeing so many talented hopefuls in their mid-twenties..

And now thanks to ITV and Digital Spy, we can get our first look at the contestants who made it through the hilarious audition rounds and into the next stage of the competition. After hanging out in a luxury pad and meeting a famous diva, some of them will then be sent packing while the rest make it into the live finals.

For the sake of our sanity, we hope that at least one of the three Johns is ditched before the proper show but we were relieved to see a lack of twins in this year’s line-up..