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But then who could have blamed him? There are things that young children feel passionate about, but the thrill of falling in love isn’t one of them. Had you given him a song called Danny Kendall's Dead and Grange Hill will never be the Same Again!, on the other hand, it might have been the underage Bohemian Rhapsody of its day.

In possibly the documentary’s cruellest moment, we cut to the EMI launch party for Darren’s single. Introduced to the song’s co-writer Roger Greenaway, the boy mentions the NME review of his single. “Somebody said they’d like to strangle me!” chirped Darren innocently.

“Actually, I sort of agree with that,” replied Greenaway, turning to Darren’s horrified Dad (who just happened to be the A&R man responsible for signing him). “I think the song is too old for him.”

As it happens, next month sees the release of two albums written and recorded (for all the right reasons) by children, both of which ought to garner some bona fide acclaim from music fans. Of the two, the Seattle duo Smoosh are the more thrilling aberration.

While 11-year-old Chloë (no surnames are given) handles drums, the songs of her piano-playing sister Asya (13) seem to work because she uses the unselfconsciousness of childhood to its optimum effect, allying her yearning nasal tones to a cache of rather lovely stream-of-consciouness lyrics. Imagine a young Michael Stipe crossed with a lo-fi Tori Amos and you’re close to alighting on the improbable appeal of It’s Cold and About the Picture.

While Smoosh colonise the indie high ground, the all-girl Leicester quartet Love Bites — all in their mid-teens — seem destined to make a mainstream killing. With their new single You Broke My Heart crawling on to radio playlists a month ahead of release, the album set to follow it isn’t at all bad, sounding like something that Courtney Love might have rustled up in 1993 had she been nursing an addiction to Chewits.

It’s a shrill girly racket that deals with some of the most pressing issues currently occupying the teenage agenda: revenge against boyfriends who don’t treat you proper, ugly rival girlfriends and, um, neighbours who complain about noise.

Love Bites’ sonic blueprint might not, on the face of it, be the most innovative in the world. But just as the Spice Girls confounded received wisdom by selling girl pop to girls, Love Bites might be the first group of teenage girls to succeed by writing teen-pop for other teenage girls.

Back at Christ’s College, Gene Simmons and the Rock School team will no doubt be hoping that the experiment yields similarly dramatic results. For Josh’s sake, it’s a hope that every viewer will share.

In what must surely be one of the most uncomfortable moments on British television this year, we see the poor thing enthusing: “I’m gonna be in the gang! People are going to say: ‘Come, Josh, sit at our table. Not because they want to take the mickey out of me but because I am Josh Bell — Emperor!"

Rock School is broadcast by Channel 4 on Fridays (9.30pm)