Whichever way you slice it, four middle aged men singing anything with ‘sex’ in the title, while thrusting at the audience is never less than embarrassing.

Even when including the cute, curly haired one at the front.

Justin Timberlake won’t get away with it for long, despite having a bank of cute, curly haired moments to fall back on. And some slightly less cute moments. Still, that doesn’t stop four men who really should know better, in Glee. The fact that they don’t makes for one of many hilarious, astounding, and tear-your-eyes-out awful musical numbers, set in a hyper-real, acidly cruel high school. For the uninitiated, Glee is High School Musical now with added irony and colour.

Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), a faded high school hero, curly hair intact, teaches Spanish to bored teenagers, yearns to relive the glory days and revive the glee club of the title. A show choir outfit once the pride of the school and a much needed boost to his self esteem, pulped each day without mercy by his wife and his students.

As a lifetime of High School Movies teaches, the American school system can turn everything, even the limpest, least muscular of solitary skills, like spelling, or algebra, into a competitive sport. To that end, Will scrapes together a ragged team of misfit students:

Rachel (Lea Michele) – a perky, chronic overachiever aiming for Broadway, child of loving, attentive fathers. She’s an exhausting amalgam of Tracy Flick, a young Barbra Streisand and Lisa Simpson. As such, she just about remains in character when making public service type pronouncements like her lecture to the toxic abstinence club on managing randy teens with preparation, not moderation.

Finn (Cory Monteith) – a good-natured, if none too bright football team meathead who just wants two things; to consummate his relationship with his blonde mean-girlfriend (Dianna Agron) and sing his little heart out.

Finn and Rachel are clearly meant to be the stars here: Nice clean-cut kids who like to lead the way, with a trail of sickly sweet breadcrumbs laid for the viewer. But, just before things threaten to get too Disney and soft focus, Glee throws in a sticky, adults-only humiliation for our songbirds.

Mercedes (Amber Riley) – one of Glee’s Token Minority Contingent, which includes Gay Kid (Chris Colfer) and Wheelchair Kid (Kevin McHale). Glee makes a knowing reference to its dutifully diverse, yet empty casting by having the angry emo girl tag her fellow Glee member as ‘other Asian kid’. She ticks the overweight and non-white boxes; she’s lonely but can belt out a tune with the best of ‘em. As the series progresses, I’m hoping she and the others can grow into properly fleshed out roles, rather than archetypes with little or no function beyond backing vocals.

Will pits his singers against a slick, professional looking set from another, more prosperous school and earns the wrath of cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch being terrifying with minimal effort) when the club’s accidental successes nibble at her precious annual budget. But, Will’s got bigger problems, like his brittle, selfish wife, her pregnancy and his obvious and much requited attraction to neurotic guidance counsellor Emma (Jayma Mays, Heroes).

In addition to her ruthless squad, Sue’s also armed with some of the juiciest one-liners of the series so far, always delivered with relish and the uneasy feeling that she might chew off an arm or go into a post-traumatic, battle-induced meltdown. The best exchanges have Will and Sue vying for notice and funding from the school’s cheerfully venal principal.

Glee combines fluffy escapism with a surprisingly topical comment on an America scrabbling up from its knees following a biting recession; money, or lack of it is ever present. The school struggles to keep to a straining budget in a no account town most of the kids will never leave. Will works himself into the ground to deliver the lifestyle his wife demands. The boys suffer for their lack of ambition and find themselves older sugar mommies willing to do a little ego stroking, while the girls look for ‘financial security’.

The tendency of characters to burst into a big production number at moments of stress or high emotion might grate on anyone but die hard musical theatre nerds, but as a nerd of many, clashing stripes I’m embracing the embarrassment. Glee will slap you round the chops with its enthusiasm and cartoon palate until you do the same, might as well give in and enjoy.