It’s one of the most hotly anticipated shows to hit our screens this year and also, one of the most bizarre – The Masked Singer Australia brings twelve celebrities, local and international, disguises their identities under elaborate costumes (some more stunning that others…) and throws them on stage to sing their heart out while dropping clues about just who is under the mask.

The ‘guessing panel’ is a hodgepodge of well known names – Radio host Jackie O, THE Dannii Minogue, comedian Dave Hughes and making the most surprising appearance – Lindsay Lohan, fresh from her stint in Mykonos, hosting her own reality show Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club

Kicking off the show is host Osher Günsberg, claiming “We’ve never seen anything like this on television” and no, he’s not referring to the silver brocade palm tree suit he’s sporting in the opening episode.

What follows is a round of introductions where our mystery celebs are paired up into battle rounds where they have a sing off, the audience choose their favorite and at the end of the episode, one celebrity is forced to reveal who is under that mask!

The guessing panel spend the episode trying to pick up on any clue possible as to the masked identities and at one point after Prawn sings, Hughesy, the only male on the guessing panel, manages to suffer a case of foot-in-mouth by asking “there’s a few people on this panel who have gone out with sports players” which leads to some some uncomfortable glances from Dannii and a wtf?! from Lindsay.

The mystery celebs can all sing and really well….too well in fact, especially concealed under such elaborate outfits where microphones have no direct access to their voice. A google search revealed “do the celebs sing live on Masked Singer?” is a constant search term – globally speaking – and i’m still yet to find an answer that doesn’t involve the words “we filmed in one take and they sung it live”. I’ll let you all be the judge on that.

So who’s under these masks in our version? Everyone in the know has been super tight lipped but names such as Deni Hines (who i’m pegging as the Unicorn simply from her distinctive and well known tone) to Courtney Act, Rob Mills to Jason Donavan have all been tipped to have stepped into costume. And the guessing is half the fun of these shows.

JUST WHO DID NETWORK TEN GET TO PUT ON THE MASK?!

To finish this review off, The Masked Singer Australia is family fun viewing. The songs sung on the first episode range from Elvis’s Suspicious Minds to Irene Cara’s FAME to Ed Sheeran’s Perfect and you can see everyone is having fun. There’s not really much to poke at here because it’s masked celebs singing songs – with Lindsay Lohan trying to guess who they are.

Is there a reveal on night one? My preview episode didn’t get to that point so i guess we’ll all have to watch to find that one out!

The Masked Singer Australia begins Monday night – September 23rd, at 7:30pm on Network Ten.