Take That musical is ready to Shine
The Band (Manchester Opera House and touring)
THEY blew away the judges on the BBC’s Let It Shine, but the big question for boy band Five To Five was could they also be magic in the Take That musical, for which they were competing? The answer is that they sure could.
The big surprise (to me, at least) is that Tim Firth’s new show, which features music and lyrics from Gary Barlow, isn’t really about the band at all. It’s about a group of five teenage girl fans in 1993 who get together again, 25 years later, at a Take That reunion in Prague.
As well as being sweet, gutsy and nostalgic, the show is a shameless tear-jerker, with the teenage girls visited by tragedy.
The five lads from Five To Five are like buff young guardian angels, popping out of bedroom furnishings, school lockers and eventually a Czech fountain to serenade, cajole and give succour to our adoring lasses.
I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between Five To Five and the more famous five of Messrs Barlow, Williams et al as they ran the gamut from A Million Love Songs to Back For Good.
In Kim Gavin’s rock stadium choreography, they cavort in outfits that would make the Village People green with envy: from loo cleaners in high-viz jackets, to Trojan warriors in brass helmets.
But the best thing about these lads is that they very much know their place: because this is, first and foremost, a ladies’ night — on and off the stage.
Firth’s women are a typically ruddy bunch of brassy, bighearted Northerners. As teenagers, at the start, they’re a classic set of excitable adolescents, led with gobby glee by young Katy Clayton as wouldbe glamourpuss Heather.
Bringing the girls back together, lusty Rachel Lumberg is the heart and soul of the show as the woman who wanted to marry but couldn’t quite bring herself to tie the knot.
The stage design can look a bit dingy at times, but the joy of Firth’s honest to goodness yarn is that it gives you the chance to imagine wiping the slate clean and starting over. Mascara runs, arms wave aloft: job done. Take that!