By Joy McKay. Image: Alastair Muir.
Greatest Days is the official Take That musical, premiering in 2017 under the name The Band. It has recently been made into a film and has been renamed in order to match. The Mayflower production stars Jennifer Ellison who originally came to fame for her role in Brookside and has since developed a successful musical theatre career which has included starring as Roxy in the Musical Chicago in the West End. She is joined on stage by 2022 Dancing on Ice winner Regan Gascoigne (yes son of that Gascoigne) as a member of ‘The Band’. This jukebox style show contains 15 of Take That’s hit songs.
The story starts in 1993 with five best friends, 16 year old schoolgirls, who all share a love of ‘The Band’. I was born in 1977 and so seem to be the perfect demographic, although I’m not specifically a Take That fan, I love a musical, and I expected to enjoy the show regardless. ‘The Band’ come and go off stage, an inner monologue of the main character Rachel, performing their songs to reflect her thoughts and emotions. The dance moves were spot on, well-choreographed and performed but the vocals were muddy. Whether this was due to their ability or the sound engineering it wasn’t possible to tell. However, the girls all performed well, especially Mary Moore as Debbie, taking on Lulu’s famous solo from Relight My Fire. The first half ends traumatically but I didn’t see tissues or signs that those around me were moved.
At the interval I realised I had been surprised by the lack of interaction from the crowd. I expected them to be frenzied fans, similar to those I had seen at other shows such a Grease, 9 to 5 and Six. But the atmosphere was a little flat. I heard the bar staff asking one audience members if they were enjoying the show, their reply was “a slow start”. “Yes maybe that’s it, they’ll ramp up in the second half,” I thought.
And they did ramp it up in the second half, unfortunately not in the way I had expected. The representation of the dreams and aspirations of young women was already making me feel slightly awkward but as we skip ahead 25 years the misogyny increased and as the story continued was sprinkled with homophobia and a level of fat phobia which left me, and my friend, genuinely shocked. For a musical which is only six years old it felt very out of touch.
The use and reuse of the simple set was well done, going from terraced house to school, to stadium, arena, airport, and police cell. And the live musicians in the pit were fantastic but the story was lacking and contrived. This 2022 renamed version of the show has been “stripped back” and so I wonder if that has actually stripped back on the storytelling too much?
Star of the show was Alan Stocks who played every authority figure the girls came across; school caretaker, roadie, bus driver, cleaner, passport control, police. He was wonderful, very entertaining to watch.
Unfortunately, this was not my Greatest Day but I can imagine if you were once a teenage Take That mega fan, or maybe you still are, it will be a fun night out.
Tickets for Greatest Days (Tuesday 26 – Saturday 30 September 2023) are on sale at mayflower.org.uk or 02380 711811.
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