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TAKE THAT BOYS ON SONG FOR A HIT PARADE

BAND OF FUN: The stars of Take That tribute show Never Forget

Friday May 23,2008

By Julie Carpenter

WHEN the original boy band Take That split up in 1996, besotted fans sank into mourning. Then, of course, the boys got back together again a decade later.

But if producers of this ebullient new musical, woven around the band’s Nineties’ hits, were worried that Take That’s reunion might lessen the attraction of a tribute show, they needn’t have fretted.

As soon as the male lead utters the opening line, “Spirits move me, every time I’m near you” (the introductory lyric of Could It Be Magic?), an excited ripple of recognition spreads through the audience, proving it only takes a minute for the boy band’s fans – the target market – to be converted.

They act as if they’re at one of the group’s own high-octane concerts, enthusiastically singing along and co-ordinating arm sways.

Sophistication and subtlety need not apply in this riot of cheesy fun, a fictional story of a Take That tribute band.

“What – like Fake That?” questions one character incredulously but these performers – Dean Chisnall as the tribute band’s Gary Barlow in particular – prove more than a match for the real thing in the singing and dancing stakes.

They certainly have as much daunting energy, demonstrated in a whirlwind of hectic choreography and risque costume changes.

If the plot has a whiff of trite morality, you’re never in danger of being taxed with an unhappy ending – it’s just not that kind of musical.

Northern lad Ash is tempted away from the tribute band by a solo contract and briefly trades his anoydyne fiancée (Connie Fisher lookalike Sophia Ragavelas) for a buxom pantomime villainess (Joanne Farrell) but you know

that a million love songs later, or thereabouts, everything will right itself – generally with a belting rendition of a Take That No1.

But perhaps the show’s most endearing quality is that it never takes itself seriously and has lashings of self-mockery – down to the fact that no one can remember Howard’s surname (it’s Donald) and that the Jason Orange wannabe is a Spanish flamenco dancer.

Enjoying Never Forget is a bit of a guilty pleasure but what does it matter when it charges on with such loud, irrepressible energy?

“Honestly, darling,” sighed a smitten fan during the climactic megamix, “they’re just so much better than the actual band.”