Greatest Days

In cinemas now

Take That are a good example of the curious nature of British pop music. Beloved by many on these shores (so much so that a helpline had to be set up for fans when they originally split up in 1996), the group, much like their most famous export Robbie Williams, never managed to attain true international stardom.

Nonetheless, their output cannot really be disputed. 56 number-one singles, 39 number-one albums, eight Brit Awards, and an Ivor Novello to boot. Love them or loathe them, you can’t really quibble with that sort of success.

Your enjoyment of Greatest Days will, however, be entirely determined by which of those two camps you reside in. If, like me, you’re partial to Take That’s unique brand of cheesy pop hits, you might be inclined to look past the many flaws of Coky Giedroyc’s film and enjoy it for the inoffensive-but-unimaginative jukebox musical that it is.

Should you be in the latter camp though, then you may well find this somewhat of an ordeal. Despite the best efforts of a cast that is led by the supremely talented Aisling Bea, Greatest Days is for the most part a tonally deaf affair with an annoying propensity to randomly intersperse its more affecting moments with musical numbers, making it nigh on impossible to emotionally invest in its events.

All that being said, Take That frontman Gary Barlow has fully embraced his cheesy status in recent years (as viewers of his lockdown YouTube series ‘The Crooner Sessions’ can attest), so this offbeat flick is perhaps as fitting a tribute to his musical legacy as one could hope for.