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I ran a thousand miles to be by your side...

Many years down the line, out of the blue one Christmas holiday, they were back on television and talking honestly about their wilderness years in a 2005 documentary called For The Record.

Slightly creased, unshaven and minus the enforced wackiness that followed them around when they were huge, they suddenly didn’t seem so irritating. Having been deserted by Robbie Williams (who went on to solo success), it was essentially a way for the band to shrug off their laughing stock image – particularly Barlow who had been bad-mouthed by Williams in the intervening years.

The documentary caused rebirth, and suddenly Take That were crafting number ones again, having summoned a huge amount of goodwill with their approach to their reunion. Minus Robbie. And even despite Marks and Spencers campaigns and the ubiquity of that bloody Rule The World song.

Re-enter Mr Williams. After 2006’s Rudebox cast his reputation lower than Take That’s had ever been, the UK seemed to have had its fill of the neurotic egomaniac, forever banging on about his paradoxical insecurities. He made a so-so comeback in 2009 that was met with decent chart placings but critical mockery after eyebrow-raising appearances on shows like The X Factor, where he was clearly undergoing some sort of internal trauma.

In secret, the complete Take That fivesome had been busy recording an album, going public with a single last week and a black and white, supposedly warts ‘n’ all follow up documentary that went out for an hour and a half on Saturday night called Look Back, Don’t Stare.

The bad news is, they’ve undone every single knot of goodwill they fastened in place with its predecessor.

This was 90 minutes of hand-wringing faux sincerity that took itself far, far too seriously. Focusing on the rift in the band and the healing process the band were going through, it was instantly extremely hard to care, particularly as it was filmed as though the regroup of this quintet is anything approaching being culturally relevant.

In the last five years, both the Robbie-less TT and Williams himself have sold a ton of records, so the only aspect of any interest here was the reunion – and the sad fact is, going by the demos on display, Williams presence has actually soured the brand and made them as easy to disregard as they were in the 90s.

What really made this overlong snoozefest hard to bear was the tiresome self-analysis. The constant talk of ‘validation’, ‘closure’ and ‘truth’ made it feel like we were trapped behind a skirting board in The Priory, and nobody involved seemed to have the self awareness to realise that it’s not entirely easy to relate to or feel sympathy for a multimillionaire depressive. Hearing Williams (with his golden toilet and his LA palace) banging on about his head problems for the twenty millionth time is not what most people want to do on a Saturday night – and Take That will have to ask themselves if it’s the best way to promote their new material.

So now the path the group have trodden appears to have lost itself down a self-help dead-end. In the short term, this five-piece reunion will probably grant fiscal rewards, but Take That might actually be wise to sack Mr Williams before he can escape again and slag them all off to the press. Perhaps it’s time for the other four to put history right, and kick the bad apple out?
http://tvpixie.com/tv-news....t-stare