A laughing Gary Barlow on stage with interviewer Olly Smith (Picture: Dave Monk)
Gary Barlow took to the stage at the UK premiere of Greatest Days: The Official Take That Musical on P&O Cruises ship Arvia to thank the band’s loyal fans.
After a rapturous welcome to the show in the ship’s theatre, Barlow told interviewer Olly Smith: ‘One of the main things we definitely wanted to get into our show was a sense of friendship because that’s something our band has been built on from day one and to this day friendship’s very important to us.
‘The other big thing for us to try to get across in this show was to turn the mirror on the audience because our audience have been with us for ever and we love them so much. It wasn’t a celebration of Take That, it was a celebration of our audience.’
The talented cast of Greatest Days: The Official Take That Musical on Arvia (Picture: Dave Monk)
The show – which Barlow described as ‘partly true’ – starts in 1993 with five 16-year-old girl fans and follows their reunion 25 years later as they try again to fulfil their dream of meeting the boy band whose music became the soundtrack to their lives.
It combines familiar foot-tapping songs such as Shine, Relight My Fire and Rule The World with a story by Olivier Award-winning writer Tim Firth, who Barlow has known since the age of 15.
Asked by Olly Smith what the show meant to him, Barlow replied: ‘When I sit there and watch that happen, that’s most of my life. Those songs that you listened to were part of a moment in time that made me write them, so for me those songs have probably an entirely different meaning than they would for anyone else.’
Barlow has another important date coming up – he said Take That was looking forward to closing the coronation concert for King Charles at Windsor Castle on May 7.
