Review - The Band Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin

The musical includes many of Take That’s hits, and is written by Tim Firth (Kinky Boots, Calendar Girls) and directed by Kim Gavin (Mobo Awards, Children in Need Rocks the Albert Hall) and former EastEnders actor, Jack Ryder (Act of Memory, Calendar Girls).

It is produced by Dafydd Rogers and David Pugh, and co-produced by Take That members, Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams.

Before the performance, there are graphics of Ceefax, showing an overview of some news stories from 1993, and the top 40 chart from that year, when Take That’s ‘Pray’ was number one, which was a nice touch, drawing the audience into the time-period surrounding the early part of the musical, and opens with Rachel ready to watch the band on Top of the Pops.

The story follows a group of five teenage girls who are obsessed with a boy-band. In the early part of 2017, the five lads who played the boy-band were chosen on BBC’s Let It Shine, where Gary Barlow was one of the judges on the panel. The winning band was Five To Five.

The parts of the teenage girls, and their adult counterparts, were cast off-camera. The show centres around the changes they go through in their lives over a time period, and how music is often a soundtrack to our lives, and our memories, both good and bad.

Early on, one of the girls, Debbie, played by Rachelle Diedericks, in her first professional production, wins a competition for herself and her four friends; Rachel played by Faye Christall, Heather played by Katy Clayton, Claire played by Sarah Kate Howarth, and Zoe played by Lauren Jacobs, to go and see the band in concert.

Things don’t go quite according to plan, and they struggle to find their way home after the gig. Before the girls know it, their world has changed dramatically overnight, after tragedy strikes.

The timeframe then moves to 25 years late, when Rachel, played now by Rachel Lumberg, wins a competition to go and see the band, who have reunited in Prague.

She emails her three old friends Claire, played by Alison Fitzjohn, Heather, played by Emily Joyce and Zoe, played by Jayne McKenna, to go to the gig with her. At this stage the four women have not seen each other in many years, and are catching up on each other’s lives, alongside the audience.

The show is a tale of friendship, grief, loss, the joy of finding people with the same interests as you, and the changing patterns of our lives. It has a lot of warmth and heart, and is a story that is very easy to relate to.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in these women’s lives, and want it to all be alright for them at the end of the musical. It’s also a tale of how music often helps us escape from any problems in our lives at a specific moment, and how it helps people connect over shared interests.

This story was very authentic. Much of it was very universal in some way or other to us all. The story is wonderfully acted by the nine females, who have us both laughing and feeling emotive in equal measure.

The show mostly centred around the girls, and subsequently the women they became, and their friendship, but there were also many moments where the band make appearances, sometimes completely out of nowhere, and often double-jobbing as both performers and props people.

In this production, the band included four of the members of Five To Five; Curtis T. Johns, Yazdan Qafouri, Sario Solomon, and AJ Bentley. On the night they were joined by Harry Fabulous Brown, who is an understudy to the lads, and was performing in place of Nick Carsberg for this performance.

Harry was also on Let It Shine. The five lads did a great job, with very tight dance numbers, and great vocals throughout. Curtis’ vocal is magical, especially on A Million Love Songs, and Patience, while Yazdan’s vocal on Said It All was gorgeous.

Martin Miller also plays Rachel’s lovable boyfriend, Jeff, very well, while Andy Williams creates great humour in his many roles, humming the tracks as school janitor, and policeman, among other roles.

At the end, the MC comes on, and gets the crowd all singing along, which was fun. We had an incredible night at the show. It was a wonderfully touching everyday story that was easy to relate to, and the music was brilliant.

A really great show.

By Lisa Reynolds