Greatest Days (UK Tour) – Review

Greatest Days (UK Tour): Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury

31st July 2023

★★★

Greatest Days featuring more than 15 record-breaking Take That songs is currently touring the UK and has landed at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury. The story focuses on a group of girls, once inseparable, who reunite after over 20 years apart and try once more to fulfil their dream of meeting the boyband whose music became the soundtrack to their lives. Greatest Days (previously named The Band) is full of heart, feel good factor and entertainment.

Fans of The Band will be happy to see that the storyline has remained virtually untouched. However, unfortunately this new production seems to have a much lower budget and lacks some of the charm of its previous run. The set, designed by Lucy Osborne, feels clunky and worn and doesn’t add to the production. Lighting, by Rob Casey, helps to bring the set and characters alive, particularly in the band’s larger numbers. This tour doesn’t have the projections and smooth transitions that the previous production benefited from which at times means the backdrops feel a bit flat and boring.

Of course, most of the audience are fans of Take That, so will thoroughly enjoy the range of Take That numbers included in the production. The songs are performed well, but unfortunately during this performance the sound quality was poor which led to many lyrics being unable to be heard. Take That’s well-known songs are cleverly adapted by Steve Parry to have a more musical theatre feel to them and this works well to create emotion onstage. The show manages to show off some of the glorious harmonies and melodies of Take That as well as impressing with the concert style large numbers.

Greatest Days is quite short, lasting just under two hours, but within that time they do manage to pack in quite a few well-known hits such as ‘Shine’, Never Forget’, ‘Back for Good’, ‘Greatest Day’, and ‘Rule the World’ . The cast perform well throughout and there is enough emotion and heart to make the audience feel invested in the characters.

At the end of the day, this production is mostly aimed at fans of Take That who will surely go away singing the tunes and reminiscing about their own memories seeing ‘the band’ perform on stage, on tv or even VHS.

Greatest Days is playing at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury until Saturday 5th August. For information and tickets click here.

Photo Credit: Alastair Muir