Greatest Days

A vibrantly choreographed, credibly acted Brit-musical propelled by a stream of Take That bangers.

It may be fuelled by the schmaltzy lyrics of a boy band, but this is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of female friendship.

It’s well-performed and efficiently emotive. Just like the music of Take That, I guess.

Take That have more than enough hits to give this a solid soundtrack, but the story they’re loosely tied to is weakly constructed and far gloomier than the cheery music deserves.

It’s a film that obediently hits the predictable story beats, is regularly punctuated by peppy, disposable musical numbers, but shows no inclination to be much more than a nostalgic marketing vehicle for a collection of anodyne pop songs.

Far too much of it still feels scaled to the stage. Comic material that in a theatre might have simply played as broad comes across as forehead-smashingly crass, while the dramatic shorthand in the grown-up scenes turns that whole section of the story into a conveyor belt of clichés.

It’s hard to imagine that any Take That fan would rather listen to badly autotuned covers of their favourite songs than the original recordings. Just hope that someday soon this will all be someone else’s (bad) dream.