Take That: 5 of the biggest revelations, from Gary Barlow’s struggles to the real meaning of ‘Shine’

A new three-part documentary dives into the very beginning of the boyband, how they fell apart, then rallied for the pop comeback of the decade

A new Take That documentary on Netflix charts the rise and fall, then rise again, of one of the UK’s biggest boybands. Directed by David Soutar, the three episodes are narrated by current members Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen, while also featuring archive interviews from their former bandmates Robbie Williams and Jason Orange.

Soutar told The Independent that he had urged the band to trust his team to tell their story, thereby ceding creative control. In a “sadistic” kind of way, he admitted, it was gratifying to see how the final cut “made them feel what they felt back then; really tough, complicated feelings. They said it was a tricky thing to relive those moments – they all worked very hard to get where they are now, personally and professionally.”

Here are the biggest revelations from the documentary.

Gary Barlow felt huge pressure to come up with hit songs

Particularly in episode one but really throughout, we hear frequently from Barlow about the enormous burden he placed on himself as the band’s chief songwriter. “I felt like I’d failed,” he says in the documentary, of the moment their song “Once You’ve Tasted Love” failed to reach the Top 40. Despite its notoriously raunchy video, debut single “Do What You Like” had also flopped, leaving Barlow wondering if the rest of the band were making disgruntled comments behind his back. It was a tough pill to swallow, then, when their manager Nigel Martin-Smith told them they needed to do a cover version. But the success of “It Only Takes a Minute” – a dance-pop version of the 1975 hit by US R&B group Taveres – was exactly what they needed to make a real impression. Spurred on by the song’s success, Barlow came up with “Pray”, their first No 1, which saw Take That crowned the biggest pop band in the UK.

Barlow didn’t leave his house for 13 months after Take That split up

One of the most moving parts of the documentary comes in episode two, when we hear from Barlow about the struggles he went through when Take That split up in February 1996. By this time, Robbie Williams was busy carving out his career as a solo artist; Barlow was forced to watch as his ex-bandmate went stratospheric with his single “Angels”, appeared on late-night TV and enjoyed a major slot at Glastonbury Festival. Meanwhile, Barlow was mocked mercilessly by the press (and by Barlow), dropped as a solo artist by his label after a failed radio tour of the US, and developed an eating disorder. “I’d killed the pop star,” he said of the months in which he did nothing but eat, locked away at his home in Cheshire, becoming less and less recognisable. His weight became another target, mocked by David Walliams and Matt Lucas as they presented Williams with yet another award. “I saw it all, and watched it all,” Barlow says.

Gary Barlow opens up about his struggles with an eating disorder in ‘Take That’ (Netflix)

Robbie Williams was hurt by Barlow’s comments about his weight

While Barlow readily admits to the insecurities he dealt with in Take That, we don’t hear any fresh testimony from Williams. What we do know, though, is that Williams tended to put a front on, alternating between the tough guy and the fun-loving party animal. So it’s a surprise to hear that, of all people, Barlow hurt his feelings with a jab about his weight while they were still in the band together. “I called him Blobby, instead of Robbie,” Barlow recalls, audibly wincing. It apparently stuck with Williams for years, enough for him to raise it with Barlow when they eventually reconciled decades later.

Robbie Williams told Barlow he was hurt by comments his ex-bandmate had made years earlier (Netflix)

‘Shine’ isn’t about Robbie Williams… it’s about all of them

Mark Owen was Williams’s best mate in the band, someone the “Rock DJ’ singer described as the “nicest man in the world”. Owen also looked up to Williams, the documentary shows, and was bereft when he quit the band in 1995. So when he took on lead vocals for Take That’s huge comeback single “Shine” in 2007, many fans assumed that the lyrics (“You’re such a big star to me/ You’re everything I wanna be/ But you’re stuck in a hole/ And I want you to get out”) were about Williams. Owen says this isn’t the case, while admitting even Williams probably thinks it’s about him. “It’s about me,” Owen says. “It’s about all of us.” Set to uplifting instrumentation, it’s easy in hindsight to work out that this was the band’s message of encouragement to themselves: “Stop being so hard on yourself… Don’t let your demons pull you down/ ‘Cause you can have it all.”

Mark Owen pictured in archive footage from Take That’s early days (Netflix)

Barlow and Williams met to talk about their grievances… and worked things out in less than an hour

The band had an emotional reunion with Williams in 2010, for which the (temporarily) re-formed five-piece released a new album, Progress (one of the fastest-selling albums of the century). At the time, Williams was “bored, scared and lonely” in Los Angeles, and felt he had nothing more to say in his own records. But there was a lot he wanted to say to Barlow, and vice versa. “In about 25 minutes, we’d put to bed things that had haunted us for years, and it felt like we could move forwards after that,” Barlow says. After that, they were able to get back in the studio and collaborate, compared to their early days where Barlow would insist on being the principal songwriter. And Barlow and Williams are clearly still on decent terms; they teamed up as recently as this year on “Morrissey”, a song from the latter’s new album, Britpop.

Take That the documentary is out now on Netflix.