Netflix’s new Take That documentary throws up an odd sensation: feeling sorry for Gary Barlow. By his own admission, he could be “thick-skinned and annoying” at Take That’s height in the 90s; he was competitive, conceited and controlling. “Part of me felt above everyone musically,” he says in the entertaining three-part dive into the history of Britain’s best boyband, referring specifically to his dismissal of Robbie Williams’ creative input. And to be fair, with eight number ones, Barlow produced the goods.
But by the second episode, which charts the band’s messy split and subsequent Robbie v Gary psychodrama, Barlow has become a national punchline. There is something bracing about being confronted with footage of his very public career nosedive and downfall.
It’s not that we don’t remember or haven’t been reminded about it often enough recently. In fact, the documentary, which is very well constructed and willing to address most difficult truths (though controlling manager Nigel Martin-Smith gets off lightly), suffers from having come after a slew of recent Take That autobiographical works.
Both Williams and Take That have toured shows that incorporated narratives about their careers; Williams himself has had his own self-titled Netflix documentary as well as Robbie-as-CGI-monkey film Better Man; Barlow even discussed his fall from grace in detail during his one-man show, A Different Stage, inspired by his 2018 autobiography. The BBC’s Boybands Forever doc is actually more forensic on some aspects of the Take That story, particularly the Williams spat with Martin-Smith, neither of whom are interviewed here.
Barlow (left) admits he was “thick-skinned and annoying” in Take That’s heyday (Photo: Netflix)But seeing Barlow’s demise play out is still uncomfortable – public bullying at its most brutal. It was led by the all-conquering Williams himself, who revelled in kicking his old mate while he was down, and a certain schadenfreude over the disintegration of Barlow’s solo career was perhaps understandable. We see an archive interview from 1996 where Barlow very smugly dismisses Williams’s chances of a successful solo career. “Let’s hear these songs that are so easy to write,” he smiles. “I’m dying to hear them.”
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But the public flogging of Barlow went too far. The documentary shows glimpses of everyone from news readers to Saturday morning TV presenters gleefully talking about Barlow’s failure, and sketch shows mercifully sticking the boot in.
At the 2005 Brit Awards, Matt Lucas and David Walliams reprised their Rock Profile impersonations of Barlow and Howard Donald (who himself admits in the documentary to suicidal thoughts post-Take That split) to present the Best Song of the Past 25 Years award to Williams for “Angels”. “Sorry Gary, but I always was always the talented member of the band,” Robbie said from the stage, smirking, award held aloft.
“I obsessed and watched it all,” Barlow admits as we see images and home footage of him overweight and depressed, suffering with bulimia, a recluse who once didn’t leave the house for 13 months. “It was so excruciating I just wanted to crawl into a hole,” he says. “And I’d also start to put weight on, and the more weight I put on, the less people would recognise me. I thought, well, this is good. And so I went on this mission. If the food passed me, I’d just eat it, and I’d kill the pop star.”
Only three members of Take That remain in the current line-up (Photo: Netflix)Confidence shot, his writer’s block was such that “the piano became the enemy”. Day in, day out for years on end, he’d go into his studio and pretend to work. “I’d literally sit there watching the piano, thinking, ‘I used to write big hits on that thing’.” For one of the country’s best pop songwriters, it was a horrible – and undeserved – low ebb.
Barlow admits that when he joined the band in 1990, he felt like he didn’t need the other members. Yet when they reformed to massive, ongoing success after the overwhelmingly positive reaction to their 2005 documentary Take That: For the Record, he realised he did actually need them after all. “That was when the band started for me,” he says.
The day after that documentary aired, he was on the train to London dressed in the disguise – a long mac and grey hat – he’d always wear so the public didn’t recognise him. He then received a text saying the documentary was the most-watched programme on TV the previous night. “It was the first bit of good career news I’d had in six years,” he says. “I unzipped my coat and said: ‘It’s ok being me today’.” Barlow’s redemption arc had begun – and it hasn’t let up since.
Take That is streaming on Netflix
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