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Lighting the Take That hits again
While the pop world welcomed news that Robbie Williams was re-joining his former band mates in Take That, one group of performers have been left wondering how it will impact on their show.
Tomorrow sees the Blackpool Opera House debut of Back For Good, a celebration of the music of Take That but without a Robbie in sight.
"I was a massive fan of him when I was a kid," admits actor and singer Matthew Hall, who plays Mark Owen in the Back For Good show. "I won a competition at stage school aged eight singing his Rock DJ complete with stick on tattoos."
Whether he's quite so keen now with Robbie about to re-light Take That's fire and make them a five piece again he's not letting on.
"It's always exciting to see what they pull out of the bag next," he says tactfully. "Obviously whatever they do will have an effect on our show eventually but for this production we are doing it as the four piece and sticking as closely to their record breaking Circus tour as possible."
He admits that although he loved Robbie, he wasn't the world's biggest Take That fan until asked to join this group.
"Once you listen to their songs you fall in love with them - and I was surprised how many I actually knew," says Matthew. "Now I'm one of their biggest fans.
"They are, after all, the best boy band ever - they've got the whole package, the songs, the personalities, massive productions and huge stage shows."
He admits that touring as Take That and being Mark Owen is rather strange for a budding actor who has appeared in Emmerdale, A Touch Of Frost and My Parents Are Aliens.
Most recently he played young arsonist Sam Myerson in The Royal, Rufus Ingram in three-part drama Unforgiven and Scott Mackay in the last series of Heartbeat.
Now he spends his spare time between gigs writing songs with Back For Good's Gary - Daniel Paul Maines.
"It's kind of like being a proper pop star so it's nice to be able to write some of our own material too," he says.
This Back For Good tour started in February and Matthew says "looks like going on and on."
"We've already done theatres all over the country and we've got Europe and Australia lined up," he says. "As long as it's successful there's no end to it - and everywhere we have played seems to want us back.
"The fact that it means putting the rest of my life on hold doesn't matter because this show is currently my number one priority. To take it seriously it has to become your life - but it's a job that I absolutely love so I don't mind."
Matthew says their show isn't just four performers going through the paces.
"We've spent a hell of a lot of hours learning every move, every mannerism - we talk like them on stage, we sing like them and we dance like them," he says. "I even find myself thinking how would Mark do that rather than how would I do it.
"I think I'm more Mark than I am me - so I'm glad he's a nice guy. It's really good at signings after the show when people thank me for doing a good job of him."
The worst thing is having to watch out for any new hairstyle the Take That boys inflict upon us all.
"I dread Mark having the sides of his head shaved again," he admits
The Opera House show will be quite a change from Matthew's last visit to Blackpool.
"I did a hotel here when it was just a tribute band," he says.
"It's a bit scary how things have grown."
And that's without Robbie.
* Back For Good is at the Opera House tomorrow and again on Saturday, October 30.
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Weather for Blackpool
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
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