The official Take That musical, Greatest Days (previously produced as The Band), will return to Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre from Tuesday 26 to Saturday 30 September 2023.
The musical follows a group of five best friends in the 1990’s who are obsessed with their favourite boy band.
The girls then reunite more than 20 years later with a plan to see their heartthrobs one last time in what could be the Greatest Days of their lives.
From 21 August 2023, Jennifer Ellison – who rose to fame as Emily Shadwick in the television soap opera, Brookside, and secured her place as a household name by playing Meg Giry in her international film debut in the 2004 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera – will join the UK tour as Rachel.
Returning to musical theatre for the first time in ten years, Jennifer admits that she is both nervous and excited.
“It’s a bit scary for sure because I haven’t done theatre for such a long time,” she explains. “But nerves are necessary. They give you the adrenaline to get up there and do a good job.”
In the show, Jennifer, who turned 40 in May, plays a forty-something mum named Rachel, who back in the 90s was obsessed with the boy band.
Reunited with her four best friends two decades later, she’s hoping to see her idols one more time after she enters a competition to see the lads perform in Athens.
“She’s had a pretty normal life,” Jennifer says of Rachel. “And she’s longing for that little bit of excitement again.
“When she enters the competition, never in her wildest dreams does she think she’s going to win but she does, and she and her friends are suddenly setting off to Athens on an adventure.”
Greatest Days features more than 15 of Take That’s record-breaking songs, alongside a heart-warming and hilarious story of love, loss and laughter from award-winning writer Tim Firth (Calendar Girls, Our House, and Kinky Boots).
“It covers everything,” continues Jennifer.”It’s about love, friendship and loss, with a thread of nostalgia running through it.
“You’ll be watching a heartbreaking scene and then suddenly a Take That song kicks in and you’re like ‘Wow, that brings back memories’.
“When you grow up and you have a family and stuff, I think you forget yourself sometimes and you lose touch with friends.
“A lot of women, and indeed a lot of men, are guilty of that.
“We lose touch with people too easily because of how busy we are.
“One thing that really hit home with me when I watched the show was how you should keep in touch with people you grew up with and the people you love.”
Greatest Days was originally produced as The Band by David Pugh, Dafydd Rogers and Take That. The UK tour of The Band originally opened in September 2017 and closed in March 2019, breaking box office records along the way.
Tickets for Greatest Days (Tuesday 26 – Saturday 30 September 2023) are on sale at mayflower.org.uk or 02380 711811.
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