TAKE THAT, ROBBIE

09-12-2006

Ros Dodd ponders the implausible re-birth of aboy band now approaching middle age with a Number One hit, and wonders what one of their former members might make of it.

I've never understood why Take That - the boy band that even boy band-haters couldn't help but like - imploded shortly after Robbie Williams stropped off into the sunset. Notwithstanding the mega success Robbie went on to enjoy, when he was in the band, he wasn't the star or even the lead singer.

The good news, though, is that the fab four original members of Take That are not only back together but have shot to Number One in the singles and album charts - a feat they didn't manage even in their heyday.

Last weekend, they scored another hit with An Audience with Take That on ITV. I watched most of it and it was sensational. OK, so front man Gary Barlow is looking rather portly these days, but his voice is as strong and disarming as ever and the songs - both old and new - thrilled the studio audience, which was laden with A-list celebs.

The day the show went out, ex-Mirror editor Piers Morgan - who helped to propel Take That to pop stardom - wrote well, if typically egocentrically, in another national newspaper about his glee at the renaissance of Take That and his equal glee at the fact that Robbie's latest single has sunk without trace. Robbie wasn't a particularly nice guy, he said, whereas the other Take That members were sound.

That may or not be true, but the gist of his piece - apart from slapping himself fulsomely on the back in true Piers style - was that what goes around comes around. It's this that struck a cord with me, as I've long embraced the ‘karma' ethos.

Taking Take That out of the equation, I have always firmly believed in the adage that you reap what you sow. Even if your crops take years - decades even - to blossom, they will do so eventually if you labour hard and long enough and if you keep the faith.

We often trot out the phrase that someone has ‘got away with murder', be that literal or metaphorical, but few people actually do. Earlier this month, the fiend who murdered a widow at a bus depot 12 years ago was finally jailed for life after being nailed by developments in DNA testing. Meanwhile, it was announced that a new police probe is to be launched into the unexplained death of Stuart Lubbock, found washed up in troubled entertainer Michael Barrymore's swimming pool five years ago.

It must be very hard for people who feel they've been conned or framed or simply mistreated to believe that one day justice will be done, but more often than not it is. Good - however belatedly - generally triumphs over evil.

It's for this reason, if not for any other, that revenge is not a dish best served cold, but not served at all. While ‘getting back' at those who have wronged you might bring short-term satisfaction, it is much cannier to leave things to take their natural course.

Talent, of course, helps in terms of turning the tables against someone you might feel has let you down or done you wrong. Which is why Take That are back making hit records again.

I don't know Robbie Williams, but I've read a lot about him, some of which may be true: I know that he's worth mega-bucks on the back of a phenomenally successful solo career, but I suspect he's still battling his demons and, despite his wealth, would give up the royalties for Angels if he had the domestic stability enjoyed by his erstwhile band mates.

I don't wish Robbie ill because he has brought great entertainment to millions of people around the world, but I suspect he didn't do ‘the decent thing' by the other Take That members and I can't help but feel that it would be poetic justice if the reformed boy band continued to go from strength to strength at the expense of the buoyed-up boy from Stoke-on-Trent.

When Gary Barlow sang the chorus line of Take That's most famous song on television last weekend, ‘I just want you back for good', I feel sure he wasn't thinking about Robbie. But maybe Robbie was watching and was thinking wistfully of them.