Greatest Days brings Take That musical to Southampton and Brighton

Previous versions of the show were called simply The Band, but with the film released under the Greatest Days name, the stage show is now catching up. As Jamie-Rose Monk, who is playing grown-up Claire, says: “On the first day of rehearsals (writer and co-director) Tim Firth said: ‘Here we are again with the right title now!’”

For Jamie-Rose and the team, rehearsals started in April/May and they will finish the tour at the end of November: “I've really enjoyed it. I've never toured before and I just didn't know what it was going to be like but we have seen some really beautiful places that just flashed by. It goes by so quickly I've got the most terrible sense of direction so you're just starting to get used to somewhere and then you move on! But it has been great!”

It is also her first musical: “I have done plays with songs before and I have done the songs in shows but I've never done a proper musical before. But always it just feels that if it is the right part for you, then you go for it. I really enjoy singing but I don't come from that strong a musical theatre background but it has been great fun. We get to do a little bit of singing but we certainly don’t do the main bulk of the singing. That’s for the boys!”

The musical follows five-boy band obsessed best friends in the 1990s who reunite more than 20 years later to see their heartthrobs one last time in what could be the Greatest Day of their lives. And one of the attractions of the show is that we get to see the girls not just as they are now but also as they were then.

“It's really fun and different to be sharing a person, your younger self and it makes it really interesting. It’s another thing that I’ve never done before. It means you are watching what Mari (the younger version) is doing. It's not really about getting the mannerisms but just really watching the relationships that she has with the different girls and how they interact.

" Claire is a really interesting person anyway. When she comes on she still is confident and she is still always joking and always happy to joke about herself but she had a very specific dream that she wanted to fulfil and that has not happened for her and that's a really interesting arc to play. She wanted to be an Olympic diver but her life goes in a different direction and I love that arc for her. There is a lot of comedy but there are a lot of other things that you have to express as well.”

Jamie-Rose didn't get to see the show when it was The Band: “But from what people have told me, Greatest Days the script has not changed massively. And it is still the same storyline but the staging is very different. It is much more stripped back. I think they're really wanting to concentrate on the story as much as possible.”

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