Take That and Robbie Williams

Take That as a four-piece and Robbie Williams alone. It never seemed quite right, no matter how much success they had apart. Now they are back together…This insightful biography tells the story of how it happened. It includes the secret writing and recording sessions which led to the official announcement of a new album and goes behind the headlines that said Robbie was to rejoin. And it also tells the whole story of the UK's best-loved boy band. Take That are wiser since their mid-1990s split. Robbie Williams' debut solo album, Life Thru a Lens, went to No 1 and he had a massive hit with 'Angels'. But after an equally celebrated follow-up he began to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A Robbie-less Take That outdistanced him. The new album comes 20 years after the band first got together as young hopefuls under Manchester manager Nigel Martin Smith. Singer-songwriter Gary Barlow was 19, 18-year-old Mark Owen had tried out as a footballer, Howard Donald was a 21-year-old painter and Jason Orange was a 19-year-old decorator. With the youngest member Robbie Williams, who joined at 16, they went on to sell more than 25 million records in their original incarnation – becoming one of the biggest acts of the 1990s.