★★★

Where most jukebox musicals weave their nonsense narrative through the best hits of a band with tenuous abandon, Greatest Days stands apart by seeking story in tone and musical resonance. This is the “official” Take That musical. A cinematic translation of The Band, Tim Firth’s modestly successful West End production from some years ago. Three decades of chart smashers thrust gusto into the heart of a surprisingly melancholic story, singing testament to the power of music to change a broken record.

Into the shoes of a pre-disbandment Take That step a five-piece, known only as ‘the boys’. Here are a poster-perfect quintet, rather more diverse and abdominal than Manchester’s original boys but with all the right moves. It is not without irony, in the light of Howard Donald’s recent Twitter transgressions, that Greatest Days wears its rainbow flag very wholly on its sleeve. Throw in some glorious recalls to the nineties, in which much of the first half is set, and a recipe for hip hop high camp blooms into gay abandon. It’s all good fun and delivered with heart, if not the financial reach of, say, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. This one’s more Sunshine on Leith, even as the story decamps its leading ladies to Athens.

Aisling Bea, effervescent company as ever, is Rachel, a paediatric nurse at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital who deep dives into the past when she wins Radio Clitheroe’s biggest ever prize. That being tickets to see “the boys” live on tour in the Mediterranean. Somewhat nonsensical but there’s fun to be had in a series of Peter Kay-esc voiceover interludes from radio’s pride of the North. It’s clear from the off that Rachel’s boat continues to rock the aftermath ripples of some long unforgotten major life upset. Flashbacks to a nostalgia hewn 1993 – cue a terrific Brexit gag – reveal a broken home in Rachel’s past but this isn’t it. As Mum and Dad squabble, teenage Rachael (Lara McDonnell, a convincing Bea doppelgänger) need only say “louder boys” and her fave band will erupt from kitchen wardrobes, via her vivid imagination, in hell for leather performance mode. If nothing else, Greatest Days boasts the best breakfast number since Morecambe and Wise’s full English.

Uncovering Rachel’s tragedy requires no such leap into the imagination for viewers but Firth nonetheless hold back history’s skeletons for the film’s dramatic apex. The goal is less to shock than to plum for cathartic progression. Who knew Take That lyrics could be so sobering? Bea’s superior talent here is in grounding the film’s oft tonal faux pas and weaving together something more heartwarming than the premise suggests or might have allowed in lesser hands. Alongside, Alice Lowe, Jayde Adams and Amaka Okafor lend comic flair to present day takes on Rachel’s one time closest friends. Time might estrange but music can unite. This is less true in the case of Rachel’s relationship with her wannabe fiancé (Marc Wootton), who can’t stand the boys yet holds firm in the face of a dozen proposal rejections from the love of his life.

There’s some real pizazz on show here. The film comes directed by How to Build a Girl’s Coky Giedroyc and enjoys more ambition than actual scope. A glamour puss rendition of Shine sees Matthew McNulty guide Rachel and co. aboard his budget airline like its EasyJet’s answer to a limo, while later an Ancient Greek statue will belt out the titular banger. The comedy is rarely sharp but tickles a welcome spot, with gags about lust, love and everything in between. With warmth on tap, Greatest Days does well to espouse the true value of friendship, via a quartet whose experiences and chemistry are all too relatable.

Familiar jukebox notes keep things chugging along nicely towards a typically bodacious finale. Even as the momentum of the wider whole lacks consistency, the climactic fist pump feel well earned, indicative of a film that must have pushed at least some of the right buttons. Have a little patience and let it shine. The result could well be magic.

T.S.