Mamma Mia! has a lot to answer for. Never Forget is the latest audience-pleasing, and critic-riling, addition to that increasingly popular genre of the ‘Jukebox’ musical, in which the story is usually contrived around the hits of a certain popular group. Here the victims are 1990s boy band superstars (turned housewives’ favourite) Take That.

The story concerns a ragtag group of 20-something Manchester men (from a stripper to an accountant), who audition for a Take That tribute act. Although their singing and dancing abilities do vary (as do their similarities to the members of the original group), the group has a clear star. It’s Ash (Mark Wilshire), a talented singer who enters the competition to fund an ailing pub owned by his mother (Penelope Woodman). However, Ash is spotted at an early concert by a talent scout, and is faced with the choice of sticking by his roots, or abandoning it all, including his fiancée (showstopper, Aimee Atkinson), and making it big.

The redundancy of this review is noted; it’s a production exclusively for Take That fans who will see it regardless.

All the group’s hits are here; so if you like the songs, you’ll probably have a good time. Additionally, although the music is left ‘as is’ – and thus this will also please devotees – it does expose the now-dated arrangements of the material, and is a little lazy.

If anything, this datedness provides evidence of why we are not ready for a cultural revival of the nineties yet; there’s not enough distance there for a kitsch factor. There isn’t anything else on offer here, though. Whereas Mamma Mia! was aware of its own silliness, this is not. Narratively it also has a lot in common with EastEnders (melodrama, a strong sense of morality and a very British fear of success).

The writers know their target audience, and the humour, the language and the story are all fairly safe. The inclusion of soap star heartthrob Philip Olivier in the cast epitomises this.

Never Forget is competent enough, but it is – somewhat inevitably – just for the fans.