The recent death of Liam Payne casts an uncomfortable shadow over the BBC’s new docuseries Boybands Forever, about Britain’s boyband craze of the 1990s and 2000s.
The former One Direction star fell to his death last month from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires aged just 31 with traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system.
Although the BBC’s three-parter ends just before One Direction were formed, it lays bare the pressures that were heaped upon manufactured pop acts by their svengali managers while also revealing the total disregard for these young heartthrobs’ mental health.
As Simon Cowell, who played a key role in the rise of 5ive and Westlife (both featured) and One Direction, says in the show: “If you don’t want [the workload that comes with boyband life] then be an accountant. You can’t have it both ways.”
Many contributors – with 5ive’s Scott Robinson being the most obvious example – still carry scars from their so-called glory days. Tears flow. And the series opens with a clip of East 17’s Brian Harvey smashing up some gold discs in disgust at the music industry.
But events in Argentina make a mockery of the show’s assertion that it’s “a story of a faraway era in pop music history”. Boybands Forever stands as a very current cautionary tale.
Produced by husband-and-wife team Louis Theroux and Nancy Strang, the series is excellently made using a mixture of archive footage, talking heads and voiceover. The access is tremendous; it features interviews with Robbie Williams, Blue, Damage, Westlife, 911 as well as East 17 and 5ive.
The first shot of each contributor – Williams aside – is inevitably met with a gasp of “That’s not…”, as you try to squint beyond the hairweaves and the paunches. We meet the puppet-masters too. As well as Cowell, we hear from Nigel Martin-Smith (Take That), a dishevelled Louis Walsh (Boyzone and Westlife), and others. Archive footage includes everything from audition tapes to Take That’s eye-popping first video featuring the boys’ bums being massaged with jelly.
The best episode of the chronological series is the first one, dealing with the rivalry between Take That and East 17, the boyband equivalent of Blur vs Oasis. You forget how big these bands were, how voracious their female fanbase became (“I’m going to marry X,” was a common shout – bless), and how all-powerful – both in terms of bigging them up and pulling them down – the tabloid and magazine press were.
There are some fascinating nuggets across the series: Russell Brand auditioned for 5ive; Beyoncé apparently stole her trademark booty shake from 911, and 5ive turned down the chance to record Baby One More Time so Britney did it instead.
But the overall impression is one of sadness. “At the ripe old age of 50 I’ve figured out how to enjoy [life],” Williams says at the end. Some people will never get that chance.
Boybands Forever starts on November 16 on BBC Two and iPlayer
