Take That "Patience" Rapidshare Music Video

It's grim up North, or so they say. But for one Mancunian musical-man-gang, the grimness of their early northern career would be as nothing compared with the blasted heath they were to find themselves cast upon the second they broke up. And here we find them, broken, isolated, wandering alone...

Lo, though they walk through the valley of pop, they shall fear no great revival, for the Lord Gary Barlow shall guide them, and though he may write storming pop ballads - no one ever said the man couldn't write a great pop tune - they are still, at the end of the day, sans Robbie. And there ain't no 'That without the Robbie.

So here we find them, wandering adrift in a no man's land, in a subtle-as-a-brickbat-to-the-face reference to the last 10 years of their respective careers. The boy band of yore is now a middle-aged man-gang, with four-day beards, moody overcoats and identikit bittaruff haircuts. So identikit, in fact, that I now can't tell Howard Donald and Jason Orange apart, so will have to refer to them collectively as Jawar Dorange. (Mark Owen, meanwhile, is still 12.)

They throw us moody shots of Jawar Dorange and Little Boy Owen - all still handsome after all these years - and also Gary. Gary Barlow: great songwriter, lovely guy, unshakable Dolph Lundgren spikes, an air of podge, and a certain lack of magic. The stylists and image-makers of the music world never quite knew what to make of him, but now - finally - someone seems to have found the perfect angle for filming Gary Barlow.

It's whatever angle means the camera points directly into the sun, apparently.

And so it transpires that Fred Elliot may have died in Coronation Street, but he's come roaring back to life (I say ROARING back to life) in Take That's new video, if you can see the likeness, squinting agin' the light. Funny, it was one of the first things any of us were told when first handed a camera - "Never point directly at the sun" - but I think this must be the photographers' caveat known as "The Barlow Exception".

But wait, what is it they're doing? The group seem to be bearing a burden. What is it? The stick they all carry? Is it the cross of record company expectation they've had to bear? Is it the yoke of 10 years of flopping singles and infinite local radio "Where are they now?!" features?

No, no, on closer examination, we see it. While Gary sings, the pretty boys, wandering lost and alone in the wilderness, are carrying unplugged mic stands.

I'll give Gary this - if he's learned nothing else from the last time around, he's learned this: he might let them back in the band, if that's what it takes, but he's jiggered if he's going to give them working microphones.

Now I mention it, we're a good minute-and-a-half in and nobody has sung a word but Gary. At all. Not a peep (and if you're familiar with Mark Owen's solo work, you'll know that's exactly the noise he makes). Gary's been watching the meteoric rise of the Pussycat Dolls and learned one thing: if you haven't the charisma to be a solo star, just get some totty to pull shapes around you; the crowds will be baying for your hits.

You can see the rest of the band straining at the bit to make themselves heard - Jawar Dorange, for example, spots power lines, and you can see him having a clever thought. But this, as everything, passes, and he wanders away again, handsomely.

Eventually, after some more meandering, we realise that the point of this video is that the men are convening - coming together, moving out of isolation, out of their metaphorical exile and grouping once more, to perform ... to a black void at the edge of the world.

Ah. Your metaphor's fallen over again, poppets. Listen, I say if you're trying to show the 'That clawing back to life amid the barren charts, you could still set it somewhere not quite so utterly desolate and banks-of-the-river-Styx-ish.

And there they stand. Finally, Barlow's Buff Flankers get to sing - admittedly, only vague "Ahh" noises, but at least it's something. The song - which I personally think is a belter, I have no shame in saying, although I still think Kelly Clarkson or someone might do it more justice - is coming to a head.

Stunningly chiselled cheekbones, mouths - wide in song - contort, handsomely. Gary also sings. Behind Jawar Dorange, geysers explode suggestively and tower behind the desperate choir, like some vast penile spectre. Perhaps of someone who used to be in the band and is now quite a lot more successful? I cannot possibly say.

And then, their peak peaked, they fade away. Perhaps forever, who knows.

The video ends.

"Right, lads," barks Barlow. "You've had your little sing: now go and fetch the amplifiers. I'll pay you in groupies. As usual."