BBC Two will air a new series on the boyband mania of the 1990s and 2000s featuring interviews with Take That‘s Robbie Williams, Westlife’s Brian McFadden, and music mogul Simon Cowell.
Boybands Forever, a three-episode series, will air later in 2024. Produced by Mindhouse Productions (Louis Theroux Interviews, Lockerbie) and from producer-husband-and-wife pair Louis Theroux and Nancy Strang, the show will dive into pop culture in the ’90s and ’00s, looking at the success of some of the U.K. and Ireland’s most celebrated pop stars.
Each episode will follow the reality of new-found fame at a young age while revealing some of the pivotal behind-the-scenes moments. Boybands Forever will include interviews with the artists themselves including Williams, McFadden, as well as members of East 17, Blue, Five, 911, and Damage.
The series will also hear from the music label bosses and band managers who handled their ascent to fame, including Cowell (RCA Records) Nigel Martin-Smith (Take That), Louis Walsh (Westlife), Daniel Glatman (Blue), Chris Herbert (Five) and Steve Gilmour (911), as well as those close to the band members, music industry insiders, presenters, and journalists.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled about this series,” said Louis Theroux, who serves as executive producer. “An epic story featuring a cast of stars and star-makers, spanning three decades, it involves some of the icons of modern British pop. We see them through their highs and lows, hearing from the key players, as we chart the golden years of boy bands. How they came together, the experience of sudden fame, the opportunity and temptations that came their way, conflicts within the groups, between the groups, and between the boys and their managers.”
The British journalist and presenter continued: “It’s a gripping fable about getting everything you dreamed of, and it not being what you imagined, centered on a generation of young men, and their managers, who were wildly successful and also immensely vulnerable, having the times of their lives and also in some cases cracking up. Those boys we all watched singing and dancing in tight formation – Take That, East 17, Westlife, Blue, Five, Damage, 911 and so many others – are now middle-aged men who have the time and the maturity to look back and reflect on what they went through. It’s taken us more than a year to make the series. Now I’m just excited for people to see it.”
Boybands Forever is a Mindhouse production for BBC Pop Music TV and BBC Two. It was commissioned by Jonathan Rothery, head of Popular Music TV. The commissioning editor for BBC Popular Music TV is Rachel Davies. Executive producers are Strang and Theroux for Mindhouse.
