This could be the Greatest Day

TAKE THAT reckon they can still be Giants like Ed Sheeran… in Italy at least.

The manband will be hoping to dethrone the chart juggernaut and score their eighth No.1 album when the anthemic Wonderland drops today.

Last night, in an exclusive chill-out with Guilty Pleasures, the trio revealed where they still get mobbed and how they feared it was game over when Jason Orange upped and left in the middle of their last record.

Recalling a recent trip to Italy Howard Donald, 48, said: ‘We couldn’t get near when we were outside a radio station. There were hundreds of girls outside this gate.

‘What we really wanted to do is go see them and sign stuff but, once you got near them, they were jumping all over you… which is fantastic as well. It took us back to the ’90s.’

Mark Owen, 45, quickly chipped in: ‘Then we saw Ed Sheeran behind us!’ Talking about Sheeran, the threesome say it will be the hysteria of the past versus crazy chart happenings of the new when they try to take him down this week.

‘We’re from another generation,’ joked Mark. ‘On Monday, if not every one of our songs is in the top 20 I will phone some people up! “How come he has it and we don’t?!”’

Then the pragmatic Gary Barlow, 46, lowered expectations. ‘Somewhere in the top ten would be great — thank you,’ he said.

Take That, who insist they are not ‘cool dads’, have overcome the shock of Orange’s disappearing act. ‘That last record was hard,’ said Gary of 2014’s III. ‘We really hoped Jason was going to come back. We never ever imagined we could do it as three.

‘You’re making an album and putting everything into it, but you are thinking, if he doesn’t want to do it, we’re not going to be able to release it.’ Mark added: ‘I don’t like focusing too much on Jason because he wants peace from it.’

Admitting there were no tears making this album, he said: ‘One can have a great experience but someone else is like, “I didn’t get my bit”. But this has felt lovely…’

Mark: My voice is just a Kara-joke

MARK OWEN will be cringing when Take That’s Carpool Karaoke with James Corden goes out for Red Nose Day tonight. ‘When I watch it back, I am like, “is that what I sound like?!”’ he said.

Bouncing back after Jason’s exit

HOWARD DONALD says he now has to fill Jason Orange’s shoes. ‘I bounced a lot off Jason and he bounced a lot off me,’ he said. ‘That sort of thing was missing… you have to up your game.’

Tour has a sense of Wonderland

THE band’s Wonderland tour is the album come to life. ‘Everything we went to write was with the tour in mind — why record music you can’t play live?’ asked Gary.

Author: Andrei Harmsworth