The BBC has released a trailer for its new documentary series that retraces the boyband phenomenon of the nineties and noughties.
Louis Theroux has produced the series through his company Mindhouse Productions, alongside fellow Exec Nancy Strang.
The three hour-long episodes will tell the stories behind some of the UK and Ireland’s most adored popstars, through both archive footage and ‘searingly honest’ interviews with the stars themselves.
Members from Take That, Westlife, East 17, Blue, Five, 911 and Damage will all be reliving the “amazing highs and amazing lows” of their time in the spotlight, including Robbie Williams and Brian McFadden. “It was just a wall of screams and hormones,” Williams fondly recalls in the trailer. “It. Went. Off!”
The series will also hear from the label heads and band managers who guided their ascent to fame, including Simon Cowell (RCA Records), Nigel Martin-Smith (Take That), Louis Walsh (Westlife), Daniel Glatman (Blue), Chris Herbert (Five) and Steve Gilmour (911).
Those who were close to the band members, and others who simply followed their success, will all contribute to the nostalgia trip back to the cheesy era of double denim.
But they will also analyse the cultural and commercial landscape the boyband mania emerged from. As Five's Ritchie Neville says in the trailer: “you were 100% a product.”
Boybands Forever will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on Saturday 16 November at 9.15pm.
