Take That are a British pop boy band formed by Nigel Martin Smith in Manchester in 1990. After success in the 1990s as a five person act, a reformed four man version of the band achieved new success in the 2000s.

Take That sold more than 25 million records between the years of 1991-1996. Between the band's first single release in 1991 and their breakup in 1996, the BBC described Take That as "the most successful British band since The Beatles in the UK, beloved of young and old alike". Take That's dance-oriented pop tunes and soulful ballads dominated the UK charts in the first half of the 1990s, spawning two of the best selling albums of the decade with Everything Changes (which was nominated for the 1994 Mercury Prize) and Greatest Hits 1996, and according to All Music Guide, "at this time were giant superstars in Europe with the main question about them not being about whether they could get a hit single, but how many and which would make it to number one".

The band split in 1996 but, after a 2005 documentary and the release of a greatest hits album, they announced a 2006 tour around the United Kingdom, entitled The Ultimate Tour 2006. On May 9 2006, it was announced that Take That were set to record their first studio album in over 10 years.

The breakthrough single was a cover of the 1970s Tavares hit "It ONLY TAKES A Minute". With a high tempo beat and an athletic yet trendy dance video with the boys clothed in "street" gear the single reached #7 on the UK charts.

This success was then followed by the track "I Found Heaven" and then by the first Gary Barlow ballad "A Million Love Songs" - both top 20 hits, and neither, to Barlow's relief, featuring dance video backing. Their cover of the Barry Manilow and Donna Summer disco hit "Could It Be Magic" gave them their biggest hit to date, and secured them a place in the public consciousness. Their first album, Take That and Party, was released in 1992, and contained all the so far released hit singles - a mix of covers and Barlow ballads.

1993 saw the release of Take That's most successful original album Everything Changes, based mainly on Barlow's original material. It spawned four UK number one singles - their first number one "Pray", then "Relight My Fire", "Babe" (beaten to Christmas number one by Mr Blobby), and the title track "Everything Changes". The fifth single "Love Ain't Here Anymore" reached number three on the UK charts. "Everything Changes" also saw Take That become an international success, although the US market still proved elusive ("Love Ain't Here Anymore" was even remixed for American release with a more rhythm & blues sound but did not garner much attention). However, they were at their highest peak of celebrity in the UK - highs included having tea with Princess Diana at Kensington Palace, and sitting on Elton John's sofa shouting out requests for him to play on the piano.

Their 1995 album Nobody Else, was launched with the release of number one single "Sure". Their second release would become their biggest hit single (and only US Chart entry), "Back for Good". The album was also noted for its cover, which (outside of North America) was a parody of the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover sleeve.

In July 1995 Robbie, wanting to get rid of his clean-cut image, rebelled and began to party hard with British band Oasis at Glastonbury. A mixture of growing animosity between Williams and Martin-Smith over Robbie's professionalism, and disagreements between Williams and Barlow and the other band members due to this resulted in Robbie's departure from the band.

Take That continued to promote the album Nobody Else as a four piece, scoring a further hit single and fan favourite "Never Forget" (subsequently released as a single in a Jim Steinman remix version).

On 13 February 1996, Take That announced that they were splitting. This was followed by the Greatest Hits compilation in 1996, which contained a new recording, a cover of The Bee Gees "How Deep Is Your Love" (featuring the remaining members tied to chairs in the video in what was proposed by the media as the way they felt about their management and recording contracts), which went on to become what appeared to be the band's final number one.

Soon after the split, Gary Barlow recorded a solo album, Open Road (1997). Five singles were released from the album, with the first two—"Forever Love" and "Love Won't Wait"—reaching number 1 on the UK charts. His second album, Twelve Months, Eleven Days, was less successful. Two singles were released: "Stronger", which reached #116, and "For All That You Want", which reached #124. Barlow was subsequently dropped from his label. This was said to be due to him only being capable of releasing slow ballads, signaling rumours he was never the same man who was behind all the Take That hits. He later set up a studio in his Cheshire home and began writing and producing records for the likes of Teletubbies, The Tweenies, Mr Blobby's Greatest Hits, and Ching Wang Su Leana.

Robbie Williams released his debut solo single, "Freedom" reaching number-two in the UK Singles Chart, twenty-six places higher than the George Michael's original, after that his career was going down as sales of his album were poor and many thought this was the end of Williams career. When Williams released his fifth single, "Angels" success came when the song reached the top five in the United Kingdom and top ten elsewhere selling over two million copies of the single worldwide. His debut album reached number-one in the UK Albums chart on its 28th week and after spending 218 weeks inside the charts it was certified 8x Platinum by the BPI and selling over four million copies worldwide.

Since then Williams fame around the world grew and each one of his studio albums has reached number-one in the United Kingdom, and has sold more records than any other British solo artist in history, with over 53 million albums and 15 million singles sold worldwide over the course of his solo career.

Williams made it to The Guinness Book of World Records when 1.6 million tickets were sold in a single day shortly after he announced his World Tour in 2006.

He has been the recipient of many awards — including more BRIT and ECHO Awards than any other artist in history He is currently the most successful male artist in the world, for the period 1998-2007, according to the United World Chart, and the third artist overall behind Madonna and Britney Spears.

Mark Owen has released three solo albums to date - Green Man, In Your Own Time and How the Mighty Fall. He had 3 top 5 singles from these albums; Child, Clementine and Four Minute Warning. He has toured extensively in Europe and the UK, and visited Japan in early 2006, where he has secured a publishing deal. Owen also won the 2002 UK version of Celebrity Big Brother. Mark's 3rd album How The Mighty Fall was released under his own label Sedna Records.

Howard Donald recorded a single but it was not released. He then went on to become a successful DJ playing mostly in the UK and Germany.

Jason Orange had two acting roles, he played DJ drug dealer Brent Moyer in Lynda La Plante's Killer Net (shown on UK Channel 4 and now on DVD) and he appeared in the play Gob which was performed at the King's Head Theatre in London. He also travelled the world and went back to college to study sociology and psychology.

On November 14, 2005, a new compilation of their hit singles, plus a new previously unreleased song, also made the top end of the UK charts. The new song "Today I've Lost You" (recorded in September 2005) was originally written as the follow up to "Back for Good". This track is the only track from the album which isn't available to download (except on bootleg recordings). On Wednesday November 16, 2005, the group got back together for the ITV1 documentary "For The Record", in which they aired their views over the split and what they had been up to during the last 10 years. On November 25, 2005, there was an official press conference by the band announcing that the post Robbie Williams line-up were going to tour in 2006. The tour, entitled The Ultimate Tour 2006, started with just 11 dates booked but after record sell-outs, a further 19 dates were added - totalling 30 arena and stadium concerts around Britain and Ireland - and ran from April to June 2006. The tour featured a guest appearance by British soul singer Beverley Knight, who replaced Lulu's vocals on the song "Relight My Fire"; although Lulu did appear during the stadium shows on "Relight My Fire" and "Never Forget". The American girl-band Pussycat Dolls supported the group at their Dublin concert, and the Sugababes supported the group on the final five dates of the stadium leg.

On May 19, 2006, Williams announced to Jonathan Ross on his late-night chat show that he would join his former band mates for a rendition of "Could It Be Magic" during the tour, if Ross should beat him at a game of tennis in the week following the broadcast. It turned out that he later didn't take part in the proposed match. Williams did feature in the 2006 gigs in performances of "Could it be Magic" as a 20ft pre-recorded hologram.

On May 9, 2006, Take That came back to the recorded music scene after more than ten years, signed to a music deal with Polydor Records in a deal reportedly worth £3,000,000. After just over a month on sale the band's comeback album Beautiful World sold over 1.5 million copies in the U.K, and the band took promotion to Germany, where on 20th January 2007, they appeared on "Wetten Dass...", in which they announced there would be an European tour in October 2007. Unlike the band's earlier works, where the majority of their material was written by Gary Barlow, 11 of the 12 songs are co-written by the band and professional songwriters including John Shanks, Steve Robson and others with only "I'd Wait for Life" being an entirely Take That composition. It was announced at the start of 2007 that Take That recently signed a record deal with American label Interscope, and would also release their album in Canada. Take That also celebrated being the first artists ever to simultaneously top the five main official UK single, album, DVD, download single and download album charts in the same week (week ending December 17, 2006) with 'Patience' (single), 'Beautiful World' (album) and 'The Ultimate Tour - Live In Manchester' (DVD).

The come-back single "Patience" was released on November 20, 2006, with a special event launching it on 5th November (Bonfire Night). On 26 November "Patience" hit number 1 in the UK in its second week of chart entry making it the group's 9th No.1. On Saturday December 2 the band performed live on ITV1 show An Audience with Take That. They performed some of their biggest hits and songs of the new album to an audience full of celebrities, and the album, "Beautiful World", reached #1 on the UK album chart the following day, while 'Patience' also remained at No.1 on both the Official UK Singles and Download charts. The video for "Shine", the follow-up to "Patience" was premiered on January 25, 2007 on Channel 4, ahead of its release on February 26, 2007. The band's massive success continued on February 14, 2007 when Take That performed live at the BRIT Awards ceremony at Earl's Court. Their single "Patience" won the Best British single category. Following their performance, Patience re-entered the UK top 10 after 16 weeks in the charts, with "Shine" placing just below at #11 one week before its official release. On March 4, 2007 it topped the UK singles chart, becoming the second straight single from the album to do so. It was the tenth number one single of their career and took them past Spice Girls and ABBA (both on nine) in the all-time number one UK singles charts. Mark Owen takes lead vocals on a single for the second time for Shine. The third single taken from Beautiful World was "I'd Wait For Life", released on June 18, 2007 in the UK. However the single only reached 17 in the UK Singles Chart, falling out of the top 40 the following week. The third single that was released outside of the UK was "Reach Out".

Take That will visit Australia, Japan and Canada in the coming months as they take Beautiful World around the world. The Beautiful World Tour 2007 started in Belfast, UK in early October, and will see the guys performing in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark before finishing in Manchester, UK after 11 sold-out dates at the MEN Arena. The support act for the UK leg of the tour is to be Sophie Ellis-Bextor and for the rest of Europe, Jamie Scott. Take That were one of the contributing acts to perform at the Concert for Diana which was held at The Wembley Stadium on July 1, 2007. The band performed three of their #1 hits: "Patience", "Shine" and "Back for Good". The band had originally met the Princess during their height of fame in the early '90s.

Take That wrote and recorded the theme song "Rule the World" for the film Stardust directed by Matthew Vaughn, which was released in cinemas across North America and Europe in August 2007. The track was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and was produced by John Shanks who produced part of the band's comeback album Beautiful World. The new track featured Gary Barlow on lead vocals with the rest of the band providing harmonies. The song also featured The Millennia Ensemble on strings, which was arranged by conductor Will Malone. Bookies William Hill made the tune 3/1 favourite to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 2008 ceremony. This song was confirmed as the band's next single, which was released on 22nd October 2007. It has reached to #2 in the UK singles chart.

* Take That are one of only seven acts in the history of the British Singles Chart whose tally of number ones is in double figures. These seven acts include Elvis Presley (21, 18 different songs), The Beatles (17), Cliff Richard (14 : six of them with The Shadows, one with The Drifters, one with The Young Ones), Westlife (14 : one of them with Mariah Carey), Madonna (12), The Shadows (11 : six of them with Cliff Richard, two of these also with The Norrie Paramor Strings) and Take That (10: one featuring Lulu). The ten #1s were almost all consecutive: starting with "Pray" in 1993, they had four consecutive #1 hits, followed by a #3 single ("Love Ain't Here Anymore") and then six more consecutive #1 hits, ending with "Shine" in 2007. * In an episode of the alternative comedy Green Wing, whilst Mac is in a coma, he is played Take That's "Back For Good". * The band took their name from a newspaper article about Madonna. * Love to Infinity (Andy & Pete Lee) produced Take That's first ever studio session-"Waiting Around" and the unreleased "Girl". * In 2007, The Concretes recorded an Indie Pop cover version of Take That's "Back For Good", which is set to appear on the compilation album Guilt By Association in September.

* TakeThatTV.com Official Website (Polydor)