5 Reasons Why... Robbie leaving Take That again is a national tragedy.

1.       Without him, they are a charisma black hole. We all saw Gary’s innate tediousness on X Factor. Howard Donald gives Ed Sheeran a run for his money in the bore stakes, which is saying something since Sheeran’s head looks like it’s being crushed by the sheer weight of his dullitude and his eyes appear to be attempting to crawl off opposite sides of his face and leap onto someone more interesting. Robbie once managed to reduce a friend of mine to tears simply appearing on Top of the Pops and doing that thing where he spins the microphone round in one hand. Jason of Orange couldn’t do that. He’d drop it and then write an apologetic note to the sound guy saying sorry for not treating his equipment with respect.

2.       Robbie’s mini-set was the best bit of their gigs last year. It takes something extraordinary to upstage a 60 foot tall robot called Om and the sight of Jason Orange riding a unicycle, but introducing Robbie back into the band by giving him 15 minutes in which to stick a rocket under proceedings and tremble the knees of tens of thousands of mums was a masterstroke. If there’s a better five-song set than ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Rock DJ’, ‘Come Undone’, ‘Feel’ and ‘Angels’, I’ll eat my hat (it’s a hat made of nachos so I will quite happily be proven wrong here).

3.       Staying with ‘the lads’ might stop him making more of his own albums. Since Escapology, his career’s been an unmitigated stink-fest. Rudebox sounds very much like the work of a man who at roughly the same time went crackers, grew a massive beard (sure sign of madness and loneliness – see below) and decided to hunt UFOs.

4.       Progress wasn’t half bad. By some distance Take That’s best album since the glory days, Progress was a thumping, techno-flavoured addition to the Take That oeuvre, and in ‘The Flood’ boasts both a fantastic, soaring lead single and probably the best rowing-based video in pop history. It was a gauntlet thrown down to all the young bucks threatening to knock them off their perch, and one which has yet to be picked up, though I’m not sure Niall from One Direction has the upper body strength to pick up anything heavier than a tea towel.

5.       Nobody wants to see Gary get all fat and beardy again. Gary’s from my home town, and while in his post-solo-career-failure twilight zone, he moved back into his mum’s house for a bit. In an attempt to go incognito, he grew a massive beard and started wearing jogging bottoms. A friend of my brother’s saw him in the pub having a steak dinner, stood up and shouted, “IT’S GARY BARLOW!” at him. Gary looked up at him sadly, down at his bloated stomach, then back down at his steak. Don’t let this happen to him again. Just give £5 a month to Barlow Relief and help bribe Robbie back into the gang. You can make a difference.