Boy band Five To Five have won Let It Shine, bagging themselves a year’s contract as stars of a new touring musical inspired by Take That’s songs.
AJ Bentley, Curtis T Johns, Nick Carsberg, Sario Solomon and Yazdan Qafouri fought off competition from the two other finalist groups, Nightfall and Drive, to be chosen by a public vote as the winners in the BBC One contest.
Head judge Gary Barlow, who has been developing the musical with former EastEnders star Jack Ryder, told the group: “You know we start work tomorrow morning, right? We go on stage in September in Manchester.”
Gary was joined by former bandmates Robbie Williams, Mark Owen and Howard Donald for a performance of their hit The Flood just before the result was announced.
Robbie, who had cancelled guest judging duties because of an illness, still managed to perform but said it was emotional to be back with his old group.
He said: “It was and is very emotional. Proper tears. It’s only because I’m on telly that I’m not welling up. I’ll go back to the dressing room and cry.”
Howard, who welcomed new son Dougie Bear this week, said of his newborn: “He’s doing good, as you can tell by the bags under my eyes he’s not sleeping much.”
Comedian Peter Kay stood in for Robbie on the judging panel, which also included Martin Kemp and Dannii Minogue, and dressed up as X Factor contestant Honey G, calling himself Honey P.
Five To Five sang their way to victory with performances of You Can’t Stop The Beat from musical Hairspray and Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus.
Nick hurt his right leg while performing on stage but danced through the pain on Saturday’s show.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here