At the top of their game for a decent stretch, yes, and beloved by millions of fans, but when you consider their musical legacy, Boyzone were creatively hobbled by a back catalogue of unimaginative covers and, save for occasional moments of magic, uninspiring material.
Their success seemed to hinge on nothing better coming along just yet. It was no surprise, then, to find that the three-part tell-all documentary about their highs and lows offered little in the way of fresh information. Crudely shot videos of knackered young men looking lonely in empty airports, enforced japery, or snatches of interviews with boys far from home who can barely summon the energy to remember their own name. Throughout the nineties and way beyond, the record industry played fast and loose with the mental health of its young charges, never allowing the production line to falter for fear of new, more energetic rivals tempting away their audience with better songs, ritzier dance routines and fresher faces devoid of eyebags or the haunted, opioid-glazed expressions.
The most interesting thing about Boyzone: No Matter What was its roiling subtext. The band member with the most fascinating stories, Stephen Gately, died tragically young of an undiagnosed heart defect in , and other than Mikey Graham, the bandmates largely appeared to keep their feelings behind glass.
So Mikey was cast as the spurned outsider, filmed across a table in interrogation stance, hands knotted together over white knuckles, face etched with disappointment and loss. You might think manager Louis Walsh, given the lakes of bad blood separating him from the band, would be keen to swerve this visual memoir, but Walsh can hear a camera bag unzipping across two continents and has been running low on shame for a good three decades.
Every time Walsh was on screen, staring back, unblinking and unbowed, at his interviewer, I had that same feeling in my stomach as when I once ran a dishcloth along the seal of my dishwasher and inspected the results. Every moment of pain, anguish, and misery relayed by the band members was met with ice-veined indifference by their former manager.
