Childs Play For Mark - Manchester Evening News - 06.03.09

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/showbiz/s/1100803_childs_play_for_mark

IT'S a case of art imitating life for Take That dad Mark Owen, who provides lead vocals for the manband's latest single release - Up All Night.

What with two-year-old Elwood Jack and Willow Rose, only three months, in the house, Mark and girlfriend Emma Ferguson don't get that much sleep.

"I got about four hours and that's all last night," says Mark, still managing to sound as chipper as ever. "One of them has a bit of a cold at the moment so it's not that easy.

"But I absolutely love being a dad. It really does serve as a reality check - I spend all day as a pop star in rehearsals and then I go home and I'm a dad.

"It's the best of both worlds. Like today, I'm in rehearsals and I'll be home in time to tuck my son up in bed and give my little girl a cuddle."

Mark, 37, is living in London these days - it's where his girlfriend hails from - but still travels up north as often as he can to see his mum and dad.

And he says the video for Up All Night, based on a street party like those held in 1977 to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee, brought back memories of his Oldham childhood.

"The thing I remember most is getting a special coin," he says.

But what he doesn't remember, however, is whether he has met Her Royal Highness personally.

"I THINK I've met her but I can't be certain," he admits, slightly embarrassed. "That's not being blasé and I do love the Royals. It's just that things were so hectic when we did a few of those Royal variety performances that I can't really remember what happened. We certainly met Prince Charles a couple of times."

Back to the present, Mark quips that the band only decided to release a single with him singing lead because they knew that principal songwriter Gary Barlow would be climbing Kilimanjaro, raising money for Comic Relief.

"That's all right," Owen adds. "He's half way up a mountain and we're left behind to do all the hard work!"

Some of that work includes early rehearsals for this summer's gargantuan Circus tour and Owen says that the band have already formulated some pretty wild ideas.

"We meet twice a week to talk about what we might do on the tour.

"It's one thing to get together in the pub and come up with wild ideas and quite another to do them. What we've always needed in Take That is someone to act as the voice of reason."

Speaking of which, Owen still isn't ruling out a return for Robbie Williams.

"The nice thing is, in the last year, everybody has been in contact a lot more and he's back in England now, so he's more a part of our circle.

"But the weird thing is, we don't talk about that sort of thing.

"For us, if Robbie turned round and said, `Can I come and do something?', it wouldn't be a problem."

that 's cute mark