Claims that a Hythe man, who won a TV talent competition, will be a mere “backing singer” in a musical have been branded “utter rubbish” by Take That’s Gary Barlow.

Aaron Bentley, 22, formerly a pupil of Brockhill Park, was crowned the winner of BBC’s Let it Shine along with his four other band mates in the group Five to Five.

The eight week show that took the prime time slot on Saturday nights was headed by Mr Barlow who wanted to select five candidates to form a band.

Mr Bentley, nicknamed AJ on the show, will tour the country over the next year-and-a-half in a musical entitled The Band.

This will include a string of performances at east Kent’s major theatre, The Marlowe, in Canterbury from February 20 to March 3, next year.

The lads will be mentored by Take That themselves.

But a national newspaper, who did not reveal its source, said that the Five to Five boys would only receive “backing singer” parts and would not even get the chance to speak in the musical.

This claim has been slammed by Mr Bentley and his new teacher, Mr Barlow.

The Take That tweeted “utter rubbish” in response to a query from user Jo Kennedy who asked if the rumours were true.

Mr Bentley assured his fans that more about the musical will be revealed on his personal Facebook account, but the post has since been deleted.

It is understood the big reveal will happen next month.

An official spokesman for The Band musical said: “We can assure fans of Let It Shine that AJ Bentley, Nick Carsberg, Curtis T Johns, Yazdan Qafouri and Sario Solomon will be front and centre for The Band musical singing 14 of Take That’s songs.

“There are lots of exciting elements to the plot of the show and when we are finally able to unveil these, everything will make sense.”