Thirty years and, by his own count, three rehabs after his lad-defining exit from Take That, the question remains: who on earth does Robbie Williams think he is? The award-winning (if not box office-bothering) visionary of simian cinema behind his Better Man biopic? The Hallmark Warhol of his recent, pilloried Radical Honesty art show? An on-the-skids superstar reduced to swing and Christmas covers albums, or a resurgent national treasure returning after six years to claim some of the respect finally being dished out across the upper pop echelons?
On the opening night of the Britpop tour – his first mainly-stadium outing since 2018, teeing up a new album he’s claimed is the true-to-himself record he wanted to make after leaving Take That in 1995 – he’s none of these things and more. In white sci-fi bondage overalls and wraparound mirror shades, Williams skydives from atop a firework-spewing rocket, mid-liftoff, to declare himself “the King of Entertainment”.
“My dream is to be the best entertainer on the f***ing planet,” he tells a suitably wowed Edinburgh, and he certainly seems to mean it. Flanked by banner-waving gospel singers (but sadly no Tommy Iommi) for Britpop’s boogie metal lead single “Rocket” and announcing “you’d better be good because I am phenomenal” amid an electrified “Let Me Entertain You”, he makes the most spectacular entry possible for a man admittedly too cheap to shell out for Coldplay wristbands.
Within minutes, though, we find ourselves in a musical cabaret TED talk. Tonight, Williams explains, is “a journey to find out the meaning of entertainment”, and it’s a question Edinburgh will ask itself numerous times during this sometimes testing two hours. Is entertainment a cracking “Kids”, or “Millennium” backed by a chorus line of 9ft human Oscars? Unequivocally yes. Is it mass singalongs to Oasis-aping Nineties hits like “Old Before I Die” and “Strong”? Edinburgh seems to think so. A parade of Midsommar waifs with giant shrubberies on their heads following a Balkan marching band through a folky “The Road to Mandalay”? In a Eurovision 1976 kind of way, sure.
But how about watching Williams do operatic vocal warm-ups over a 10-minute megamix of Foo Fighters’ “All My Life”, Blur’s “Song 2”, The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and Baby Lasagna’s “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”? If you’re already drunk, maybe. Full Vegas blasts through “New York, New York” and “My Way” in neon pink Elton-wear, while exhorting the crowd to “hug your inner t***” and “wave your cringe flag high”? Plain awful. And segments where Williams banters with eerie digital recreations of himself as a teenager and an 80-year-old on the big screens, largely about his “shorter than average” penis? Those are just more evidence that we should kill AI immediately, with fire.
Williams aims at meta and – for a good third of the show – hits meh. His bawdy stand-up segments, extended crowd work, regular Proclaimers karaoke and relentless oversharing drag proceedings to several grinding halts. An attempt to sing “She’s The One” to a woman in the front row takes almost 15 minutes to get going and, as the final stretch distends, he wangs on for so long about his children saving his sanity that he’s clearly the only doting parent in the stadium who isn’t measuring out their evening in babysitter hours.
But amid the flam and blubber, moments of pure entertainment do crystalise. An acoustic duet with The Lottery Winners’ Thom Rylance – as double act The Balls – on a crowd-swamped C-Stage, playing snippets of Williams’s more obscure songs to see which the crowd remember (clue: all of them) culminates in a rousing “Relight My Fire” with a flame-haired Michelle McManus bringing the Lulu diva vibe. “Come Undone” is punchy stadium rock balladry in the pain-behind-the-palatial-gates mode. And the last great showman is wholeheartedly back in the room for an uplifting encore of “Feel” and “Angels”. “Are you not entertained?” Williams demands as the firework rocket descends once more, bathing him in stage-wide sparks. Sporadically, yes.
