Robbie Williams review – slick and saucy end-of-the-pier pop

Hyde Park, London
The set is a musical memoir, from Take That, through rebellion (including a version of Blur’s Parklife with Danny Dyer), struggles with addiction and later contentment

In his recent self-titled Netflix documentary, Robbie Williams looks back at his storied life and career with the candour and acceptance of a man who has spent a lot of time in expensive therapy. Tonight’s set in Hyde Park – a one-off UK festival date for the British Summer Time series – is similarly framed as the story of a star who flew too close to the sun, coming down to earth and finding peace there. Dressed in all white, Robbie introduces his 1999 single Strong with a characteristic half joke: “I will only know if I can be vulnerable with you if you can sing along a cappella to one of my lesser-known hits.”

Spanning his 34 year-long career, the set is a kind of musical memoir. Robbie guides us through his early days with Take That via live commentary on the famously lewd Do What U Like video (“that’s Jason Orange, the one with his nipples out”). To represent the 1995 trip to Glastonbury when he shed his boyband trappings for good, he performs a series of Britpop covers, among them a bizarre but joyous take on Parklife by Blur, complete with a marching band and Danny Dyer doing the Phil Daniels part. Come Undone expresses his struggles with alcohol, drugs and depression, which is cut through by the simple subsequent contentment of Love My Life.

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