Robbie Williams is a natural-born show-off cursed with a crippling level of self-awareness. And crippling is the world: halfway through the four-part Robbie Williams (Netflix from Wednesday), the pop star stands backstage in Leeds, marvelling that so many people have come to see him. That astonishment turns to panic a few hours later when, emerging from a trap door to a packed stadium, he loses his nerve and spends two hours wrestling a panic attack. Afterwards, he’s too upset to speak.
Because Williams is one of the biggest pop stars of the past 30 years, these and other moments of extraordinary vulnerability are caught on film. The big gimmick behind Joe Pearlman’s enjoyable new documentary is that we catch up with present-day Robbie, who, from his bed, watches the old footage on a laptop. He laughs at some of it: the haircuts, the supremely bouncy brio he displays from the moment he joined Take That at age 16. But mostly, he winces and wants to look elsewhere: fame for Williams had plenty of perks yet was ultimately a drag.
Ireland has a few cameos. There is a revealing clip of Williams promoting his 1999 Slane Castle show. A journalist asks Robbie how he’s feeling. “Slane is three days away and I’m really scared ... I was in bed worrying about it last week ... I’ve been in a black depression for the last five weeks.” He then offers to provide a different answer. “Biggest gig of my life,” he beams. “It’s going to be a wonderful experience.”
Croke Park then pops up in part three as Williams starts his 2006 tour on Dublin’s northside. Backstage, he admits to having never been so nervous before. Having been at the show, I can attest his jitters were justified. A weird atmosphere settled on Croke Park that day – a frenzy that boiled up to something more manic. Williams seems to have never entirely recovered: a few months later, in Leeds, he fell apart entirely.
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One Netflix documentary can feel much like the next one. There are certainly parallels between Robbie Williams and the streamer’s recent series about David Beckham. The difference is that Williams is far harder on himself and insightful – to a fault perhaps – on celebrity and its many downsides.
He constantly comments on how adrift he is. An early scene of Williams recording his second album in the Caribbean and on the phone to his then-girlfriend, Nicole Appleton of All Saints, leads Williams to remark that he sounds like a child talking to his mum. Then there’s the shocking footage from backstage in Germany, where a down-in-the-dumps Robbie insists on a steroid shot before he performs – over the objections of a frustrated assistant.
It’s hardly news that Robbie has a fragile ego. He talks about how much the British press had it in for him. You can only sympathise, though surely it’s better to have a properly functioning music press than, as is the case in Ireland, a media that never says anything even mildly negative about certain Irish artists for fear of nonplussing the wrong people (ask any Irish music journalist and they will tell you Big Brother is always watching).
The only real flaw in Robbie Williams is its hasty conclusion. After tracking his rise with Take That and his bumpy solo career, it finishes with him waving goodbye to his wife, Ayda Field, and their four kids in LA and flying to London for a show.
He tells us he’s in a better place and looking forward to going on stage. But you wonder if those demons have been put back in their bottle. The worrying takeaway is that people don’t change and that, despite his current profession of happiness, underneath it all, Williams remains uneasy about fame and not quite sure if it was worth the price.
