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Robbie Williams spends a surprising amount of the series in his gruts (Photos: Getty / Design: Tina Tiller)
Robbie Williams spends a surprising amount of the series in his gruts (Photos: Getty / Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureNovember 14, 2023

Review: Robbie Williams’ new Netflix doco is a bumpy ride down memory lane

Robbie Williams spends a surprising amount of the series in his gruts (Photos: Getty / Design: Tina Tiller)
Robbie Williams spends a surprising amount of the series in his gruts (Photos: Getty / Design: Tina Tiller)

Tara Ward reviews Robbie Williams, Netflix’s compelling – if sometimes tough to watch – new documentary about the life and times of the British pop superstar.

What’s all this then? 

If you’re not too puffed from sprinting into Robbie Williams’ concert last weekend, you can watch this four-part documentary series that delves into the tumultuous career of the British pop icon. Directed by Joe Pearlman (who also made the Lewis Capaldi documentary How I’m Feeling Now), the series features decades of behind-the-scenes footage, home movies and interviews from throughout Williams’ career, as well as current footage of Robbie as a loving husband and father in Los Angeles. It promises – like every tell-all celebrity Netflix documentary – to show us Robbie Williams as we’ve never seen him before.

What’s good

It’s important to note that present-day Robbie Williams spends most of the documentary lying on his bed wearing nothing but a singlet and undies. Maybe it’s really hot in LA, or maybe Williams is taking the metaphorical stripping down of his past self quite literally. Either way, life is a stage. Imagine if Attenborough did his docos in his gruts? Whole new world. 

Undies aside, this is less of a deep dive into Williams’ music career and more of an excavation of the drama going on behind the scenes. We watch Williams watch hours of archival footage on a laptop, some of it for the first time. There’s cocky teen Robbie in Take That, Robbie on holiday with Geri Halliwell, Robbie under the influence reading comments about himself on social media. There’s an honesty and quiet thoughtfulness to Present Robbie’s responses, even though Past Robbie isn’t always likeable or easy to sympathise with.

We begin with a fleeting glimpse of Williams’ time in Take That before quickly moving on to his solo career, which soared with ‘Angels’ and slumped during bouts of mental health and addiction issues. Despite the years of hit songs and adoring crowds – the footage of the 375,000 people at Knebworth in 2003 is incredible – it was never enough for Williams. There’s a sense he was a cog trapped in his own machine: never independent, never at rest, never fully satisfied.

At home with Robbie Williams (Photo: Supplied)

There are moments when the footage is genuinely hard to watch, and times when Williams is clearly reluctant to take this bumpy trip down memory lane. He knows what’s coming: on-stage breakdowns, substance abuse, self-destruction. He fast-forwards through a performance of ‘Rudebox’ (a song he loved despite it being critically panned), he slams the laptop shut when he’s had enough. Although he’s watching from a place of health and happiness, it’s clearly not easy to revisit the parts of your life you’d rather forget.

The documentary also highlights how little we talked about mental health in the 90s and 2000s. In one interview, Williams admits he’s spent the past five weeks in a depressive episode, only for the reporter to say he’d hoped for a more upbeat comment. In 2006, an exhausted and unwell Williams has a panic attack on stage but carries on with the tour, too overwhelmed by the cost of cancelling. Nearly two decades later, it seems the support offered to Lewis Capaldi when he cancelled his tour due to his health would have also gone a long way to helping Williams.  

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What’s not-so-good

It’s hard not to compare this to Beckham, the other Netflix doco featuring a Spice Girl love story. Beckham and Williams were both working-class teens who hit extreme fame in the 1990s, when celebrity culture was fierce and the tabloids even fiercer. But while Beckham’s story is told through a variety of voices that bring the 90s and 2000s to life for the audience, the only person talking about Robbie Williams here is Robbie Williams himself. 

This means Williams is always in control of his own narrative, but it also leaves the documentary without any wider context. There’s little sense of what else was going on in British pop culture at the time, or why Williams’ music was so beloved (and so derided), and there’s no-one else to confirm how immense the pressure must have been, or the cultural impact that he had. There’s also no mention of Williams’ childhood, which would help viewers understand the impact of joining England’s biggest boy band at the young age of 16. It might have been easier to connect with him if we had a better understanding of the scale of his fame and success. 

Verdict: Watch it. Williams fans will already be aware of many of his struggles, so perhaps this documentary will have a bigger impact on viewers who only know Williams for his on-stage bluster and bravado. It’s an illuminating insight into one of the world’s biggest pop stars who seemingly had it all, and an intimate and personal journey into the darker side of fame and celebrity. Above all, it’s a compelling reminder that we never really know what’s going on behind the spotlight.

Robbie Williams streams on Netflix. 

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The Corrs play at Auckland’s Spark Arena (Photo: Getty (didn’t have any Christchurch) Images)
The Corrs play at Auckland’s Spark Arena (Photo: Getty (didn’t have any Christchurch) Images)

Pop CultureNovember 13, 2023

Blue skies, Long Whites, can’t lose: The Corrs bring the craic in Christchurch

The Corrs play at Auckland’s Spark Arena (Photo: Getty (didn’t have any Christchurch) Images)
The Corrs play at Auckland’s Spark Arena (Photo: Getty (didn’t have any Christchurch) Images)

Hagley Park was turned into a nostalgic Irish pop folk festival on Saturday night. Alex Casey was among the crowd jigging under the stars. 

On their first tour to New Zealand in 1998, Irish pop siblings The Corrs had to hastily throw together an entire music video. They were at the height of their fame following the success of their breakthrough album Talk On Corners, and the label decided last minute that ‘What I Can I Do’ would be the next single released. They shot the whole thing in Āwhitu Peninsula, our rolling green hills making an almost imperceptible substitute for the Irish countryside. 

It was fitting, then, to see The Corrs perform over two decades later in the equally pastoral setting of Christchurch’s Hagley Park. Friends who had attended The Corrs in Auckland a few nights prior had lamented the trappings of Spark Arena. And, after experiencing the moment that ‘Toss the Feathers’ caused what can only be described as a mass jig under the stars, I saw why Auckland crowds might have wanted to rip the roof right off and roam free.  

We had arrived hours earlier to blue sky above, green grass below, and the promise of Natalie Imbruglia in the air (one of three opening acts, along with Toni Childs and Germein). People set up blankets in the sun and delved into their picnic hampers (available for purchase with ticket ONLY). “I can’t even think about the price per cracker”, a woman muttered nearby, drowning her sorrows in a can of Long White. It was Christmas in the Park for aunties, and it rocked. 

Toni Childs tore a handful of folks away from their brie for a boogie, but it was Natalie Imbruglia that got Hagley Park to their feet. “She better play that banger”, said a lady waiting in a nearby line for a pie. The banger did come, of course, but not before a run of unfamiliar music, including a song she wrote with one of The Strokes. “This is the one where you start chair dancing”, pleaded Imbruglia to a sedate crowd who wanted to hear one song and one song only.

And when ‘Torn’ finally came, Imbruglia delivered and it was bliss. I’d say almost everyone was torn away from their blankets, but there were some po-faced husbands who preferred to stay as low to the ground as possible. One near me was lying stock still on his back – possibly asleep, possibly dead. Another was lying on his stomach facing directly away from the stage, eating hot chips while groups of women screamed “I don’t know him anymore” into each other’s faces.

Blue skies, Long Whites, can’t lose

Milling about the crowd during the break, I realised just how much craic was flowing between the people of Christchurch. There were the giant Guinness hats, sure, but The Corrs seemed to have inspired a new generation of comedians. The men in particular couldn’t exit or even stand near a portaloo without making a loud joke. “Warmed the seat up for you,” one bellowed as he left. “A double header!” another exclaimed, as two portaloo doors opened at once.

The Corrs took the stage with the moody, maybe Freddy Krueger sex ballad ‘Only When I Sleep’. Andrea Corr hopped around the stage with glee while yarning about how good it was to be back in the country after two decades. As with The Chicks last month, the Christchurch concert was also the absolute last stop on a long world tour. “Thanks for acclimatising us for home” she joked as the sun set and temperatures promptly plummeted. 

As they launched into ‘Summer Sunshine’, sundresses were covered up in puffer jackets, blankets were wrapped around shoulders, and the line for the coffee cart instantly out-snaked that of the booze tent. Thankfully, the endless hits of The Corrs came thick and fast and the crowd kept themselves warm enough with aforementioned jigging. I saw someone twerk to The Corrs, I saw someone do air fiddle to The Corrs. I saw someone do the robot to The Corrs. 

Free from the social niceties of shuffling into tight arena seats and dealing with brightly lit fluorescent arena foyers, the people of Christchurch soon went absolutely feral with Corrs fever. “THIS IS MY FAVOURITE FUCKING SOOOOONG”, a woman yelled with a guttural scream when the groovy little riff for ‘What Can I Do’ began. As more Long Whites were cracked, we were treated to one Fleetwood Mac cover (‘Little Lies’) and then another (‘Dreams’, ofc). 

It was genuinely shocking to remember just how many hits The Corrs have, and how deeply embedded those lyrics (and even the little fiddle runs) were in the memories of the crowd. After ‘Dreams’ came ‘So Young’ and then ‘I Never Really Loved You Anyway’, and then The Corrs disappeared momentarily for a fake annoying encore thing, before storming back with the holy trinity – ‘Runaway’, ‘Breathless’ and ‘Toss the Feathers’. 

My one quibble with the otherwise near-perfect show? The abysmal merchandise offering. For a band so deeply associated with 90s aesthetics, they could have done so much better than the extremely corporate and clinical offering, which one friend who attended the Auckland show described as looking like “a marathon tee”. But then again, after hours of fancy footwork, swaying, singing, and throwing empty cups on the crowd, perhaps we had just done a Corrs marathon after all. 

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