Robbie Williams

You can hardly do better for an opening tune than ‘Let Me Entertain You,’ can you? Score one for Robbie. If the energy then inevitably dips with one of his more lacklustre singles – ‘Let Love Be Your Energy’ – he immediately pulls his socks up with a cover of U2’s anthemic ‘Beautiful Day’ with its always-reliable ‘go ballistic’ chorus.

With a new blonde skunk-streak hairstyle, Robbie is lean and mean. And what an incredibly consummate showman he is.

When he’s not getting his dear ol’ Mum up on stage, he’s doing manic Elvis and Bono moves, or he’s encouraging the young ones in the stands to bare their bum for five seconds of fame, or he’s keeping things animated with little call-and-response scats and raps between songs. Often he’s just leading the mother of all crowd sing-alongs. Or maybe he’s ring-mastering a cheeky display of guffaw-inducing pyrotechnics and pole-dancing to a rather bitter little number called ‘No Regrets.’

Every carefully-timed wink and smirk is dripping with irony and beamed onto the big screens so the crowd can react. Sardonic jibes fall left right and centre. He pretends to forget poor Jason Orange’s name, before launching a karaoke attack on Take That’s ‘Back For Good,’ thrashing the chorus to within an inch of its life and encouraging the crowd to sing backing vocals, “’cos that’s all I fucking did in the first place.”

For all his happy-go-lucky associations, an awful lot of Robbie’s lyrics suggest someone in constant battle with life, lovers, himself, not to mention the world at large. ‘Strong’ is another case in point. You’re supposed to sing when you’re winning, yet every chance he gets he’s putting the boot into media, Madonna, his exes, and even Take That (get over it, Robbie, you’ve won!).

It all makes more sense when he does ‘Kids’, complete with virtual Kylie on the screens. He doesn’t mind doing it for the kids. Really. He’s Robbie. He’s charming and funny and incredibly gifted at what he does. I’m not positive he’s laughing with us, but everyone’s happy with the result. For now.