By disposition, it’s not generally the Robbie Williams way to linger too long on what has been. “I am always constantly looking forward,” he points out. Still, succeed for long enough, and the trail of all you have achieved spreads out behind you. It is twenty-seven years now since he tumbled out of the boy band Take That into a solo career that no one, not even him, could yet quite imagine. And what has happened since then, well, part of the story can be told through the swagger of sales and statistics: over 85 million albums sold around the world; 14 UK Number 1 albums (the most for any solo artist); 7 Number 1 singles; the most concert tickets sold in a day (1.6 million on November 19, 2005); the record-breaking three nights at Knebworth to 375,000 people in 2003; the parallel grand successes of his swing albums and of a reconvened Take That (upon release in 2010, the Progress album became the fastest-selling album of the 21st century, and the subsequent tour was the biggest-selling British tour ever); an unprecedented and unmatched 18 Brit awards; the Christmas album, the X-Factor judging, the Royal Shakespeare Company musical The Boy In The Dress, Soccer Aid, numerous collaborations in music, art, radio, books, fashion, TV and film, and on and on and on…

As for the rest of the story…well, there eventually comes a moment in every enduring career when all that history tends to rise up around you. A time when looking forward and looking back become two sides of the same whole. And when who you once were, and who you now are, and who you are yet to become…they all seem to slide together. Recently, for Robbie, this has happened in three different ways.

First, in September 2022, came the fourteenth of those number one albums, XXV. Here, Robbie chose to revisit and reawaken some of his finest past glories, not just orchestrated but, in his words, “re-worked, re-imagined, and re-loved”: a daisy chain of songs from the previous 25 years, the oldest, ‘Angels’, emerging from only his second writing session with Guy Chambers at Chambers’ North London flat; the newest, ‘Lost’, emerging unexpectedly out of the ether one evening in Wiltshire in 2021. “What I discovered, going back into these songs,” he says, “is that - if I took myself out of them, because I have a problematic critical mind about everything that I ever do and everything that I ever am - if I listened to them objectively, I could really enjoy them and be really proud of them.”

Second, in November 2023, came Joe Pearlman’s four-part Netflix documentary series, ‘Robbie Williams’. Characteristically, this was no comfy cosmetic stroll through sun-dappled career highlights. Instead, it allowed Robbie to dig deep into the complexities of some of the challenges and traumas that have often existed alongside the triumphs. “Hopefully what I reveal will make me be more human in people's eyes,” he said, ahead of its release. “You know, I present myself as a larger-than-life character that's full of bravado and full of smugness and full of confidence. And I think those that have been following the story know that that isn't true.” Now he could peel away and reveal a more layered truth. “I think people have a fuller understanding of who I am as a human being,” he said. “And that means a great deal to me.”  If this was an act of honesty and bravery, it was one to which audiences responded: it was the number one Netflix show in 22 different countries (top ten in 26 more), with 5.5 million views in its first ten days of release.

Third, in December 2024, would come an even more improbable, wild and fantastical leap:  the movie Better Man. Brainchild of The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, it told the Robbie Williams story in a way somewhere beyond all imagination and expectation – a grand spectacle both surreal and agonizingly real in which Robbie Williams is himself and not himself (“if not everything was accurate, it's all how it felt,” he notes) - and of course in which he, alone, is a monkey. “Everybody wants to be seen and everybody wants to be heard,” he says, “and I get to do that on such a grand scale that it's not lost on me how lucky I am, and what a gift this is.”

There’s plenty else. Back in around 2006, Robbie tried to retire, but it didn’t suit him, and there seems no likelihood he might try again. “This is my lot for life,” he says, “and I've got no plans to stop it anytime soon. I love my job, what I've been given and the opportunities that I have to create. And I’m still very ambitious.” There is also the Better Man soundtrack album and various other musical offshoots, his art career (his most recent show, ‘Confessions of a Crowded Mind’, went on display at Moco Museum Barcelona in June 2024), and a cornucopia of other creative and entrepreneurial projects, in various states of gestation, where these days he can be found devoting his time, energy and imagination.