Kathryn24601

Given Robbie’s friendship with Joey Mac, I am wondering if it might be NKOTB.

Went tonight. Had a fun time but I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by the production and a lot of the new stuff is weak live. Poor Mark seeed to particularly struggle with his lead vocals on the new stuf. I think Gary’s show graph was off - it was a noticeably weak opening and there were too many moments when they built and then lost momentum. Would have liked more time on the B stage. I did like Howard’s new song about his daughter - that and This Life might be the strongest of the new stuff. Opening with Windows is a mistake, and so is giving Howard lead vocals on Everything Changes. You really don’t want to remind everyone how much they miss Robbie! Enjoyed the short solo spots - Forever Love has a very pretty melody and Gary sings it very well. Shame it hasn’t got a chorus. When the classic material kicks in the difference in the crowd reaction is immense.

I notice it is produced by Stuart Price. Trying to recapture some of that Progress magic?? It’s ok. Pretty generic though.

Nothing in the U.K. press so far - which is probably a good thing, as they’d only complain about it!

I think it’s incredibly unlikely that Rob and the family will not see his dad at all; it’s much more likely that -- like most familles who are scattered geographically - they have made separate arrangements to see him another time that we are simply not privy to. And neither do we need to be. There’s also no indication that this will be Pete’s last Christmas - Parkinsons’s can be treated and patients can now live a long time with it. Ayda’s mum Gwen is fighting cancer, as well as having Parkinson’s, don't forget. Arrangements for family Christmas will obviously also have to account for that too. And it’s really not unusual to alternate Christmas Day with each side of the family each year. I haven’t seen my parents in person at all this year - they both came down with COVID and have been isolating. That’s how it goes sometimes.

I just started listening to this album in December. For some reason I thought it would be full of cringe covers but actually the originals are like a proper studio album. I’ve made a separate playlist for them, which I’ve had on for the commute, and I’m really loving it now. Particularly Rudolph, Home, Best Christmas Ever, Merry Kissmas and Idlewild.

Yes. It’s an eating disorder I hope someone picks this up and gets him some help.

Amex pre-sale is now on

Definitely pinch-of-salting that!

There’s some terrific stuff on Under the Radar albums that he did with the Aussie boys. Love Raver!

I think Karl Brazil is MD at the moment. I wonder if Rob as ever been assessed for Borderline Personality Disorder? Being very black and white in relationships - idealising people and then devaluing them - is one of the symptoms. As is being very emotionally volatile and feeling emotions very intensely. And it also tends to start improving on its own in middle age, which would track with Rob feeling better in recent years. Yes, I agree Feel is likely to be a much more accurate picture of what went down - if only because Chris Heath was documenting in real time, and not recalling things years after the fact. Robbie Williams rewind podcast had an interview with Chris Briggs recently that was also very interesting on the subject of Guy and Rob. He reckons the EMI deal going through was probably impacting everyone. And he also says that success changed Guy and didn’t really change Rob - who of course had already experienced it as part of Take That. And he definitely points to Guy not being keen on Rob writing with other people and not being very good at producing anything he didn’t write himself. He reckons Rob started to think that was deliberate sabotage but in reality it was just Guy not actually being a very experienced producer of other people’s work.

If Guy had his way Come Undone would not have been on the album, let alone released as a single. He refused to do any promotion for it! And then complains about ‘being fired’. I keep being surprised that no-one mentions Blasphemy. It’s the last song that Rob and Guy wrote together and the lyrics are so obviously about them struggling to get along. Not that Guy seems to have noticed it at the time.

Gah! Why does everyone forget Intensive Care? Justice for Intensive Care and Stephen ‘Tin Tin’ Duffy!! I love that album. Notice that Guy does not address the money question. As anyone who read the biography Feel knows, yes Guy did ask for more money. A lot more money - and had to be told that he does not actually have an artist partnership with Robbie Williams. Which I suspect means that he asked for half of the EMI advance, since he saw himself as half of ‘Robbie Williams the band’. And then tried to scupper the deal the night before it was signed when told ‘no’. Of course he was deprioritising the sings Rob wrote with others and choosing the ones they wrote together as singles. He had an inherent conflict of interest as a producer. And of course he tried to muscle in on Come Undone.

That interview with Guy in The Times is weird. It completely fails to mention that they were working together just last year, and have worked together on 3 albums and a musical since 2012. I know that Guy is notoriously tone-deaf, but it’s like he *wants* to fall out with him.

It’s Robbie and archive footage. Plus a little bit of his wife. I genuinely don’t know why people are so hung up about him being in his underwear. It’s not like you can see anything other than legs! He’s in bed - people don’t usually wear trousers in bed - because bed is a psychological safe space. Also find it weird that you’d think that about his comments on Take That - I thought he was very kind to them. He actually says that he was too young, and that he couldn’t handle the dynamics of the band, and that he was resentful and jealous.

That’s a beautiful comment piece.

Oh yes, Jonny is mentioned - very much so during the Close Encounters section. Not before then - they completely omit Swing When You’re Winning. No mention of the silly gay rumours either.

They mean the archive video of the two of them writing and on holiday. It’s basically Guy’s video. That’s why that dries up after the break up.

He’s a loner except when he is incredible sociable! Which he can be - he really values his friendships. He’s a classic introvert. He makes deep connections with people but needs his alone time to recharge.

Ok, so I’ve watched all 4 episodes. As a fan, I can’t say I learned anything that I didn’t already know at least the broad outlines of. But there is some incredible footage to illustrate what I already broadly knew. As feared, I did notice the lack of other perspectives to provide context, and there is a lot skimmed over. The thing I really missed that I think would have contributed to the main argument is the press coverage of Rob going to rehab in 2007 - that moment when the tabloids decided it was either a publicity stunt to steal Take That’s thunder, a minor addiction to caffeine that he was making an outsized fuss about, or a reaction to Take That having a successful comeback. There really was some truly shocking press coverage of someone having a real crisis, and I wanted that called out. Also, Rob discusses his difficulty performing Bodies on X Factor, but not the truly cruel and unhinged press response to that. Again I wanted that to be called out - I felt the press got off far too lightly. Also, although there’s a lovely thread about Rob’s friendship with Guy breaking down, there’s absolutely nothing about them repairing that relationship. And naturally Guy gets off very lightly - his unreasonable demands during that breakdown go completely unmentioned. So that is frustrating, if you’ve read the biographies and know that Guy was doing silly things. Swing When You’re Winning is not mentioned at all, which is really odd. The Take That reunion is skimmed over very quickly too. We don’t even get the standard re-hash of the making-up-with-Gary chat, which is honestly a little bit odd to leave out when being-nasty-about-Gary is featured so prominently. I know that fans have all heard it before, but narratively it’s a strange choice not to return to that relationship.

Unfortunately the first review I’ve seen today is the Guardian. It shouldn’t surprise me that they have produced a horrible review - they got no interview access for promo with anyone. Makes me anxious for Rob, though.

To be clear, Rob and Teddy in the doc is 100% pure and innocent and I am probably worrying unnecessarily!

Teddy is shown fully - she pops around the door and Rob invites her over for a cuddle (he’s watching the footage in bed, so he invites her to get into bed with him - must admit that made me a cringe a little as something the malicious could take out of context). I am hopeful that the doc has the desired effect in terms of profile boost and better understanding of Rob among the general public. It is certainly generating a lot of press here and the response seems to be positive this far.

I understand that reasoning, but at the same time I disagree. How can thinking that you are going to be a daddy and then not having it happen not be ‘his subject to discuss’? Especially when family is so important to him. That he has never spoken about it before it why to me it’s the litmus test of whether this series is actually going to reveal anything new, or if it’s going to be things the hardcore fans already know. The new footage of them as a family is lovely, but like you said, I didn’t learn anything new. Apart from possibly the restrictive eating disorder he mentions. That’s a bit of a ‘d’oh’ moment because he lost so much weight so quickly when he went to rehab, of course he can’t have been eating properly. It really was one of those things that everyone saw but no-one noticed.

So I managed to get down to the pop-up after work and catch the last screening of the first episode.. It’s very good - with a couple of caveats. The Take That stuff is covered very quickly, and is almost all well-known archive footage if you’re a fan and have watched all the other docs.. There’s just one clip I hadn’t seen before that made me go ‘ouch!’. Nothing new here really - they get off very lightly, as has been the trend in recent years. Nigel Martin Smith is not even mentioned by name, the legal and financial side does not even get a mention, Rob is remorseful as ever about being nasty about Gary. No mention at all of the things Gary had done himself that prompted said nastiness. (I hope someday a documentary redresses the balance - it irks me that Gary always comes out looking like an innocent.) The other thing is that because it’s based on archive footage, if it wasn’t filmed it doesn’t get discussed. So although there is some very sweet footage of Rob and Nicole Appleton there is absolutely no mention at all of her pregnancy and abortion, even though she has discussed that at length in her autobiography. Mentioning the pregnancy was really my litmus test for whether this series is truly going deep or going to skip over stuff. lI’ve lowered my expectations accordingly. The new interview footage with Rob at home is really nice, though, and Teddy steals the show.