By Kate Lahey
Pop superstar Robbie Williams will perform a free public gig in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon.
Fresh from a 40-minute set at the Sydney Opera House for the ABC’s New Year’s Eve countdown, Williams heads to Victoria to continue the promotional tour for his recently released biopic, Better Man.
Robbie Williams entertained the crowds in the run-up to midnight on New Year’s Eve in Sydney.Credit: ABC
On Thursday at 5pm, Williams is due to take to the stage at Federation Square. He is expected to perform a short set and take part in a Q&A-style interview.
Promoters are keen to stress it is an “intimate pop-up event”, not a full concert.
The event is scheduled to run for one hour, including the interview and a presentation of the keys to the city, in honour of Williams’ contribution to Melbourne through Better Man.
The movie, in which Williams is portrayed as a chimpanzee, was directed and co-written by Victorian filmmaker Michael Gracey. Co-writers Simon Gleason and Oliver Cole are also Victorian. It was shot in Melbourne’s Docklands Studios, produced by a Victorian team and financially backed by the federal and Victorian governments.
Other local locations used for filming included Rod Laver Arena, Cruden Farm, Fawkner Bowls Club, Sunbury Asylum, University of Melbourne, Melbourne Pavilion and Melbourne Town Hall.
VicScreen says the film production spent $142 million in the state and created 2920 jobs, including 672 crew, 160 post-production and visual effects, 14 heads of department, 110 cast and almost 2000 extras.
Gracey has said the film grew out of a year-and-a-half of recorded interviews with Williams during which he often described himself as a performing monkey.
“There’s been plenty of musical biopics, and creatively you always want to come at something in a new or interesting way,” Gracey said.
But the idea meant that for many years no one wanted to touch the project. “They were super-excited about ‘the director of The Greatest Showman’. They were crazy excited about Robbie Williams. They were not excited about the monkey,” Gracey said last month.
The film has since won critical acclaim. Film reviewer Craig Mathieson, writing for this masthead, described it as a “triumphant homage to Williams that can also be construed as a critique”.
It has secured a record 16 nominations for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, to be held in February.
Williams himself told the Sydney crowd and national television audience on Tuesday night: “Go and watch my movie; it’s full of drugs and sex.”
Williams started his career in 1990 as the youngest member of British boy band Take That, aged 16. He left the group five years later and forged a successful but turbulent solo career.
He is no stranger to Melbourne. Most recently he performed a 20-minute set at the AFL grand final in 2022 and returned to the city in 2023 to play two shows at AAMI Park.
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