After the superb Beckham – the documentary series about the eponymous footballer turned football club owner (and all-round icon) – Netflix is set to deliver another about a man who first rose to fame in the mid-90s, Robbie Williams.
Similarly named after its subject, the show will detail Williams' rollercoaster ride through the world of pop and stardom over the last 30 years, mainly told by the man himself. It uses archive material often never seen before, and takes us through his rise to fame with Take That to today, with some honest and often difficult revelations along the way.
The mini-series is four episodes long and will debut on Netflix on 8 November 2023. We expect it to shoot straight to the top of the streaming service's UK charts at the very least.
Check out the trailer below to see why.
The Robbie Williams series has been helmed by Joe Pearlman – the EMMY and BAFTA nominated director of Lewis Capaldi: How I'm Feeling Now, another heartfelt and honest documentary about a pop idol.
It's been produced by Ridley Scott's production company, and executive produced by Academy Award, BAFTA and Grammy winning director Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy).
The show sees Williams watch video footage of himself through the different stages of his career, provoking commentary throughout. And, considering he has suffered from well-documented periods of depressions and excessive drug addiction, we get some frank revelations along the way.
"As humans, nobody likes looking at photographs of themselves and no one likes hearing their own voice, so if you multiply that by watching yourself suffer with mental illness, breakdowns, alcoholism, depression, [and] agoraphobia, you’re in a tortuous headlock where you’re forced to watch the car crash in slo-mo," he told the Independent when taking about the new series.
You can watch all four episodes of Robbie Williams on Netflix from this coming Wednesday 8 November 2023.
Considering Beckham received an almost perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, it'll be interesting to see how well-received this latest Netflix Original will be.