“You’ll find me at your nearest stadium,” he promises, “entertaining the f*** out of it.”

The ‘Robbie Williams Live 2025’ tour will open in Edinburgh on 31st May.

Robbie said: “This tour is going to be my boldest yet – I can’t wait to see you next year. There will be songs from the movie ‘Better Man’, and some new music too…but more on that soon”

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…