The man with the megawatt charisma has the night of his life

Review: Immersed in Robbie Williams's gargantuan Escapology concert, you have to continually remind yourself of its immensity. This was the largest show ever to roll into Ireland's biggest park, attracting the nation's hugest ever crowd to contribute its loudest ever chorus.

But even as the sound of 135,001 voices rumbles out from the Phoenix Park leaving thunder to cower in its wake, a single fan can lose all perspective. The real genius of Robbie Williams is that he keeps things simple.

This little-enormous paradox is the day's prevailing trend. Bel-Air punk Kelly Osbourne swaggers aloofly through her support slot, but remains endearingly aware that most of the audience have seen her bedroom (via MTV's The Osbournes, of course). Later, the jubilatory Ash seem slightly awed by the throng, but not too much to keep Tim Wheeler's boyish smile at bay.

There is, however, one man who can make love to 135,000 people in a night. From the iridescent razzmatazz of - what else? - Let Me Entertain You, Robbie Williams sings, struts, grins, strikes Herculean poses, twirls a cane, sings some more and generally behaves like a euphoria conductor. "I've got English blood," he bellows, "but I've got an Irish heart." Everything, from the choreography of risqué dancing girls to Williams's tattoos, is deliriously excessive.

An engorged orchestra sprawls between several staircases, amid revolving video banks while Williams thrusts down a gangway into the audience. It is the difference between crowd-pleasing and mass-pleasing. But despite the vastness of this cheery night out, tiny halls in Butlins offer much the same family fare.

His hits may be incandescent - a beaming Let Love Be Your Energy, a karaoke version of Strong, the tremendously melodramatic No Regrets, a gyrating Rock DJ - but Robbie knows his appeal is simpler.

He is saddened, for instance, that this is the last night of the tour. Ahhhhh, go 135,000 voices. "You see, THAT'S entertainment!" shouts the son of a club singer. "That's what you pay your money for!" Posing for photographs, accepting gifts and chatting amicably to members of the crowd ("Go on, have a baby for Robbie," he tells one couple. "And call it Robbie. Or Robina."), the man could be hosting The Generation Game, but with preposterous dimensions.

The megawatt charisma of Williams is something more, however: simultaneously vulnerable and unassailable, he is a figure singing in the rain, dwarfed by his own image on screens high above. Frequently he demands our cheers, then seems so touched by them he could cry. And after his twentieth insistence that this is the best night of his life, you even suspect that he means it.

A phenomenal Angels concludes the extraordinary feat of showmanship with plumes of confetti and showers of fireworks, but Williams returns to sing the chorus once more, a cappella. The crowd joins in and it becomes a shared note of towering fragility.