He sat with the Nine Network’s entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins to chat briefly about his film, before the director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) took to the stage to talk about how great it was to be making the big-budget R-rated “satirical biopic” – which traces William’s rise from the boy band years of Take That to contented middle-age via some wild adventures in sex, drugs and rock’n’roll – in his hometown.

At one point, Williams even led the crowd in a swaying chant of “Warney”. The seemingly spontaneous tribute to the cricketer was captured by Shane’s son Jackson Warne, who was in attendance, and shared on TikTok.

The reason the show was happening at all, though, was so that Gracey could recreate a moment from the 1998 Brit Awards in which Williams performed a duet with Tom Jones. The Welsh singer wasn’t there – “he’s too f—ing expensive,” Williams told the crowd – so vocal duties on the cover of Wilson Pickett’s 1960s soul hit Land of a Thousand Dances were shared with a performer introduced only as “Australia’s top Tom Jones impersonator”.

Other than the sit-down chat, the clearest indications this was not your normal show were the fact the number was done twice (for the benefit of the cameras) and that the audience was asked to put away their smartphones, since mobiles capable of filming a performance were in short supply 24 years ago.

Better Man, which has a budget of around $107 million and reportedly features a CGI monkey as Williams in some scenes, is in production at Docklands Studios Melbourne and throughout Victoria, and is expected to be released in the second half of 2023.