ROBBIE WILLIAMS is the new King of Pop. At least that is what he has decided. No matter that he has hardly sold enough records in America to pay his band’s laundry bill, or that his single Tripping failed to reach the No 1 slot in the UK chart announced yesterday.

At a sensational show last night in Berlin that was relayed to cinema screens across Europe, he made no bones about his intention to wrest the crown from Michael Jackson. “Far be it for me to toot my own trumpet . . . ” he said, during a performance in which he paraded the stage clutching a placard declaring “King of Pop” against his backside.

Bumptious, egotistical, vulgar and constantly entertaining, this was a vintage performance by Williams.

A show to mark the release of his new album, the event was nearly scuppered by a football accident. His fractured arm having been injected with cortisone, he at first claimed not to be feeling any pain. Later, after playing the maracas, he complained of discomfort. “But I’ll be OK,” he said, milking the sympathy vote.

Williams fans also heard yesterday that the boy band Take That is to reunite this Christmas for a concert and television show chronicling the rise and fall of the band, which Williams left in 1995.

Last night, with the album, Intensive Care, to unveil, he loaded the set with new songs — eight in all. The show began with an arrangement of themes from the album, played by an orchestra conducted by David Campbell. The players were ranged at the back of the stage, with a choir at either side and the six-piece band in front.

But all eyes in the 8,000- capacity venue were pinned on the secondary stage in the middle of the hall linked by a walkway to the main stage. As pillars of lights and geysers of smoke erupted, Williams rose through a trapdoor. In a dark suit with pink piping and a pink tie, he started with Ghosts, a big, orchestral pop song with an 1980s feel that didn’t immediately gel.

As the band struck up the more familiar chords of Feel, the audience rose as one, and with Williams dancing along the walkway, the feelgood factor rose sharply. The German audience showered the stage with a variety of personal effects — underwear, tarot cards, even what looked like a slipper. Williams rewarded them with matey chat, schoolboy German and references to the wonderful city of Berlin.

The new songs, by Williams and his new songwriting partner the guitarist Stephen Duffy, bore the Williams stamp of anthemic appeal and instant accessibility. A Place To Crash sounded like one of those old Elton John, Saturday night pop-rockers, while Advertising Space was a grandiose ballad about the posthumous exploitation of Elvis Presley. But Duffy, who was one of three guitarists featured in the band, has brought a pleasing indie-rock dimension to some of the other songs. The Trouble With Me was a lovely tune with a classic, jangly-guitar backdrop, while Spread Your Wings had a similar easygoing charm.

Naturally, the old stalwarts had the most rousing effect. But Williams is certainly not stuck in the past. Tripping, which he was keen to tell us has reached No 1 in Germany, was a brilliant performance of an unusually rootsy song, while the finale of Make Me Pure was Williams at his best, a big, almost-gospel chorale with the sign-off line (apparently paraphrasing St Augustine): “Oh Lord, make me pure . . . but not yet.”

Williams will doubtless get his comeuppance one day — but not yet.