Another Robbie Williams Discussion Forum aka The Dotmusic Revival Forum

Beverley Lyons And Lee-Ann Fullerton (Daily Record)

MAX Beesley has spilled the beans about his wild nights on tour with his pal Robbie Williams ... playing Scrabble.

Despite having thousands of adoring fans, touring the world and living in the best hotels, Max and Robbie preferred staying in to a crazy night-out on the town.

Max, who played drums on the tour, said: "It's not what you think.We played Scrabble."

"I said to Robbie: 'Do you understand it's Saturday night, it's half-twelve and we are in here playing scrabble, just the two of us. No one will believe it.' It is strange. We were both single and on the road. And we'dplayed to 100,000people."

"But it would all happen so quickly. We'd fly in on a helicopter, then get a police escort out.

Usually, we would only have about 30 seconds to get out of the venue. It was tiring being in the middle of all that.

The thing is, he's done all thatbefore and I've been there and done it too.''

The 33-year-old actor said he didn't realise the enormity of what he was taking on when he agreed to tour with his superstar pal.

He said: "When Robbie asked, I said yes straight away. But I hadn't thought about the scale of it at all.

I mean to go and do Knebworth in front of 250,000 people. Well, my a**e was all over the place, I can tell you.''

Max was trained as a classical percussionist in Manchester before winning a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music andDrama in London.

He has toured with Take That, Paul Weller, Aretha Franklin and George Michael, but he said the Robbie tour was the biggest of his life.

He said: "It was great, something you'd never forget.

We travelled on private jets, stayed in the best hotels, we were looked after really well, the crew were great and, to top it all, I was working with my mate Robbie.

He is such a generous performer. During the show, we did this duet together and the big screen flashed up Williams and Beesley. It was a great fun job.''

Now with rock'n'roll behind him, Max is returning to his acting roots with a powerful new dramaonBBC 3.

Bodies, starting on Sunday May 23 at 9pm, is a graphic medical show in which Max stars with Scottish actress Neve McIntosh.

He plays a doctor struggling to cope with a massive workload and despairing at the life-threatening mistakes made by his seniors.