{"id":134488,"date":"2026-05-20T06:40:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/kylie-review-this-refreshingly-raw-real-encounter-with-pop-royalty-will-move-you-to-tears-television\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:40:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:40:36","slug":"kylie-review-this-refreshingly-raw-real-encounter-with-pop-royalty-will-move-you-to-tears-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/kylie-review-this-refreshingly-raw-real-encounter-with-pop-royalty-will-move-you-to-tears-television\/","title":{"rendered":"Kylie review \u2013 this refreshingly raw, real encounter with pop royalty will move you to tears | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"


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B<\/span>eyond the sequins, feathers and gold hotpants, the stories of the most enduring pop megastars tend to be ones of jaw-dropping grit and undimmable power. Especially when they\u2019re women. So it is with Kylie: pint-sized seller of over 80m records, singer of two of the greatest pop bangers of all time (Can\u2019t Get You Out of My Head and Padam Padam, obviously), and the reticent subject of this increasingly intimate and, finally, profoundly moving three-part Netflix documentary. What starts as a bog-standard run-through of Kylie\u2019s ascent to superstardom \u2013 an excess of Pete Waterman, Neighbours clips and virulent 1990s sexism \u2013 ends with a disclosure that moves me to tears.<\/p>\n

It comes in the final 10 minutes. It\u2019s 2023: a euphoric high point in Kylie\u2019s career. Padam Padam, the first single from Kylie\u2019s 16th album, Tension, has just been released. Then the words \u201cOne More Thing\u201d flash across a black screen. Cut to present-day Kylie arriving at the studio, singing songs from Tension with her longstanding team of British songwriters. \u201cThere\u2019s a song called Story \u2026 \u201d she says to director Michael Harte (also the editor of Netflix\u2019s Beckham), who shot the documentary over two years. Kylie, who is notoriously private, falters. Her songwriting partner of more than 25 years, Richard \u201cBiff\u201d Stannard, takes her hand. She starts to cry as she divulges what Story is really about: her second cancer diagnosis, in early 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to keep that to myself and go through that year,\u201d she says, \u201cnot like the first time. I\u2019ve been trying to find the right time to say it. I don\u2019t feel obliged to tell the world, and I just couldn\u2019t at the time because I was just a shell of a person \u2026 Thankfully, I got through it. Again.\u201d It\u2019s a genuinely raw, real moment, neither of which are words generally associated with pop\u2019s top tier. Or, for that matter, the fawning and micromanaged documentaries made about them.<\/p>\n

The start of that fiercely embargoed episode covers what happened when Kylie was diagnosed with cancer the first time, in 2005, when she was 36. There was the surge in mammogram bookings, dubbed the \u201cKylie effect\u201d; but also the devastation experienced by her family, relentless press intrusion and her grief at not being able to have children. She talks about postponing her chemo to go through IVF. Dannii Minogue, a regular talking head in Kylie, recalls the fear that her sister would \u201cnever be well again \u2013 is she going to live through this? I felt so helpless.\u201d The closeness of the Minogue family comes across strongly, as does their reluctance to be on film. \u201cWe\u2019ve never done anything like this before,\u201d says Kylie in one of the film\u2019s regular nighttime chats around the bonfire. \u201cIt\u2019s not as scary as I thought it might be.\u201d \u201cI think it\u2019s because we\u2019re in the dark,\u201d says her mum, off camera.<\/p>\n

Episode one, which opens with Kylie travelling to London in 1987 to record her first single, is less engaging \u2013 and more revealing of the times than the icon in the making. Waterman says he didn\u2019t have a clue who \u201cthe small antipodean in reception expecting to make a record\u201d was. They bashed out I Should Be So Lucky in 40 minutes, according to Kylie. Actually, Waterman says, it took two hours. Only later did he discover she was in Neighbours, by then a phenomenon. Oh, but apparently he had no idea what Neighbours was either \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>\u2018I\u2019ve been looking for something like that ever since\u2019 \u2026 Kylie with Michael Hutchence. <\/span> Photograph: Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jason Donovan recalls how, as Minogue rose to fame, he would get in to cabs and be asked \u201cHow\u2019s Kylie?\u201d, and replying: \u201cFuck, I don\u2019t know, go and fucking ask her!\u201d Michael Hutchence, for whom Kylie left Donovan, is a key figure. She breaks down recalling the significance of her relationship with this \u201chilarious, cultured and tender\u201d man, confessing that: \u201cI\u2019ve probably been looking for something like that ever since \u2026 and I haven\u2019t got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the years of abuse, when Kylie was labelled the \u201csinging budgie\u201d and written off as talentless and dull. \u201cRaunchy\u201d, a word dripping in 90s misogyny, was how she was endlessly described. She speaks about how deeply those \u201cwilderness years\u201d affected her. Only her gay fans remained, a loyalty she has never forgotten and continues to return.<\/p>\n

What emerges, less through the sometimes stilted interviews with Harte and more via the archive footage, is Kylie\u2019s sunny disposition, vitality and her immense struggle to become what she always was at heart \u2013 a magnificent pop star. Nick Cave, whom she met in the mid-1990s when they recorded the sublime murder ballad Where the Wild Roses Grow, is devilishly accurate in describing Kylie\u2019s unique force for good as a \u201cjoy machine\u201d. \u201cThe definition of joy is the capacity to rise out of suffering,\u201d he says, reflecting on her powerhouse performance in Glastonbury\u2019s teatime \u201clegends\u201d slot in 2019. \u201cHer connection with the audience is not phoney,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s very real for her. It is a true form of love.\u201d It was Cave who inspired Kylie to abandon her failing attempts at indie in the late 1990s and embrace her inner pop spirit. \u201cYou\u2019ve got the coolest guy on the planet saying: \u2018Where are the pop tunes?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cRight, let\u2019s get the jetpacks on and get back to the dancefloor!\u201d What followed was one of the most celebrated comeback singles in pop history. This is my favourite revelation in Kylie: Cave, rock\u2019s prince of darkness, inspired the princess of pop\u2019s Spinning Around.<\/p>\n