"[3] Keiller's camera captures, and the narrator and Robinson are said to interact with, numerous real-life incidents which took place over the course of filming, including the re-election of Conservative Prime Minister John Major and the Baltic Exchange bombing.
[4] The character's experiences of the city are structured through a series of three walks around London, taking in Vauxhall, Brixton Market, Brent Cross Shopping Centre, Putney, Clapham Common and Stoke Newington.
He was inspired by the writing of Alexander Herzen,[7] and Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme's Le Joli Mai, a documentary interviewing passers-by on the streets of Paris, to create his own film about London.
Keiller has claimed that his initial pitch for funding, which came from the British Film Institute and Channel 4,[3] was one page: a list of proposed shots, and some sample narration, the majority of which did not make it into the finished feature.
[10] Keiller brought back the title character again for "The Robinson Institute," an exhibition at Tate Britain which drew on over 120 works from the gallery's collection paired with his own films and photography to further explore the cultural history of British identity.