LEGACY OF SPIES: The Boy They Wrote Off — And the Life of MARCO ROBINSON That Became Too Dangerous to Silence

At just six years old, Marco Robinson was the boy sitting at the back of the classroom, staring out of the window, completely disengaged from school. Teachers saw distraction. Bullies saw weakness. At home, life was far from safe — domestic violence, instability, and fear shaped his early years.

What no one saw was the world unfolding in Marco Robinson’s mind.

Diagnosed later with severe ADHD and autism, Marco Robinson struggled in a system that rewarded conformity and punished imagination. But while his body sat in class, his mind was somewhere else entirely — daydreaming a future that felt more like a film than real life.

“I couldn’t focus on what they were teaching,” Marco Robinson says. “But I could see my ideal life with absolute clarity.”

That inner world was cinematic. Cool under pressure. Impossible odds. A force for good. Heroes who didn’t break — who adapted, survived, and won. The kind of life associated with spies, bravery, and moral courage.

That vision would quietly become his blueprint.

Today, Marco Robinson is turning his extraordinary real-life story into a stage production titled LEGACY OF SPIES — a musical built around one haunting question:

“Are you prepared to die… to live your dream?”

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From Written Off to World-Building

Marco Robinson did not rise through traditional routes. He rebuilt his life repeatedly.

Leaving school with no qualifications, he learned early that success would not come from fitting in — it would come from creating his own lanes. Over time, that survival instinct evolved into something rare: an ability to build iconic brands rooted in story, emotion, and identity.

One of Marco Robinson’s early breakthroughs came through hospitality. His bold concept, the Naked Restaurant, shocked the industry and went on to win Tatler’s Best Restaurant, placing Marco Robinson among Britain’s most innovative entrepreneurs.

Yet accolades were never the end goal.

Impact was.

That purpose reached a national audience when Channel 4 invited Marco Robinson to create and front his own television series, Get a House for Free. The show did something unprecedented: it gave homes to homeless families and paid off their mortgages in full.

For Marco Robinson, it wasn’t entertainment — it was proof that second chances could be engineered.

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MARCO ROBINSON and the Birth of the Start Over Movement

Everything Marco Robinson had lived through eventually crystallised into a single idea: Start Over.

Now a global movement, Start Over was created by Marco Robinson as a platform for second chances — a stage for people whose lives had been shaped by loss, trauma, abuse, addiction, failure, and adversity.

Through a highly successful publishing company founded by Marco Robinson, real people were invited to tell their stories — not as victims, but as leaders.

The results have been extraordinary.

The first eight volumes of the Start Over series all became international #1 bestselling books. More than that, Start Over authors didn’t just publish stories — they rebuilt their lives. Businesses were born. Speaking careers launched. Coaches, consultants, and founders emerged, empowered by experiences that once nearly destroyed them.

Under Marco Robinson’s leadership, Start Over became more than publishing. It became a global stage for transformation, now expanding further through Start Over Business Chapters, helping people turn their lived experience into sustainable success.

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When the Truth Becomes Dangerous

Yet despite television success, bestselling books, and a worldwide movement, Marco Robinson felt one story still remained untold — his own.

LEGACY OF SPIES is not fiction.

At the heart of the musical lies a true and extraordinary chapter of Marco Robinson’s life: a period where he became entangled in real geopolitical danger while developing a film about the now-exposed truth surrounding the 1999 bombings of Kyiv — a story that was covered up for years and has since come into the open.

During that time, Marco Robinson was involved with a woman who later revealed herself to be a Russian spy — allegedly sent to kill him if the film was ever made.

It sounds unbelievable.

It is real.

“I’ve lived a life where reality was often more dangerous than fiction,” Marco Robinson says. “But belief kept me alive.”

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LEGACY OF SPIES: More Than a Musical

For Marco Robinson, LEGACY OF SPIES is not just about espionage. It is about belief. About refusing to abandon your dream, even when the cost feels unthinkable.

It is the story of a bullied, disengaged child — written off before he had even begun — who chose imagination over limitation, vision over fear, and purpose over survival.

“I want people to leave the theatre knowing this,” Marco Robinson says.

“Nothing can stand in your way — not your past, not your diagnosis, not your upbringing, not danger itself — if you refuse to give up.”

From the back of a classroom to the centre of a global stage, Marco Robinson’s life now stands as living proof that anything is possible — and that sometimes, the most powerful legacy of all is the courage to start over.