Robert Llewellyn

Early career

Llewellyn's first foray into the world of show business started out as a hobby, organising a few amateur cabaret evenings in a riverside warehouse overlooking Tower Bridge in London. The shows were a great success and he eventually helped form an alternative comedy theatre group called the Joeys. Within six months he had stopped working as a shoemaker and started performing professionally with the group alongside Bernie Evans, Nigel Ordish and Graham Allum. The group toured Britain and France in the early 1980s with an initial idea of exploring sexual politics between men. Llewellyn wrote much of the material, and also began writing novels. The group split in 1985, having toured for years and done thousands of shows.

Red Dwarf

Llewellyn's involvement with Red Dwarf came about as a result of his appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing in his comedy, Mammon, Robot Born of Woman; this show was about a robot who, as he becomes more human, begins to behave increasingly badly. This was seen by Paul Jackson, producer of Red Dwarf, and he was invited to audition for the role of Kryten.

Llewellyn joined the cast of Red Dwarf in 1989 in series 3 and has continued in the role up to 2016's eleventh series. In May 2015, it was announced that he would, again, be returning to Red Dwarf for the twelfth series. His skills as a physical performer encouraged Rob Grant and Doug Naylor to write him additional characters for the series, namely Jim Reaper ("The Last Day"), The Data Doctor ("Back in the Red"), Human Kryten ("DNA"), Bongo ("Dimension Jump") and Able ("Beyond A Joke"). Llewellyn co-wrote the Red Dwarf Series VII episode "Beyond A Joke" with Doug Naylor.

In the early days of Red Dwarf he would arrive to do makeup many hours before the rest of the actors, however that changed as time progressed as his fellow actors "have a little bit more help in the make-up department than they used to". In an interview with The Skeptic Zone, Llewellyn mentioned that he needs a special pair of glasses to be able to read the script with the Kryten mask on. In Red Dwarf, he worked hard to get the more technically difficult lines right because the show tried to be factually accurate in reference to scientific theories.

He was also the only British cast member originally to participate in the American version of Red Dwarf, though other actors such as Craig Charles and Chris Barrie were also approached to reprise their roles.

Other TV work

Llewellyn has presented a number of programmes for UK television. His first outing as a presenter was on Scrapheap Challenge, produced by Channel 4; the series sees teams of engineers competing to build machines to complete a given task from materials scavenged from a scrapheap. His other presenting roles include a version of Discovery Channel's How Do They Do It? and Hollywood Science, the latter being a joint production between the BBC and the Open University.

In 1992, Llewellyn appeared in the fourth episode of series 2 of Bottom, as a wounded Falklands War veteran named Mr. N. Stiles.

Llewellyn's project it2i2, was released on DVD in March 2006. Since 2006 he has had a YouTube video blog called "Llewtube". His latest book Sold Out: How I Survived a Year of Not Shopping – based on his YouTube series Making Do – was published in October 2008.

On 10 February 2009 Llewellyn was featured as a guest on the popular technology related podcast MacBreak Weekly with Leo Laporte (episode 127).

Recently, Llewellyn has starred in the CBBC show MI High as the Prime Minister, and become the presenter of Top Trumps.

Llewellyn reviewed the world of science and technology in his popular Machine of the Week report (The MoWer).

Llewellyn also provides the voice of news anchor Perry Flynn for PlayStation Home TV, a programme that started in December 2009 and airs in the Home Theatre of the European version of PlayStation Home, which is a 3D community for PlayStation 3.

Llewellyn has worked as a voice actor, providing the voices of the alien creatures in Skywhales (1983), the voice of Feeble for The Feeble Files (1997), Old Joe in Christmas Carol: The Film, and the perplexed Gryphon in the film MirrorMask (2005). He has described himself as "very much a 'don't want to do it now' kind of person" ("Dwarfing USA" documentary, Red Dwarf V DVD).

In November 2010, the Carpool series began broadcasting on UKTV channel, Dave, before having a months hiatus for Christmas and New Year, it then returned in January 2011. It is a spin-off from his web series, Carpool. On 4 January 2011, he appeared on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on the specialist subject of electric cars. He has expressed an interest in working on a television show about technologies that we might use in the future.

Llewellyn was the narrator on the 2010 Channel 5 series The Boss is Coming to Dinner.

Llewellyn appeared in the Youtube Video "Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild", alongside Stuart Ashen, Warwick Davis and Chris Kendall in August 2013

Llewellyn presented the BBC Two show World's Busiest Railway 2015 alongside Dan Snow and Anita Rani.

Personal life

Prior to becoming a comedian, Llewellyn served an apprenticeship and became a professional shoemaker, working at James Taylor & Son and John Lobb Bootmaker in London. Speaking to Richard Herring, he said he still maintains an interest in the craft; "There is still a side of me that wants to develop a kind of 3D printed shoe thing... where you just put your foot in a thing and you just get a shoe and it's there. and it fits absolutely exquisitely, immediately."

Llewellyn, who is of Welsh ancestry, learnt to drive at age 11 (having been taught by his older brother in a go-kart); formerly a "petrol-head", he is now an electric car advocate. As well as being frequently interviewed on the subject, he has a related video blog called Fully Charged.

On the evening of 1 July 2009 while Llewellyn was en route to deliver Carpool footage to his editor, another vehicle hit him side on at a junction in Gloucestershire, writing off his Prius and rendering him unconscious for around ten minutes. The force of the impact was such that it bent his laptop "into a banana shape".

Llewellyn praised the honesty of the other driver for accepting full liability for the incident, and the hospital, police and other services for helping him. He also gave special praise to his "beloved Prius" for protecting him from the impact. He suffered concussion, minor whiplash and dizzy spells but escaped more serious injury.

In 2014 he drove, with David Peilow, a Nissan Leaf 400 miles from London to Edinburgh. Stopping 9 times, it took 12 hours, beating a previous time set by the BBC three years earlier which took 4 days in a Mini-E, as well as beating the faster time set by David Peilow in a Tesla roadster, which had left 2 days after the Mini-E, which took around 19 hours.

He is an atheist and sceptic, and has expressed that his major pseudoscientific irritations are astrology and climate change denial.

Llewellyn lives in Temple Guiting, Gloucestershire and is married to Australian author Judy Pascoe.

Books

Llewellyn is also the author of thirteen books, including Sold Out! and Therapy and How to Avoid It with Nigel Planer and seven novels.

Video podcasts

Other