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Robert Llewellyn | |
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 Llewellyn in 2022 | |
| Born | (1956-03-10)10 March 1956 (age 69) Northampton, England |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1983–present |
| Known for | |
| Television | |
| Spouse | Judy Pascoe |
| Children | 2 |
Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956)[1] is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays themechanoidKryten in thesci-fitelevisionsitcomRed Dwarf and formerly presented the engineering gameshowScrapheap Challenge. He has also founded and hosts aYouTube series,Everything Electric,[2] which has grown into a company that puts on EV and "Everything Electric" conventions in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and Europe.
Llewellyn was born inNorthampton, England.[1] 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 overlookingTower Bridge in London. The shows were a great success and he eventually helped form analternative comedy theatre group called The Joeys.[3] Within six months, he had stopped working as ashoemaker and started performing professionally with the group alongside Bernie Evans, Nigel Ordish and Graham Allum. The group touredBritain andFrance in the early 1980s, with an initial idea of exploring sexual politics between men.[4] Llewellyn wrote much of the material, and also began writing novels. The Joeys split in 1985, having toured for years and done thousands of performances. He co-wrote and starred inThe Corner House, a 1987 sitcom forChannel 4 about a café run by gay men.[5]
Llewellyn's involvement withRed Dwarf came about as a result of his appearance at theEdinburgh Festival Fringe, performing in his one-man comedy,Mammon, Robot Born of Woman, about a robot who, as he becomes more human, begins to behave increasingly badly. This was seen byPaul Jackson, producer ofRed Dwarf, and Llewellyn was invited to audition for the role ofKryten.
Llewellyn joined the cast ofRed Dwarf in 1989 at the start of thethird series. Llewellyn's skills as a physical performer encouragedRob Grant andDoug Naylor to write him additional characters for the series, namely Jim Reaper ("The Last Day"), Human Kryten ("DNA"), Bongo ("Dimension Jump"), Able ("Beyond A Joke") and the Data Doctor ("Back in the Red"). WithDoug Naylor, Llewellyn also co-wrote the episode "Beyond A Joke" which screened in 1997.
In the early days ofRed Dwarf, Llewellyn would arrive to do make-up 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 makeup department than they used to".[6] In an interview withThe Skeptic Zone, Llewellyn mentioned that he needs a special pair of glasses to be able to read the script with the Kryten mask on. InRed Dwarf, he worked hard to get the more technically difficult lines right because the series tried to be factually accurate in reference to scientific theories.[6]
Llewellyn was also the only British cast member ofRed Dwarf to originally participate in a proposed American version, though other actors such asCraig Charles andChris Barrie were also approached to reprise their roles.
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Llewellyn has presented a number of programmes for UK television. His first outing as a presenter was onScrapheap Challenge, produced byChannel 4; the series saw 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 ofDiscovery Channel'sHow Do They Do It? and theBBC/Open University programmeHollywood Science.
In 1992, Llewellyn appeared in "Parade", thefourth episode of series two ofBottom, as a woundedFalklands War veteran named Mr. N. Stiles.
Llewellyn's projectit2i2 was released on DVD in March 2006. Since then, he has had a YouTubevideo blog called "Llewtube". His bookSold Out: How I Survived a Year of Not Shopping — based on his YouTube seriesMaking Do — was published in October 2008.
In February 2009, Llewellyn featured as a guest in episode 127 of the technology-related podcastMacBreak Weekly withLeo Laporte.[7]
In 2007 Llewellyn appeared as the Prime Minister in an episode of theCBBC seriesM.I. High. He presented the 2008Channel 5 game showTop Trumps.
Llewellyn reviewed the world of science and technology in his popularMachine of the Week report.[8]
Since 2009 Llewellyn has provided the voice of news anchor Perry Flynn forPlayStation Home TV, which airs in theHome Theatre of the European version ofPlayStation Home.
Llewellyn has worked as avoice actor, providing the voices of the alien creatures inSkywhales (1983), the voice of Feeble forThe Feeble Files (1997), Old Joe inChristmas Carol: The Movie, and the gryphon in the 2005 filmMirrorMask. In the documentaryDwarfing USA (released on the DVD ofRed Dwarf V), he described himself as "very much a 'don't want to do it now' kind of person".
Llewellyn's web seriesCarpool ran from 2009 to 2014, and spawned atelevision series of the same name on the television channelDave from 2010-2011. In January 2011, Llewellyn appeared onCelebrity Mastermind answering questions on the specialist subject ofelectric cars; he has expressed an interest in working on a television series about technologies that we might use in the future.[6]
In 2010, Llewellyn was the narrator of theChannel 5 seriesThe Boss is Coming to Dinner. He appeared in the 2013 movieAshens and the Quest for the GameChild alongsideStuart Ashen andWarwick Davis, and the 2020 sequel,Ashens and the Polybius Heist.
Llewellyn presented the 2015BBC Two showThe World's Busiest Railway alongsideDan Snow andAnita Rani, which later featured onNetflix under the title "Mumbai Railway".
In 2019, Llewellyn was a contestant alongsideCraig Charles on theBBC One seriesAntiques Road Trip.
Currently working on a new 2025 show called "ZapHeap Challenge" - The modern take on the old-school game show Scrapheap Challenge, will see two teams engineer scrap material into electric-powered machines within a 10-hour timeframe
Prior to becoming a comedian, Llewellyn served an apprenticeship and became a professional shoemaker, working at James Taylor & Son andJohn Lobb Bootmaker in London. Speaking toRichard 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, learned to drive aged 11 (having been taught by his older brother in ago-kart). Formerly a "petrol-head", he now drives anelectric car[9] and is a renewable energy advocate.[10][11] As well as being frequently interviewed on the subject, he presents aYouTube series calledFully Charged.[12]
On the evening of 1 July 2009, while Llewellyn was en route to deliverCarpool footage to his editor, another vehicle hit him side-on at a junction inGloucestershire, writing off hisToyota 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 accident, as well as 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,[6] minor whiplash and dizzy spells but escaped more serious injury.[13]
In 2014 he drove, with David Peilow, aNissan Leaf 400 miles from London to Edinburgh. Stopping nine times, it took 12 hours, beating a previous time set by the BBC three years earlier which took four days in a Mini-E, as well as beating the time set by Peilow in a2008 Tesla Roadster, which, having left two days after the Mini-E, took around 19 hours.[14]
Llewellyn has expressed that his majorpseudoscientific irritations areastrology andclimate change denial.[6]
Llewellyn lives inTemple Guiting,Gloucestershire[15] and is married to Australian authorJudy Pascoe (who herself had a cameo inRed Dwarf as a one-off love interest of Llewellyn's character, in the episode"Camille" playing a character of the same name).
Llewellyn is the author of fourteen books, includingSold Out!,Therapy and How to Avoid It (withNigel Planer) and seven novels.
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