Robert Llewellyn

Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter, and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom Red Dwarf and presented the engineering gameshow Scrapheap Challenge. He also founded and hosts a YouTube channel, Everything Electric, which has grown into a company that puts on EV and "Everything Electric" conventions in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

Early life and career Llewellyn was born in Northampton, England, 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 Joeys split in 1985, having toured for years and done thousands of performances. He co-wrote and starred in The Corner House, a 1987 sitcom for Channel 4 about a café run by gay men.

Red Dwarf Llewellyn's involvement with Red Dwarf came about as a result of his appearance at the Edinburgh 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 by Paul Jackson, producer of Red Dwarf, and Llewellyn was invited to audition for the role of Kryten.

Llewellyn joined the cast of Red Dwarf in 1989 at the start of the third series. Llewellyn's 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"), Human Kryten ("DNA"), Bongo ("Dimension Jump"), Able ("Beyond A Joke") and the Data Doctor ("Back in the Red"). With Doug Naylor, Llewellyn also co-wrote the episode "Beyond A Joke" which screened in 1997.

In the early days of Red 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". 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 series tried to be factually accurate in reference to scientific theories.

In 2007 Llewellyn appeared as the Prime Minister in an episode of the CBBC series M.I. High. He presented the 2008 Channel 5 game show Top Trumps.

Llewellyn reviewed the world of science and technology in his popular Machine of the Week report.

Since 2009 Llewellyn has provided the voice of news anchor Perry Flynn for PlayStation Home TV, which airs in the Home Theatre of the European version of PlayStation Home.

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 Movie, and the gryphon in the 2005 film MirrorMask. In the documentary Dwarfing USA (released on the DVD of Red Dwarf V), he described himself as "very much a 'don't want to do it now' kind of person".

Llewellyn's web series Carpool ran from 2009 to 2014, and spawned a television series of the same name on the television channel Dave from 2010-2011. In January 2011, Llewellyn appeared on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on the specialist subject of electric cars; he has expressed an interest in working on a television series about technologies that we might use in the future. and is a renewable energy advocate. As well as being frequently interviewed on the subject, he presents a YouTube channel called Everything Electric.

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 Toyota 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,

In 2014, with David Peilow, he drove a Nissan 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 a 2008 Tesla Roadster, which, having left two days after the Mini-E, took around 19 hours.

Llewellyn has expressed that his major pseudoscientific irritations are astrology and climate change denial. and is married to Australian author Judy Pascoe (who herself had a small role in Red Dwarf as a one-off love interest of Llewellyn's character, in the episode "Camille" playing a character of the same name).

Publications Books Llewellyn is the author of fourteen books, including Sold Out!, Therapy and How to Avoid It (with Nigel Planer) and seven novels. The Reconstructed Heart: How to Spot the Difference Between a Normal Man and One Who Does the Housework, is Great in Bed and Doesn't Get All Iffy When You Mention Words Like Love and Commitment (1992) – non-fiction The Man in the Rubber Mask (1994 - updated in 2012) – Llewellyn's personal account of his career with Red Dwarf. Therapy and How to Avoid It (1996 - with Nigel Planer) – non-fiction Thin He Was and Filthy-Haired (1996) – memoir The Man on Platform 5 (1998) – a modern gender-reversed re-telling of Pygmalion, of which the film rights were sold Punchbag (1999) – novel Sudden Wealth (2000) – novel Behind the Scenes at Scrapheap Challenge (2001) – non-fiction Brother Nature (2002) – novel Sold Out - How I Survived a Year of Not Shopping (2008) – non-fiction News From trilogy – utopian science fiction News from Gardenia (2012 - Part 1) News from the Squares (2013 - Part 2) News from the Clouds (2015 - Part 3) Some Old Bloke: Recollections, Obsessions and the Joys of Blokedom (2018) – Autobiography

Video Podcasts Carpool – a regular video podcast, released every Friday, in which Llewellyn interviews other celebrities while driving them somewhere in a car. some of the episodes have appeared on UK channel Dave as well as appearing online after broadcast. Wet Liberal Whenever – was an occasional video podcast where he does a monologue about subjects he is impassioned about, previously known as Wet Liberal Weekly Fully Charged (previously known as Gearless) – a weekly video podcast that was initially about alternative technology vehicles and is now also about The future of Energy,

Other Woman Wizard – DVD of his one-man show Blue Helmet – online science fiction comedy novel Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild – an online independent film (direct to YouTube – low budget). the sequel, Ashens and the Polybius Heist - The sequel to the previous online film, slightly higher budget. in 2013, Llewellyn appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity, with Cleo Rocos and Kevin Warwick.