Robert Llewellyn

**Robert Llewellyn** (born 10 March 1956) played Norman Manning from *Nothing* to *Return of the Living Dad*, returning to the role for *Visions of Tomorrow*.

## Profile

Llewellyn was born in Northampton, England. His 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.

Llewellyn is perhaps best known for his role as Kryten in the sci-fi sitcom *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 series III and continued in the role through to the twelfth series. At Thames Con 2018, Llewellyn and his co-star Danny John-Jules announced that a new series was confirmed, and would be filmed in early 2019 and then likely broadcast a year later. 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") and Able ("Beyond A Joke") and the Data Doctor ("Back in the Red"). With Doug Naylor, Llewellyn co-wrote the *Red Dwarf* episode "Beyond A Joke" for series VII, screened in 1997.

Llewellyn joined *Doctor Who* after expressing some initial reluctance at the idea of juggling major roles in two major BBC series. However, he was ultimately convinced by producer Ian Fraser, and was signed on to play Norman Manning, starting from the middle of Season 31 and ending in the middle of Season 33. He returned for a guest appearance in the final story of Season 35.

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 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 of Discovery Channel's *How Do They Do It?* and the BBC/Open University programme *Hollywood Science*.

In 1992, Llewellyn acted in "Parade", the fourth episode of series two of *Bottom*, as a wounded Falklands War veteran named Mr. N. Stiles.

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

In February 2009, Llewellyn featured as a guest in episode 127 of the technology-related podcast *MacBreak Weekly* with Leo Laporte*.*

In 2007 Llewellyn has starred 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.

In 2010, Llewellyn was the narrator of the Channel 5 series *The Boss is Coming to Dinner*. He appeared in the 2013 movie *Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild* alongside Stuart Ashen and Warwick Davis, and the 2020 sequel, *Ashens and the Polybius Heist*.

Llewellyn presented the 2015 BBC Two show *The World's Busiest Railway* alongside Dan Snow and Anita Rani, which later featured on Netflix under the title "Mumbai Railway".

In 2019, Llewellyn was a contestant alongside *Red Dwarf* co-star Craig Charles on the BBC1 series *Antiques Road Trip*.

## Credits

### *Doctor Who*

* *Nothing*
* *Venusian Lullaby*
* *Legacy*
* *Goth Opera*
* *The Death of Art*
* *The Romance of Crime*
* *Paradox of the Daleks*
* *Downtime*
* *The Menagerie*
* *Mind Games*
* *The Eyes of Madmen*
* *Toy Soldiers*
* *Return of the Living Dad*
* *Visions of Tomorrow*