Robert Llewellyn

Robert Llewellyn is an actor, writer and presenter best known for playing the role of ‘Kryten’ in the hit science fiction sit-com Red Dwarf.

Born in 1956, Robert Llewellyn went to school just outside Northampton and in the small market town of Witney, West Oxfordshire. After being thrown out of Henry Box school age 15, due to a misunderstanding over general discipline and hair length, he became a hippy leather worker. Aged 18 became an apprentice shoemaker with James Taylor and Son, bespoke shoemakers in Marylebone, London. He then bought a 5 ton furniture truck, converted it into a house and spent 2 years ‘on the road,’ working on film locations as a runner, a model for painters, a geodesic dome builder and part time tree surgeon.

He eventually set up a company in London with fellow shoemakers, during the late 70’s early 80’s many city gentlemen and Wall Street brokers would order their brogues and tassel loafers from ‘The Bermondsey Bootmakers Company.’

During this time Robert helped organise a few amateur cabaret evenings in a riverside warehouse over looking 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 making shoes and started performing professionally.

For the following five years he toured Britain and Europe with The Joeys, performing an average of 250 shows a year. The Joeys made numerous television appearances and ran sell out shows at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1985 the group split.

In 1989, Robert Llewellyn joined the cast of Red Dwarf and continued in the role of Kryten until the end of Series 8 in 1999.

Robert Llewellyn has presented a number of popular television programmes including Scrapheap Challenge on Channel 4, How Do They Do That? for The Discovery Channel,  Hollywood Science for the BBC/Open University and Top Trumps on Channel 5.

Llewellyn is the author of nine books, including Sold Out! and Therapy and How To Avoid It with Nigel Planer and four novels: The Man On Platform 5, Punchbag, Sudden Wealth and Brother Nature

Robert Llewellyn is available for speaking engagements and awards hosting.