Timing is everything for Robert Llewellyn


No matter what walk of life you find yourself in, everyone has heard the old adage of “…it’s not what you know, but who you know”. Whether you heard it during your Benjamin Braddock (The Graduate) years trying to find a job right out of college or later in life during that life-changing career move that you had always wanted to do, being in the right place at the right time cannot be underestimated.

Take one Robert Llewellyn, for example. Widely known to fanatical British comedy fans as Kryten, the series 4000 service mechanoid from the series Red Dwarf, Llewellyn owes his big break to a time during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where he performed in Mammon, Robot Born of Woman. Name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue does it, but the story will as it’s about a robot, who became more human, therefore began to behave increasingly badly, or “human”.

In the audience was Paul Jackson, producer of Red Dwarf, who invited Llewellyn to audition for the role of Kryten. It was 1989 and, as they say, the rest is history as Llewellyn joined the RD cast as Kryten beginning with series 3. Definitely proving, timing is everything.

Today’s Robert Llewellyn can be seen in Carpool on the digital comedy channel, Dave, in the UK, where he drives his passengers around town in an eco-friendly car while interviewing them. The series started out as a web-only series and has recently been picked up to air on Dave. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth your time. Archive episodes can be seen on Llewellyn’s website, Llewtube. Well worth the extra time to track this one down and check it out.



In: Actors/Actresses,Comedy