Villordsutch chats with actor, comedian and writer Robert Llewellyn…

Villordsutch: Always an easy question to start with: I suffer from a bad case of a dry sense of humour and it often gets me into bother with people I’ve just met; occasionally relatives too. Has your humour ever caused any concerns to your own personal safety?

Robert Llewellyn: That’s a fascinating question and although people in my profession are probably asked weird questions more than say engineers, plumbers, accountants, I’ve never been asked that before.

In about 1982 I wrote a sketch about a flying psychoanalyst who visited remote outback farmers in Australia and helped them ‘deal with their emotional problems.’ I was performing in a comedy sketch and music group called ‘The Joeys’ at the time, we performed the sketch and many people laughed, well, everyone laughed. It was funny.

One night in Cricklewood, North London we were playing to a packed house and right after the audience stopped clapping at the end of the sketch a very angry and real Australian (we’d just been bellowing in very bad, sub Monty Python Australian accents) stood up and shouted ‘why don’t you tell more racist jokes about Jews and blacks you bastards!’

He took to the stage and berated us, he was very angry and I think that was the first time I felt any direct threat emanating from something I’d written or said. Other than that, I’ve had plenty of verbal aggression, heckling and cruel insults from audiences but I quite enjoy that, no direct physical assaults. In social groups I have been known to ‘cross the line’ apparently, I’ve been told that something I’ve said was offensive or more commonly ‘insensitive,’ but I don’t deliberately set out to upset people. I admire people who do, Frankie Boyle is a hero of mine, I do not have the nerve to do what he does.

V: A fair amount of readers obviously know you as the man behind the rubber mask (Kryten from Red Dwarf) as well as presenter of Scrapheap Challenge and Carpool, however many more also know you as the author of (amongst other books) the “News from…” Trilogy (Gardenia, the Squares and coming soon the Clouds) can you give us a brief overview of your fictional universe?

RL: I once said to the producer of Scrapheap, a wonderful man called Dom Bowles, that “I primarily think of myself as a writer.”

As you can imagine a statement of such deluded pomposity did not fall on fallow ground, to this day (9 years later) he still addresses me in e-mails as “Bob, (primarily a writer) Llewellyn.”

That aside I have written books, plays, scripts and articles since I was a kid. I always loved reading and always wanted to write books. I just had no idea how to do it. Through chaotic stumbling I kind of fell on stage, not something I had ever wanted to do and found that I could have an outlet for my writing even if it was scrawling words for other people to say. I wanted to tell stories and when people actually laughed at them my life changed overnight. Through even more unlikely stumbling I ended up on telly in Red Dwarf, but one of the main things that attracted me to working with Rob and Doug (Grant and Naylor, the creative team behind Red Dwarf) was the quality of the writing.

For the first time in my life I had the time to actually write books, it’s basically all I did between recording 5 series of Red Dwarf. It has taken me many years to bring together all my interests and obsessions into my fictional universe. I have always been fascinated and challenged by what can broadly be termed ‘sexual politics.’ I came of age in the mid 1970’s when the feminist debate was very much to the fore.

My other obsession which has been with me even longer is engineering, the creation of new technologies and their impact on the environment. So many threads lead into this interest I can’t begin to untangle them here, but the main thrust has been the concept of long term planning, long term thinking and the rather obvious consequences of the current 6 months ultra short termism so entrenched in our political and corporate systems.

This lead me to reading and thinking about the long term future of the human race which resulted in writing ‘News from Gardenia’ a story set in a world 200 years in the future where things are generally better. Not perfect, not some set in aspic Utopia where everyone is happy all the time. News from Gardenia is Protopian science fiction. Progressive utopia combined, a continuing process, it’s the depiction of a changing and developing social and economic system, it’s an attempt to explore what life could be like if we lived with the planet rather than simply using it as fast as possible.

Gardenia was swiftly followed by ‘News from the Squares’ which looked at how the world could develop in a more sustainable, less brutal way if women took over running the place. Again this is no perfect world, it’s challenging and complicated, the hero of all three books, Gavin Meckler is baffled by most of what he comes across but he is also changed by his experiences.

I am currently writing the third book in the trilogy, ‘News from the Clouds’ which is again a book celebrating the indomitable human spirit, rising up to meet the challenge of climate chaos, extreme weather and a very different planet to the one we now reside in.

V: Was taking the “News from…” trilogy to Unbound which offers fans and future readers the chance to get the book published by pledging money to assist with its publication (along with appropriate reward for pledge) a risk? Did you ever worry that people may have replied with “Bob, stuff your book!” and you’d be sat with a brilliant tale going dusty inside your PC/Mac (delete as required)?

RL: I started writing News from Gardenia before I met the folks who run Unbound, my original intention was to self publish the book. I’d had a long talk with the extraordinary Cory Doctorow (he recorded an episode of Carpool with me) and was very inspired by his experiences self publishing.

However the more I explored the idea the more challenged I became. While I am chief technical officer with my family, I can set up routers, sort out e-mail issues and run my families phones and tablet devices, my skills in actual independent publishing are limited. Meeting the Unbounders when I did was a real blessing. I immediately loved the model, the idea behind it and had no trepidation jumping in.

I think I was at an advantage having already published 11 books through the traditional method, getting an advance from an established publisher, waiting years for it to hit the bookshops, doing the PR tour etc. While I’ve had reasonable success in the arena it was always a little frustrating. I loved meeting my readers, I loved talking about the books and writing them but the traditional publishing business, while generally benign is definitely locked into many out-dated practices.

With Unbound the whole process is utterly transparent, I know how much we raise for each book and I know exactly where every penny is spent, how much it costs to print books, convert them into e-books, record the audio book version (which for me is part of the writing process) etc.

So far it’s been wonderful, the books are available everywhere a book published traditionally would be, no restrictions and I get a much fairer % of the cover price. For someone in my position who can get the books launched through Unbound, it’s been every win-win/no-brainer clichés you want to use.

I would admit that for an unknown or first time writer, getting the book off the ground would be harder but Unbound have proven beyond doubt that it can be done.

V: You’ve written roughly around twelve books have you ever considered taking your talents perhaps towards writing a graphic novel perhaps in the “News from…” universe and choosing and artist to bring the tale to life or even a good stab at a Red Dwarf graphic novel?

RL: When I sat in front of my careers master at school I told him I wanted to be a cartoonist. He wasn’t impressed and suggested I try the army. Yes, I have dreamed about doing something in the graphic novel arena for a long time and there I do have a project taking shape at the moment. I won’t be doing the drawings though, my cartoon skills are fairly limited.

V: I knew a fair chunk of your showbiz talents and your views on self-sufficiency, but checking the Wikipedia on yourself and your blog http://llewblog.squarespace.com/ it becomes apparent that you’ve been around and are a dab hand at everything. Is there anything however that you can’t do or would love to try?

RL: Blimey, I’m fairly rubbish at everything but I’m prepared to have a go. Working on Scrapheap Challenge for so long and meeting so many really skilled engineers and bodgers made me realise how cack handed I really was. I can’t fly a plane, would quite like to learn, I’d love to be better at welding, some of my basic plumbing skills are passable and I’d love to be able to understand electronics more readily. I’m in the long, slow process of trying to get a community solar and micro hydro generating system installed in my local area, that’s my main, long-term non work related project at the moment

V: Quickly dropping back to the self-sufficiency was there a particular moment where you thought to yourself, ‘Electric Cars, local wine and my own chickens!’?

RL: That’s a good list, I haven’t previously connected chickens and electric cars but I do indeed have both. Local wine, in the Cotswolds? I’m sure there is some, local apple juice is fantastic though. I don’t think I’m that interested in ‘self sufficiency’ but I’m very interested in local, community sustainability, the idea of massively distributed energy generation, locally owned and operated strikes me as a rather fine direction for the country.

V: Looking to Red Dwarf, which has been a huge part of my sci-fi/comedy life and obviously yours, it did particularly well on Dave with Red Dwarf X drawing in 1.5 million people to the first episode. Did you enjoy returning to role as Kryten and the way the new show expanded the lore of Red Dwarf?

RL: There is no question that Red Dwarf has become a very big part of my life since 1989, it’s been a massive privilege to be involved and I count the cast as some of my best mates so it’s always fun to work with them. I essentially worship the ground Doug Naylor walks on so I am always full of admiration for his insights and the incredible effort he puts into writing the scripts. When we sit down together and read through the new scripts, that’s as close as we get to the experience the audience gets when the see the episode on the telly. I love those days, then my heart sinks when I remember I have to learn all those lines and remember them when my head is reaching temperatures that would set off alarms in Sellafield.

V: Perhaps the question you’ve been asked so many times you have an set answer on a card to hand out to the person asking the question; I am talking Red Dwarf the movie here. I know it has mooted way back in the past but in late 2012 Doug Naylor said, “Craig said something interesting to me which was if we were to do the film, he wouldn’t want to leave the TV series…” with the recent Harry Hill and Alan Partridge films appearing are be getting closer to another UK film release namely Red Dwarf: The Movie?

RL: That is so much a question for Doug, I’m sure if he wrote the script and managed to raise the budget, none of us would say ‘No Doug, I don’t want to make a Red Dwarf movie.’

I was very happy when we made a new series and recorded it in front of a live audience, it kind of felt that’s where Red Dwarf belongs, it’s a sit com about four space bums trapped together… for ever.

I’d never say never, I think a movie could work if it was pitched right, but I’m happy that we’ll (hopefully) make another series soon.

V: Final question – Can you give us one secret project you’re working on that nobody else knows about?

RL: Well, the graphic novel thingy, hopefully that’ll come to fruition. I’m also working on a top secret tablet based swishy, sophisticated app thingy that is so exciting I can’t even speak about it, and some other telly stuff for later in the year which is very much up my electric street but at the moment all those projects could go down the crapper so I’m loath to go into detail.

Many thanks to Robert Llewellyn for taking the time for this interview. Find him on Twitter here.

Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.