There is one thing to remember about Robert Llewellyn’s Electric Cars Are Rubbish. Aren’t They? – and that is the distinct use of punctuation. He states that when his show first began, he kept it ambiguous because he was not too sure himself. But the show has taken him everywhere from pubs to the Edinburgh Festival, and Llewellyn’s experience with the electric car has him taking a new direction to the talk – whether electric cars are actually rubbish at all.

While the audience is small, Llewellyn keeps his comedic routes close in his talk about his journey of the electric car discovery. It is not that hard to compare him to your favourite teacher at university because, we will be honest here, it is so easy to get lost in some of the car talk. Even in the Q+A, when asked if anybody knew the electric car Tesla, I’m pretty sure I was the only one that did not put my hand up.

But as mentioned previously, it is his journey about discovering his own views on the electric car that keeps you interested. It is part debate, part life story, in a way: Llewellyn has great stories about his time filming the American version of Scrapheap Challenge (which was aptly titled Junkyard Wars), where he got into a car that is completely run on computer batteries. Jeremy Clarkson also gets mentioned a lot, for instance when talking about the time that Llewellyn was called up by his agent to be on Top Gear the next day: “How many celebrities must they have gone through before they got to me?”

But then your Jeremy Clarkson side does come out at some points – “but doesn’t electricity burn oil anyway?”, and all that jazz. Llewellyn does not deny that, but this is the debate of reusable energy coming in. He talks about his use of solar energy and how communities around the UK are trying not to use big companies for their energy supply. Alternative energy is something to look out for, especially when we only have to turn on a TV to see the debate of global warming, abuse of power and ridiculous pricing on crucial things like heating in winter months. The upside of sticking to reusable energy really does outweigh the downside. But does it start with the electric car? Who knows, really?

The talk itself does not really come with any huge sense of direction, but Llewellyn states from the beginning that he is not an engineer of any kind. Yet it is still quite an interesting subject to dwell on. I would definitely recommend it for the car lovers out there, but even if you just love an entertaining chat by Kryten from Red Dwarf, you will still enjoy this production.

Electric Cars Are Rubbish. Aren’t They? played at the Canada Water Culture Space on 26 September. For more information about the venue’s programme of events, see the Canada Water Culture Space website.