IT would never have been predicted, but the 20th century left us with a grand tradition of robots and humour.

From Forbidden Planet's Robbie the Robot, through Metal Mickey and the Laurel-and-Hardyesque mishaps of R2D2 and C3P0, the man in metal always seems to play the stooge.

The most recent British contributor to the automaton parade was Kryten, the angular-headed android on TV's Red Dwarf.

Beginning as a minor character, he quickly became a major member of the cast and alternated between electronic naivety and his own quirky worldview.

And now the actor who brought Kryten to life, Robert Llewellyn, is again bringing that semi-detached perspective to human relationships in WomanWizard, coming to Blackwood next month.

Llewellyn, who has written several successful novels and become the presenter of Scrapheap Challenge since his stint on the mining ship Red Dwarf, has already taken his one-man show to the Edinburgh Festival and around Britain.

He said: "WomanWizard is a fictitious - if only it wasn't - software program which allows men to test out difficult situations in their long term relationships with women without making a mess of the real thing.

"So far it's been received very, very well, I am very happy to say. Every show has been a sell-out, which considering there are over 63,000 separate performances at the Edinburgh festival alone is no small hill of beans.

"I also tried the show out in LA to a mixed crowd of British and Americans, during the recent recording of a Scrapheap/Junkyard special and it went down very well. "As a general rule, I would say an American audience is very up to speed when it comes to all things techno, including the frustrations of wobbly software and daft software companies."

Robert Llewellyn: WomanWizard comes to Blackwood Miners' Institute on February 7. Tickets are £12.50 or £7.50 concessions, and include curry and chips after the show. Box office 01495 227206.