Llewellyn's first foray into the world of show business started out as a hobby, organising a few amateur cabaret evenings in a riverside warehouse overlooking 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 working as a shoemaker and started performing professionally with the group alongside Bernie Evans, Nigel Ordish and Graham Allum. The group toured the UK and Europe in the early 1980s with an initial idea of exploring sexual politics between men . Llewellyn wrote much of the material, and also began writing novels. The group split in 1985, having toured for years and done thousands of shows.
