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AboutHelen Arney is a musical comedian based in London, performing original and funny songs on ukulele, piano or with her all-girl comedy band The Balconettes. She’s also one third of Festival of the Spoken Nerd. A prolific writer of comedy songs with a geeky edge, she recently toured the UK in “Uncaged Monkeys” alongside Robin Ince, Prof Brian Cox, Simon Singh and Dr Ben Goldacre, which culminated in two sold-out dates at the Hammersmith Apollo. This year you’ll hear Helen on BBC Radio 4 as a guest on The Infinite Monkey Cage and Wondermentalist. A handful of her science songs are available to download for free at Bandcamp. In 2010, Helen performed her musical comedy hour Songs for Modern Loving at the Edinburgh Fringe, to critical acclaim. In December that year, she also released a festive studio album, It’s going to be an awkward Christmas, darling with drummer and playwright Paul Richards. Wry, humorous, lyrically intelligent and unashamedly poignant, the track “Office Party” was played on BBC 6 Music. She’s now working on a new album that touches on her past as a Physics student at Imperial College London, and will include the Geek Pop hit Animals featuring gentleman rapper…
Writing
ShowsI’ve performed at three consecutive Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, since 2008, and here’s the place to find out more about those shows: Songs for Modern Loving (2010) 8+1/2 songs about love (and other myths) (2009) Homework for Heroes (2008) Outside the Fringe, I wrote a new musical show for the Cambridge Science Festival: Tales of a Time Travelling Coffee Shop (2011) Also I run one of the loveliest comedy gigs in our capital, not very often nowadays but it does sometimes spring up: The London Air-Accordion Society Photo taken at massed ukulele photoshoot, Pleasance Ghillie Dhu, August 2010 by Alex Brenner
TV & Radio
Watch online
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Live EventsHere’s a list of gigs I’m doing soon. It would be great to see you at any of these, especially the gigs I co-run: London Air-Accordion Society for Edinburgh previews, Festival of the Spoken Nerd for geeky science comedy fun, and anything to do with my girlband The Balconettes. If you want to hear about upcoming gigs before anyone else, join my mailing list. 09 Oct :: WONDERMENTALIST, recording for BBC Radio 4 at Cheltenham Literature Festival – sorry, SOLD OUT (details) 10 Oct :: FESTIVAL OF THE SPOKEN NERD: Ice Ice Baby – with Helen Scales u0026#038; Bethany Black – SORRY – SOLD OUT – join my mailing list to hear about shows before they sell out! 11 Oct :: SBM COMEDY, Colnbrook 14 Oct :: NEWPORT COMEDY FESTIVAL, hosting open mic night, Riverfront 15 Oct :: HELEN ARNEY’S SONGS FOR MODERN LOVING, Newport Comedy Festival, 6.30pm, Riverfront (tickets) 17 Oct :: SAVE KENSAL RISE LIBRARY with Robin Ince, Phill Jupitus, Robyn Hitchcock (details) 19 Oct :: FESTIVAL OF THE SPOKEN NERD – LONDON SCIENCE FESTIVAL SPECIAL, AT SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE, With Prof Bruce Hood u0026#038; Piff the Magic Dragon £12/£10 (tickets) 22 Oct :: TAG COMEDY, Reading (tickets) 28 Oct :: SBM…
ContactIf you want to get in touch about live work, buying CDs, or to ask a question about something in particular, just email me direct on helen (dot) arney (at) gmail (dot) com. To interact in a more general “Life 2.0? sort of way, click on “follow me” for facebook, twitter and youtube, or join my mailing list using the links above. If you want to talk about any other sort of work, please contact my agent Marlene Zwickler: marlene@mza-artists.com 0131 343 3030 www.mza-artists.com

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You Can’t Polish A Nerd

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Festival of the Spoken Nerd on tour from September 2017

←You Can’t Polish A Nerd – the 2017 tour.

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