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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…
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  • 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
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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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photo by Alex Brenner

Who is Helen?

Helen Arney by Alex Brenner

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photo by Mihaela Bodlovic

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  • March News – shows all over the place, and 10,000 hits on YouTube!

     

    I’m just about to send out one of those newsletter things again – read it here first:
     

    – Festival of the Spoken Nerd in London, Cambridge & Edinburgh
    – Episode Five of our Extra Time for Questions Podcast out now
    – Biggest ever Storytellers’ Club at the Pleasance 11th March
    – Domestic Science new material night 27th March
    – Lovely gigs coming up all over the UK: is there one near you soon?
    – My cryogenic love song hits 10,000 views on YouTube!

    So that’s what I’ve been up to since the start of the year, and what I will be up to for the next few weeks. Come join me at a show, maybe?

     

     

  • January news – Biggest show! Smallest show! Podcast show!

    Not much news volumistic term this month, but exciting content-wise!

    Read my January newsletter here

    The main event in it is our biggest ever Festival of the Spoken Nerd show, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket! ZOMG!

    £10 tickets available here

    Contains news about co-hosting the biggest show I’ve ever done, and the smallest show I’ve ever done, in the space of a fortnight, plus links to the latest “Extra Time For Questions” podcast. Here’s me, Matt and Steve, making idiots of ourselves in the name of science, maths and general nerdery again:

    Photo by Idil Sukan/Draw HQ

     

  • Stuff in December & January – newsletter

    I’ve just popped out another heinously long newsletter:

    Read it, in all it’s blue and purple glory, here

    Things of note include:

    • A handy discount on my Festive album “It’s going to be an awkward Christmas, darling”
    • Tickets are on sale for our biggest Festival of the Spoken Nerd at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 18th January (handy ticket discount here too)
    • Mounted, framed and signed copies of this amazing portrait of The Balconettes are being sold to raise money for Shelter on December. Cor!

    Plus about a million other things including multiple podcasts, songs on BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4, and my spangly new website.

    Happy Christmas, eh?

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