Helen is 29 years old, and starting writing and performing comedy at university. Since then she's been working on and off as an actor, alongside temping in a cosmetic surgery, selling Christmas trees and finding time to build the Lego Taj Mahal. (All true; photos of the latter available). She is also currently in re-rehearsals for the Donmar Warehouse's all-female production of Julius Caesar which is soon to begin a short run in New York.
Here's what Helen has to say about her script, Birth Mother:
"I've been keeping a notebook of things I find funny for the past few years. A few months ago, the pages ran out. This indicated it was probably time to do something with what I'd been jotting down. A lot of it, on revisiting, was not funny at all, and some of it, simply factual information that I'd written in the wrong book and had been desperately searching for for months… I now have been able to give British Gas my customer reference number. But amongst all this, there were enough vague ideas that had at the time been funny enough for me to bother getting my pen out of my bag to write down, so I decided to try and transform them from vague ideas to real ideas. And I really loved doing it.
I am absolutely delighted to have reached the final of this competition. There are a ludicrously low number of women in comedy, from writers and stand-ups to a distinct lack of funny roles available for female actors in general. That's why I think this competition is so important in giving exposure to women who are funny and I'm really glad to have been given the opportunity to be part of it!"
