Helen is probably best known for her role as the dippy ‘Catriona’ in ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ alongside Jennifer Saunders in all six series and more recently in ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’. She created the ‘Girl at the Bar’ in the BBC comedy sketch show ‘Naked Video’ and is known for her unique wit and observational humour. A comedy writer with an extensive portfolio that includes writing and performing her own material, not only as a stand-up comedian but also as a comedy novelist and contributor to various respected publications.
Helen has starred in a great number of top TV comedy and radio shows. Helen was part of a group of early 1980’s comedians, including Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, the late Rik Mayall and Ben Elton who made their names at London’s Comedy Store. She was a guest on ITV’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ with her solo comedy act as well as performing at the first ‘Just for Laughs’ comedy festival in Montreal with Lenny Henry. TV appearances span such shows as ‘The Young Ones’, ‘French and Saunders’, ‘Happy Families’, ‘One Foot in the Grave’, ‘Bottom’, ‘Love Soup’, ‘Miss Marple’ and ‘Hollyoaks’. Children’s TV includes the much-loved children’s favourite ‘Miss Bowline-Hitch’ along with Bernard Cribbins for CBeebies’ ‘Old Jacks Boat’. She starred as Rich Aunt Ruby in ‘Horrid Henry: The Movie’.
On BBC radio she has written and performed her own comedy series ‘Life with Lederer’ and ‘All Change’ as well as being a panellist on shows such as ‘The News Quiz’, ‘Just a Minute’, ‘Quote…Unquote’, ‘A Good Read’, ‘Open Book’ and ‘Woman’s Hour’.
A columnist for Woman & Home, she is currently guest columnist for I newspaper and ‘Funny old world’ in Woman’s Weekly as well as writing for The Mail on Sunday, The Express and The Daily Telegraph, she is also currently ‘agony aunt’ for Woman’s Weekly.
Theatre work includes ‘Educating Rita’, and Alan Bleasdale’s ‘Having a Ball’. She has been in ‘The Vagina Monologues’, ‘Calendar Girls’, and ‘The Killing of Sister George’, in London’s West End. This is interspersed with many fringe plays. Her first comedy novel ‘Losing It’, published by Pan Macmillan, was nominated for the PG Wodehouse comedy literary prize. Helen set up her own Comedy Women In Print Prize (CWIP) in 2018. Since then, CWIP has reached its third year with Marian Keyes as patron and enabled many unpublished writers to become published https://comedywomeninprint.co.uk/.
Helen’s appearance in Celebrity Big Brother led to her temporarily trending on Twitter. Her new Stand Up show ‘I might as well say it’ was a ‘sell out’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to rave reviews. She is a sought-after panellist and commentator. She is currently working on her comedy memoir.
