I was an ambitious, funny female … which wasn't seen as a comfortable mix in the Eighties
| Published date | 22 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
Many felt Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Victoria Wood were quite enough, without a quirky blonde storming her way on to the scene to show up the boys as well.
Not that this was going to stop Helen. She forged a career as a regular on some of the biggest shows of the era, from sketch shows Happy Families (1983-85), Naked Video (1987) and French and Saunders to sitcoms The Young Ones, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous (as boozy journalist Catriona). But it wasn't easy.
"People would actually ask me, 'What is it like to be a woman and funny?'," says Helen, 69, still staggered by the overt sexism.
"One is held accountable for being a female comedian, and I've often been asked to justify it as a life choice. I was funny and ambitious, which wasn't seen as a comfortable mix."
Helen grew up Eltham, South East London and studied criminology before landing a place at drama school.
Once she started stand-up, she became friends with Ben Elton and Rik Mayall at the Comedy Store in London. But there was a certain pecking order once they made it to TV.
"Don't crash my laughs," Rik apparently warned her once.
Helen says: "I'd do the feed [the line that precedes the punchline].
"I was very earnest in the 80s. Like a comedy secretary."
Yet it is the liaisons off camera which really raise an eyebrow.
There was - as revealed in her new Mirror Books memoir, Not That I'm Bitter - a particular buzz around her encounter with Rik at the 1983 Edinburgh Festival.
Namely because their session came to an abrupt end when "a bee decided to fly into the room". The pair went for a walk instead.
"None of us were looking for an actual relationship," she says.
"Rik was really an amazing, charismatic, unique and exciting performer and human."
In the mid-80s, she dated Harry Enfield, who was seven years younger. It lasted until he caught her cheating.
"Harry was very talented, very clever and very kind," she recalls.
Yet as his star began to rise with his Loadsamoney character, she began seeing her ex as well.
She felt guilty when Harry popped round after she shared a clandestine clinch with the other man in a botanical garden.
"[Harry] arrived at my flat with a perfume named Poison," she says, noting it was apt. "I felt sick, ashamed and rumbled."
The problem was she cared for them both.
"At the time the easiest way to avoid hurting either of them was to just crack on with both of them at the same time," she admits.
Harry...
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