Helen Arney

Biography

Musical theatre lyricist and librettist, songwriter, stand-up comedian and “Voice of an Angle” Helen Arney has appeared on TV, Radio and in theatres across the world with her unique mix of stand-up, songs and science. As one third of science theatre phenomenon “Festival of the Spoken Nerd” she has written and performed songs on four national UK tours, three DVD recordings, two BBC Radio series, the trio’s popular podcast and appearances at Hammersmith Apollo and Royal Albert Hall.

After her daughter arrived in 2016, Helen took her musical comedy career and added an MA in Screenwriting and Playwriting from City University, where she was awarded Distinction and the year prize for Best Screenplay. Since then she has worked alongside many new collaborators to tell bigger stories on a larger scale, with Musical Theatre as her main focus.

Helen is currently working on several Musical Theatre projects, all at different stages in 2025:

- THE UNSTOPPABLE LETTY PEGG - A teenage jiu jitsu suffragette musical for large youth cast with composer James Hughes, directed by Jake Smith.
- THE CAMBRIDGE FIRST ALL-LADIES FIRE BRIGADE - a fiery new musical about five well-behaved science students in 1880s Girton College Cambridge who transformed into radical feminists and and tried to burn down the patriarchy with composer Jenni Pinnock and bookwriter Brian Mackenwells.
- ALMOST ASTRONAUTS - a show about the first US women astronauts created with Jenna Dyckhoff and Charlie Westenra.
- B*TCH - Cabaret concept musical based on Lucy Cooke's book, featuring everything Charles Darwin got wrong about the female of the species.
- THE MESSENGER GIRLS - A musical for large youth cast based on the true story of when Girl Guides worked for MI5 during World War One, with Jenni Pinnock and Brian Mackenwells.

The title song from THE UNSTOPPABLE LETTY PEGG was a 2023 finalist in the Stiles + Drew Best New Song Prize, and the show is being workshopped with National Youth Music Theatre UK throughout 2025.

Helen, Jenni and Brian were chosen from over 200 applications to join the first Birmingham Hippodrome New Musical Theatre Writer's Group in 2024, to develop THE CAMBRIDGE FIRST ALL-LADIES FIRE BRIGADE. Birmingham Hippodrome continue to support the show, as do the British Society for the History of Science, and Lincoln Arts Centre who have made the trio "Innovate Artist" for their 2025-26 .

ALMOST ASTRONAUTS was selected for the 2023 Overture Artist Development Programme, after R&D support from Leeds Conservatoire and a grant from the Jane Goodman Writing Fund.

Helen is a member of Mercury Musical Development’s Advanced Writer’s Lab, a graduate of Book, Music and Lyrics workshops in London, and has filled several notebooks with rhymes for "Uranus" (none of which are printable here).

You can find Helen's website at helenarney.com