Circuit Training 26: Helen Arney

When I first came across Helen Arnie she was, to misquote Die Hard 2, the wrong woman at the wrong place at the wrong time (and I'd imagine that's the first and last occasion on which she and a hi-octane action blockbuster will be mentioned in the same opening sentence). It was at a provincial comedy night which is usually fairly jolly but on this occasion featured a tableful of Neanderthal knobheads who began talking amongst themselves before the nicely-spoken bespectacled lass had even embarked on her set, and became downright obnoxious by the end of it.

All toe-curlingly unpleasant at the time, but such scenarios have turned into something of a blessing for Arnie, as she's now stopped trying to force her talents down the wrong-shaped holes and has adopted a DIY approach instead. First there came her own night - the curiously-named London Air-Accordion Society - then a couple of Edinburgh shows focussed solely on her favoured medium, comic songs, and now a seasonal album of them, It's Going to be an Awkward Christmas, Darling (Amazon), which has been getting a useful bit of airplay.

We catch Helen a few days before Christmas, warming up for her most high-profile gigs yet. But first, the logistics of that LP...

Making an album was once quite a privilege. Can you record and release one quite easily these days?

I grossly underestimated how much work it would actually be to write, arrange and record 11 original songs. The entire project has hinged on the commitment and furious hard work of a dozen people who've so far received little more than a mince pie and a thank you for their efforts. Back in September I'd just finished doing a solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe when Paul Richards [the album's subsequent co-writer and drummer] asked whether I might fancy doing a Christmas release on his miniature indie label Cracking Tunes.

I wasn't keen to take on another big thing so soon, but 24 hours later I'd written Office Party and comedian Terry Saunders had agreed to do a guest spot on that track. By then the whole thing had become irresistible. Getting music into online stores has been a breeze. Persuading people to take a punt and buy it? That's a whole different story.

It's not the most uplifting look at Christmas - do comics have a different attitude to the festive season, what with all those awful Christmas party gigs?

Christmas Day for me is a small and obligatory blip in my life between late December and New Year. But it's never as awful as I expect it to be. Paul sees Christmas as the apotheosis of joy for the year, therefore is always disappointed. I think it's this mix of cynicism, optimism, childlike wonder and cruel disappointment that makes It's Going to be an Awkward Christmas, Darling work.

Christmas is tricky for comics. There are more gigs - hurrah! But fewer shows that are actually nice to play - oh dear. I'm very lucky to be doing some absolutely beautiful gigs this week, Robin Ince's Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, with proceeds going to the Rationalist Association. It's an utter privilege to do them, it's like having all the good bits of this time of year wrapped up in a bundle of nerdy fun.

Were you always a songsmith or did that develop along the way?

I started off as a straight stand-up about four years ago, and achieved what can only be described as moderate to poor success. After years of standing awkwardly on stage in bad trousers and talking too fast, I realised I'd have to use many more of my assets on stage if I was going to be in any way successful. That meant either moving into musical comedy or giving burlesque a try. With a lifetime of singing in choirs and playing in orchestras compared to my very limited experience of taking clothes off in public, thankfully writing comedy songs was the obvious choice.

Do you still do regular stand-up, or are you fully song-driven now?

It's all about the songs for me, and I know that with a few changes to my set I can fit into a regular stand-up night just as easily as cabaret and variety nights. But on paper I'm still the 'pixie geek lady with an electric ukulele', and that's not something that every promoter is going to take a punt on for their club.

Am I right in thinking you used to work for Radio 3? Did your worlds ever collide?

Yep, I used to work behind the scenes, as production assistant, preparing all the tapes and paperwork for broadcast, that sort of thing. The worlds have only collided in the nicest possible ways. I loved working there for the hugely supportive, interesting, and often eccentric collection of people.

Outside of work they were great at coming along to, even hosting some of my shows - and of course there's a few characters that have provided me with a lot of material. But don't tell them that, they'll all want to know which songs are about them. Oh, and I was in the first 30 seconds of a documentary about accordions on Radio 4 earlier this week. Does that count?

A few songs from the album have been played on 6music recently - are they your first appearances on TV or radio?

I was once on The Big Breakfast, about 15 years ago, when Keith Chegwin came to our guide camp to report on how our sheep mascot had been stolen by a rival camp. You can recognise me in the crowd because of the thick fluorescent shoelace I had tied around my NHS-style bifocal glasses.

Is much of a market for comedy songs on TV and radio?

I have a few ideas making their way onto paper at the moment. I think Flight of the Conchords and Tim Minchin have paved the way in convincing people that there's an audience for musical comedy in the mainstream, yet they both still manage to maintain all their own originality, sophistication and sense of fun. People both inside and outside the industry are realising that the musical comedy buck hasn't stopped with Tom Lehrer and Victoria Wood, and there's more to it than pastiche numbers and changing the words to popular songs. Which can also be hilarious, but just isn't my bagpipe.

How did the London Air Accordion Society come about?

I wanted to run a night that attracted a nice, comedy-literate and slightly whimsical audience, to create a safe space to try out new material and host shows made up of some of my favourite new and established acts. So - inspired by a friend's comment on a Facebook photo of me - I set up the London Air-Accordion Society. It's possibly the world's first self-selective comedy club. There are a lot of people who say that's a terrible name for a comedy club, and that they won't find anything funny there. I say they shouldn't come because they're probably right.

Are there any other Arney DIY projects we should know about? Is doing your own thing the way forward?

I think every comedian I know has half a dozen things 'on the go' in the hope that one of them will take off. I'm just starting up a comedy girlband with the brilliant Danielle Ward on bass and fellow Funny Women 2010 finalist Rachel Parris on keys. Our working title is The Balconettes - think post-feminist Spice Girls meets Spinal Tap and you're nearly there.

I'm also writing a new show about a Time Travelling Coffee Shop, co-hosting a new science-meets-comedy night called Festival of the Spoken Nerd, and I've given myself 12 months to turn the Awkward Christmas album into a mini musical for December next year. I now have a wonderful manager who looks after a lot of things for me, but it's not like she can do any of the writing.

Sometimes I think it would be wonderful for someone to do absolutely everything except create new shows: they'd do all the project managing, all the worrying, all the schmoozing and all the financing. Then again I know it won't be easy to give up the habit of self-sufficiency and the joys of complete artistic control. But it's definitely something I'm prepared to try... anyone? Hello?