London Comedy Award Nomination Nick Helm: 'I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.'

Nick Helm, the ‘Human Car Crash of Light Entertainment’, is making waves across the comedy circuit with his extreme stage-persona and savage witticisms. Helm, one of T4’s ‘Rising Stars’ of 2012, has been ruffling feathers and tickling ribs ever since he started stand-up comedy in 2007. He’s achieved an extraordinary amount in the past five years, and it’s not hard to see why; he is a potent combination of razor-sharp talent and an excellent work ethic, saying to an interviewer last year that comedy is “obsessive and because you're always trying to come up with the next joke, you can't switch your mind off. Comedy does take over your life but I don't see that as a bad thing.”

He won the award for the best joke at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, judged by a panel from the television channel ‘Dave’ and beating veteran comedian Tim Vine into second place: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” Helm is like a more acerbic Justin Lee Collins, his show, ‘Dare to Dream’ being described as a chaotic and extraordinary experience. Nice one, Nick.

The Guardian’s Review: ‘ ‘Dare to Dream’ is the new show from fast-rising comic Nick Helm, a sweat-soaked descent into psychopathy-as-entertainment. Black-clad and burly, Helm is maxing out the comedy value of bellowing "dickhead" into his audience's faces. The irresistible reference is Johnny Vegas, whose combination of rage, self-loathing and vulnerability Helm recalls as this thrash-rocking lunk starts demanding cuddles from reluctant punters on the front row...Veering between fury and vulnerability, between songs about motherfuckers to songs about brown paper packages, tied up with string, Helm keeps the show constantly on edge and in our faces....Helm's needy brute persona is itself amusing. When an exit door slams halfway through his song about dreams being crushed, his ad lib – "Which one of you cunts just left?" – is fiercely funny. This is leather-and-lace character comedy, for people who like their punchlines delivered from a shredded larynx’.