She used to chair the Conservatives. He used to perform in his underpants. Could Nick Helm turn Sayeeda Warsi into a comedian?
A Tory baroness and a leftwing comedian walk into a bar. As setups for a punchline go, it sounds fairly promising. But on day one of filming, neither Sayeeda Warsi nor Nick Helm saw the funny side of their pairing. Helm, star of BBC sitcom Uncle and a panel show regular, was one of five comedians tasked with mentoring a famous face, helping them to write an original five-minute routine which they would then perform in front of a live audience, for a Stand Up to Cancer special on Channel 4.
“We were given the list of names quite late on,” says the 40-year-old comic over Zoom. As well as Warsi, it included broadcaster the Rev Richard Coles, Love Islander Curtis Pritchard, and Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder. “When I first looked at the names,” says Helm, “I thought I’d be OK if I got anyone other than the baroness. When they paired us up, I had a sort of existential crisis.”
