Helen Keen grew up a curious, uncoordinated only child in the rural North of England. She attended a comprehensive where the most popular and enthusiastically taught subject was PE, and so began to read a lot.  Her parents (a postman and a housewife) had a small collection of books dealing with English Christian missionaries in 19th Century China, American true crime tales, and the Luftwaffe. Fortunately she discovered her local library and its literature, space and science-fiction sections otherwise her first one woman show might've been very different.  

Struggling to adapt to a post-university life of secretarial temping in London, she began taking - and eventually enjoying -  acting classes.  These classes helped her to overcome the speaking difficulties that had affected her since childhood.  She also started writing comedy with best friend Miriam Underhill, and after a few months they'd had sketches broadcast on Radio 1's experimental comedy show The Milk Run and won the Channel 4 New Comedy Writing award (it was thus they received a rather unrealistic impression of how easy it would all be...).

Since then they’ve spent a lot of time trying to work jokes about Hildegarde of Bingen into writers’ meetings for topical comedy and sketch shows as well as developing their own pilot sitcom scripts for BBC3 and Channel 4.

As a stand-up Keen has been a finalist in the usual national competitions (Funny Women, Hackney Empire, Leicester Mercury). Her first ever solo stand-up space rocket themed show It Is Rocket Science! ("Fascinating and hilarious ..... littered with anecdotes about evil typography and exploding bats" - * * * * * The Skinny) received the 2008 Buxton Festival Fringe Award for Best Comedy Performance. After a successful run on the Edinburgh Fringe at the Gilded Balloon, it was developed as a BBC Radio 4 series, to be broadcast in March 2011. It also stars Peter Serafinowicz and Susy Kane, and was produced by Gareth Edwards.  

Keen's live performance has been described as " consistently intriguing", "adorably eccentric" and "geeky, nerdy... [like] a breathlessly enthusiastic novice science teacher".