Nick Helm is back in Edinburgh this week for a special anniversary show at the Fringe, but it took years for the comedian to land a primetime slot at the UK’s biggest comedy fest.

He’ll be back on stage this weekend to perform his first album, Hot ‘N’ Heavy, and he tells the Daily Express that he has another record on the way.

However, his early material struggled to find an audience and didn’t exactly score the rave reviews he’s getting now.

“From the age of 19 to the age of, I guess, 25 – not as long as it’s taken to write my new album – I was writing this play,” he recalled. “For years and years and years.

“I put it on in Edinburgh, and I was actually quite pleased with the play.

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“But we did it and it got one star in the Scotsman. And it was just like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve spent six years on this play’. And it got one star.”

An unexpected phone call about a printing error gave him some hope but, sadly, the actual score wasn’t much better.

“They phoned up the theatre and they said, ‘There’s been a printing error in the newspaper’,” Helm remembers.

“‘In the newspaper you’ve been given one star. But actually, online…’ – no one went online back then.

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“You did have the internet on your phones, maybe, but it was so new. They said, ‘It’s a printing error in the paper. But if you went online it wasn’t one star it was two stars’.

“It was like, ‘Oh right… much better!’” he added sarcastically.

But, to his surprise, a one-star review was the best thing that could have happened to his early stage efforts.

“The knock-on effect was, because we got a one-star review, we sold out!” he said. “We were in, like, an 80-seater, I think, and getting five people a day.

“And then the day we got one star we sold out. It was the best we ever got. Everyone was like, ‘We’ve got to go see this absolute piece of s**t!’

“So, I guess, a one-star is better than a two-star. And if you are up in Edinburgh and you get a one-star review it’s not the end of the world. It’s the best the show had ever gone, I guess because we were the underdogs.”

Helm’s new album, as mentioned, has been in the works for several years but he hopes to have it released near the start of 2024.

He’s also reflected on the break from live performing he took with other comedians during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how it’s helped him get back on stage more confident than ever.

“I just enjoy being on stage a lot more,” he shared. “I’ve retrained myself on how to enjoy comedy.

“At the moment, I’m not the tightest I’ve ever been in terms of material, but I’m enjoying it the most I’ve ever enjoyed it.

“And by proxy, the audience enjoys it more. I’m just a lot looser on stage.

“I want it to be like, I don’t think about comedy all day, then they call my name out, I walk up on stage and I do a set. For my own mental health.

“And now I’m doing that, and I’m really happy with where I am.”

Nick Helm’s Hot ‘N’ Heavy Weekend is live-streaming on NextUp online or on 12 August and 18 August at 9pm on Virgin Media UK via NextUp.

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