Nick Helm heads list of best Edinburgh jokes

Nick Helm, the comic who has just won Dave's 'Funniest joke of the Fringe 2011', trumping the likes of Mark Watson and Tim Vine, is virtually unknown. But critics say we should get to know him.
 
The surprise winner nabbed the award with this one-liner: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."
 
Helm is a bearded stand-up from St Albans. While he has been performing at the Edinburgh Fringe for over a decade, he first gained serious attention last year when his debut solo show Keep Hold of the Gold received a thumbs up from critics. Appearances on Russell Howard's Good News show and a sell-out West End tour soon followed.
 
"Last year did amazing things for my career," Helm said. It also upped the ante for his return show at Edinburgh this year. "When no one gave a shit about me it was fine because I could do anything I wanted," he said in an interview on events website Spoonfed in July. "But now I have to live up to expectations."
 
His persona – mouthy yet vulnerable – has been compared to Johnny Vegas by the Guardian's Brian Logan, who says Helm exudes a similar combination of "rage, self-loathing and vulnerability". Chortle calls Helm "comedy's answer to glam rock, all swaggering machismo, aggressive posturing and energetic showmanship."
 
His new show Nick Helm: Dare To Dream, which produced the winning joke, has tickled critics with its mix of quick wit and audience humiliation and has been shortlisted for Edinburgh's biggest prize: Best Comedy Show.
 
Should he win – following in the footsteps of Steve Coogan, Lee Evans and Al Murray – Helm won't be an unknown for long.
 
• The full list of Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe award 2011…
 
1. Nick Helm: "I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."
 
2. Tim Vine: "Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels."
 
3. Hannibal Buress: "People say 'I'm taking it one day at a time.' You know what? So is everybody. That's how time works."
 
4. Tim Key: "Drive Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought...once you've hired the car..."
 
5. Matt Kirshen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess."
 
6. Sarah Millican: "My mother told me, you don't have to put anything in your mouth you don't want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards."
 
7. Alan Sharp: "I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure."
 
8. Mark Watson: "Someone asked me recently – what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I'm not falling for that one again, wife."
 
9. Andrew Lawrence: "I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can't even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails."
 
10. DeAnne Smith: "My friend died doing what he loved... Heroin." ·