Helen Zaltzman

Answer Me This!

Zaltzman began the weekly comedy podcast Answer Me This! with Mann in 2007. The duo met in 2000 studying at St Catherine's College, Oxford. The podcast is recorded in Zaltzman's living room in Crystal Palace with assistance from Martin Austwick (a.k.a. "Martin the Sound Man"). Zaltzman also edits the show, a process that takes around ten hours per episode.

The podcast won a silver Sony Award in 2010 and gold in 2011, and in 2012 a European Podcast Award. It has been voted one of the Top 10 Comedy Podcasts in the World by The Guardian. It has received critical plaudits in numerous publications including Q (magazine), The Times, Time Out, and Radio Times.

In 2009, the two made history by being the first podcasters to be given their own national show on BBC Radio 5 Live, Web 2009 with Helen and Olly. They have gone on to present several other specials for BBC 5 Live.

Due to the podcast's success, Faber and Faber published a companion book in November 2010.

The Allusionist

In January 2015, Zaltzman launched a new linguistics podcast called The Allusionist. Zaltzman is the first British broadcaster on the Radiotopia podcast network. The Guardian describes the Allusionist as "an antidote to all the whither-life-and-how-to-understand-it podcasts". The Allusionist was iTunes UK's best new podcast of 2015.

Radio

Along with Mann, Zaltzman was the internet correspondent on BBC 5 Live's Saturday Edition and on Steve Wright in the Afternoon. She was a panellist on the third series of Charlie Brooker's So Wrong It's Right and won. She has appeared on Woman's Hour, The News Quiz, The Richard Bacon Show, Transatlantic with Rory Bremner and Ian Collins's shows, and was a correspondent on the 2012 Olympics for BBC Radio Scotland. She has been a guest on numerous podcasts, including The Guardian's Media Talk and Maximum Fun's International Waters, and guest-presented a special edition of the Radio Academy's Radio Talk.

In 2012, Zaltzman was a judge on the Sony Awards.

In May 2013, Zaltzman began hosting a monthly podcast for Sound Women, an organisation which campaigns against gender discrimination in the radio industry.

Writing

Zaltzman is a comedy writer, her radio credits including The Now Show, The Milk Run on Radio 1, and Newsjack, and TV credits including Celebrity Juice, Keith Lemon's Lemonaid, Britain Unzipped, and Animal Antics.

She writes book reviews for The Observer, Classical Music Magazine, and The Big Issue, as well as various pieces for The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the BBC.

Performance

Zaltzman is well known for her handicrafts, and has painted numerous posters for comedians' Edinburgh shows. Additionally, she has created props, including a giant inflatable Boggle set; dinosaur costumes; and dolls of Tony Benn, Robert Plant, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Zaltzman has acted in plays at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and will occasionally perform live comedy, most often with Josie Long and Robin Ince.

In 2007, during a three-week run of Long's show Trying is Good at the Soho Theatre, she sat onstage embroidering a quilt depicting scenes from the show.

In 2010, Zaltzman and Mann wrote and starred in a series of videos around Britain, Great British Questions, in association Visit Britain.

In April 2017, Zaltzman delivered a talk entitled 'Writing as a form of time travel' on the main stage at TED2017.

Personal life

Zaltzman is the younger sister of comedian Andy Zaltzman and the daughter of South African sculptor Zack Zaltzman. She is of Jewish Lithuanian descent, and identifies herself as an atheist.

She was raised in Tunbridge Wells and won a scholarship to Sevenoaks School, then went on to study Old and Medieval English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. In April 2011, she married musician and physicist Martin Austwick after a nine-year relationship.