Living and Dying Outside The Lines, with Helen Keen and Evie King

QED 2024 is only a few weeks away, and our schedule is really starting to take shape. We have already announced our entire main-stage line-up, and now we can share with you our first panel session of the weekend, in which two ex-stand up comedians will tell you what they've learned about isolation, loneliness, and dying.

Helen Keen and Evie King are former stand up comics who have both ended up in the respective realms of loneliness and death. Not literally, although at some point they inevitably will. Helen is completing PhD research on loneliness and neurodivergence, and Evie is a council funeral officer who has written a best-selling book about her job carrying out services for those without family or money.

If our panel sounds depressing then fear not, because their insights will hopefully relieve you of your 3am fears and allow for new ways of thinking about how we live and die authentically. Joining host Nicola Throp will be:

Helen Keen is known for creating original, award-winning comedy and documentaries on subjects such as space travel, neurodivergence, and the far future for BBC Radio 4. She was appointed as an Innovation Fellow by WIRED magazine. For the past four years, Helen has been pursuing a Wellcome-funded PhD at Exeter University, where she researches social connection, loneliness, and autism.

Evie King is a former stand up comedian, sometime writer and local government worker who was compelled to publish a memoir about her little known role in dealing with such situations and what they can teach us about life, death and our own 3am fears about legacy and being forgotten.

As with all of our panels, entrance to Living and Dying Outside The Lines is included with every in-person QED ticket. Tickets are still available - pick up yours today.