Attention Deficit, Sexual Fantasies & Racism

Live at East Kilbride Arts Centre on February 9 2007

More Janey Godley videos

Janey Godley was brought up in the East End of Glasgow. Aged 19, she married into a gangster family. For 14 years, she and her husband ran a pub in the tough Calton area, a venue which saw the first performances by Jerry Sadowitz. In 1994, she turned to stand-up herself and has since played everywhere from the Glastonbury Festival to inmates at Scottish prisons. She was also a contenstant on the 2004 C4 reality show, Kings Of Comedy

In 2002, she won Best Show Concept at the New Zealand Comedy Festival and, in 2006 won the Spirit of The Festival Award. Also in 2006, she was a finalist for the 44th annual Scotswoman of the Year Award.

Her autobiography Handstands in the Dark, a top ten bestseller both as hardback (2005) and paperback (2006), covers her pre-showbiz life.

She writes non-comic features for The Scotsman newspaper, has written and performed a one-woman play The Point Of Yes, and continues to write a successful blog, which she started on Chortle in 2004.

Janey Godley: The Godley Hour
Live Review

As a working-class woman from Glasgow’s East End, Janey Godley claims she’s an ethnic minority at Scotland’s international arts festival. An indelicate suggestion perhaps, but with a germ of truth in it, just as there is with her assertion that while other comics are feted as gifted improvisers, her random anecdotage tends to be overlooked as the mutterings of somebody a wee bit mental.  

She’s certainly one of a kind. The stories she unveils tonight have real life-and-death drama, virtually every one containing the basis of a potential Edinburgh show in itself: Me and My HIV+, Heroin-Addicted, Cancerous Brother; Pregnant Again at 49!; The Time I Accidentally Killed A Man! Again!  

The trouble with Godley’s consummate, storytelling style and rich tapestry of a life (her loving mockery of her Asperger’s husband, the bond with her performer daughter that makes them sound more like squabbling sisters, not to mention the long shadow of her mother’s murder and uncle’s abuse of her as a child), is reiterated when she confesses she throws her routines together at the start of her run as they occur to her.  

This feeds into her engaging, garrulous manner, fostering an intimacy she skilfully nurtures – to the extent of welcoming every member of the audience into her venue with banter about their supposed relationship to her. But it also lends the hour a slightly disconnected feel and tendency, if not to repeat old material, then to recall previous offerings.  

Thus fine routines, such as the pin-drop moment when she assesses her home pregnancy test and the gruesome account of her breast cancer mammogram, are bridged by her husband’s Rain Man tendencies, ground she suddenly seems to recall she’s covered before, and hastily extracts herself from.  

With a life as incidental as hers, it would be easy to produce big, high-concept shows every year. And it’s perhaps to her credit that her approach is less showy, more understated and conversational. But it does mean that her Fringe hours never seem that distinct from one year to the next, almost in spite of some of the extreme subject matter.  

Regardless, if you take these stories in isolation, there’s plenty to admire. Her bonding, with women especially, is never so ingratiating that she can’t blame them squarely for female body issues, taking blunt umbrage at anyone attempting to shed post-pregnancy weight by jogging alongside a pram. 

She’s enlightening on the simplicity of the female orgasm and insightful on auto-erotic asphyxiation, framing the perilous practice within the context of gender difference and the internet era. And she sneaks a cracking quip about Israeli defence policy into an otherwise affectionately mocking tale about born-again Los Angeles Christians ith sexuality issues.  

The bickering with her daughter, in which roles are reversed Ab-Fab-style so the child is the serious, admonishing one, is beautifully rendered and you get an entire panoramic of their relationship. And if her penultimate tale, about an LA sex party, is never quite as entertaining as the premise promises, it nevertheless affirms the comic possibilities of Godley’s staunchly down-to-earth, outspoken character moving in such bizarre, rarefied environments.  

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Best female comic to get outta Scotchland.

Comedyfan, October 2020

Tough but warm-hearted compere and comic, Janey Godley makes me miss Glasgow with the way she settles down an audience in a way that makes you feel at home but lets you know not to mess with her. Her material and improvisation are also really good. Worth watching.

Alain English, June 2008

Heard she was good, but was somewhat dissapointed. Her overly-zealous and self-righteous stories are only designed to paint her in a good light, and are so grating and patronising that she needs 20x the amount of self deprecating to make up for it. Her 40minute set wasn't all bad though, I laughed once or twice.

Gavin, May 2008

Watched her getting wee kids up for a funny chat at her book event at Borders Books, the kids loved her and she never swore nor offended anyone. Her running commentary of the customers coming and going was genius, I had never seen her before but being able to make very young and very old laugh was astounding. Her book is also awesome

Cosmo, March 2006

Saw her on the Glasgow Comedy Pub Crawl and she was amazing, never laughed so much. Just makes ordinary things so funny

Mitch, March 2006

Absolutely dire. A prime example of "emperor's new clothes" I'm afraid. All bluster but absolutely shockingly poor material.

Jim Stoneham, January 2006

Saw her recently at Blackfriars, was boring and rubbish. Couldn't wait to get out.

KP, June 2005

No holds barred. She's great with quality personal material thrown in - making her one of Britain's top comediennes.

Wayne Howard, January 2005

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