Janey Godley
Hecklers beware . . . actually hecklers, for your own sake, please don't. The Herald
Janey Godley
Award-winning international stand-up and UK Top Ten bestselling author Janey has been described as "The most outspoken female stand-up in Britain, and the most ribald and refreshing comedy talent to have risen from the slums of Glasgow since Billy Connolly" (Daily Telegraph) "Scotland's funniest woman… fully ensconced as the Godmother of Scottish comedy" (The Scotsman), "Scotland's renaissance woman" (Glasgow Evening Times),
She has won international comedy awards, performed two of her hour-long shows off-Broadway in New York, four in London's West End and is a regular on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends and Just a Minute.
She is also a weekly columnist for The Scotsman, a half-million-hits-per-week online blogger, an actress and playwright. In 2006, in a public vote, she was finalist and runner-up for the 44th annual Scotswoman of the Year award as "the most inspirational woman in Scotland".
"The most outspoken female stand-up in Britain, and the most ribald and refreshing comedy talent to have risen from the slums of Glasgow since Billy Connolly." (Daily Telegraph, 10th August 2006)
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Bestselling author and "Scotland's funniest woman" (The Scotsman, 2006), Janey learned most of her comedy skills and crowd control in a bar that she owned and ran in East Glasgow for 14 years. She also used to run her own comedy club in the city.
On her 2002 tour of New Zealand, she won Best Show Concept and critical acclaim at TV2's International LAUGH! Festival. At the same year's New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards, she was nominated as Best International Guest and as Best Visiting Comedian.
In May 2004, a Radio 4 documentary series on relationships to which she contributed "Stuck in The Middle" won a gold at the Sony Radio Awards. In June 2004, she became the first woman ever to compere the often unruly late show in the Cabaret Marquee at the Glastonbury Festival. In October 2004, she appeared for a fortnight on the daily Channel 4/E4 reality show "Kings of Comedy".
In June 2005, her non-humorous autobiography "Handstands in the Dark" was published in the UK and Ireland by Random House. It was her first book and became the number 3 bestseller, telling the story of her tough pre-showbiz life, her sexual abuse as a child between the ages of 5 and 13, the murder of her mother, Glasgow's heroin 'plague' of the 1980s and her troubled marriage amid a world of gangsters. The book was voted a "Best Read of 2005" by listeners of BBC Radio 4's "Open Book" series.
In June 2006, she was nominated as Best International Comedian and won the 'Spirit of the Festival' award at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Her autobiography went into paperback in August 2006 and became a Top Ten Bestseller.
Janey has appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Just a Minute" and regularly contributes to Radio 4 chat show "Loose Ends" both as interviewee and interviewer. Her TV appearances include a major profile/interview on Swedish TV Arts show "Kobra" (their equivalent of "The South Bank Show", the TV New Zealand "2006 Comedy Gala" and contributions to the BBC TV documentary "Scunnered" about the Scots dialect.
Her appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe have received rave reviews and clusters of 4-star reviews since 2004. At the 2006 Fringe, she performed in 83 shows over 24 days including, daily, her own three hour-long shows.
In 2006, she performed her comedy show "Janey Godley Is Innocent" to 100 long-term prisoners (including lifers) inside Glenochil high security prison, Stirlingshire... her hour-long straight play "The Point of Yes" and and several of her hour-long stand-up shows have played runs in London's West End, at the Soho Theatre and the Cochrane Theatre.
Away from the main comedy stage, after the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, as well as continuing her stand-up work, Janey was commissioned by the Scottish Health Board and several local Scottish councils' social service departments to perform her play "The Point of Yes" to housing associations in 'problem areas', to drug forums around southern Scotland and to the inmates of Shotts Prison in Lanarkshire.
She was also commissioned by a Scottish Drug Forum to run comedy workshops for 15 -18 year olds and drama workshops for ex heroin addicts, using their own experiences as inspiration. In 2004 and 2006, she ran 'Confidence in Kids' comedy workshops in Glasgow and, for British Actors' Equity Association, a comedy industry workshop at the
2005 Edinburgh Fringe. On International Women's Day 2006, she contributed to a "Fighting Violence With Comedy" event at the Cafe Royal in London.
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"The female Billy Connolly" (Sun)
"The female Billy Connolly" (Independent)
"Short. Sharp. Shocking." (Daily Telegraph) .
"Scotland's funniest woman" (The Scotsman)
"The best stuff is unlike anything I've heard from a stand-up comic before." (Theatre Review, New Zealand)
"It's not unlike the sensation of shock and delight, thirty years ago, of seeing very early Billy Connolly" (Financial Times)
"Some of the sharpest-elbowed comedy in the world" (New York Times)
"One of the funniest and most controversial contemporary authors and comedians" (Swedish State TV's flagship Arts show 'Kobra')
"Godley's certainly a one-off - a cuddly-looking woman who sounds like the mordantly lippy love child of Joan Rivers and Billy Connolly." (The Scotsman)
"Godley is a unique talent."(Metro Life)
"Outrageously candid" (Sun)
"Compelling... ballsy... a breath of fresh air" (Guardian)
"A ferocious instinct for laughs" (London Evening Standard)
"Glasgow's gutsiest." (Ned Sherrin)
"Hilarious, shocking and unsettling" (Stewart Lee)
"When you're bored of comedians telling you things you know and the comfortable laughter of recognition, go and watch Janey Godley for a change. You don't know what it's like to be Janey Godley - she does. And she can tell you all about it with wit, spirit and a truly unique comic voice" (Dave Gorman)
www.janeygodley.co.uk