Janey Godley
Encyclopedia
Janey Godley is a British stand-up comedian and writer
. Her autobiography
, Handstands in the Dark, was a UK Top Ten bestseller
and she was a 2006 Scotswoman of The Year finalist. She was a columnist
for the Monday edition of The Scotsman
newspaper
from 2007 to 2009.
, Glasgow
, Scotland, at the age of 18 she married into a Glasgow gangster
family. Her 2005 autobiography Handstands in the Dark describes working-class Glasgow in the years 1961-1994.
For 14 years, she ran a public house
the Weavers Inn (formerly the Nationalist Bar, later the Calton Bar) in the tough Calton area of Glasgow
where she staged the first performances by comedian and magician Jerry Sadowitz
.
Later, she became a full-time stand-up herself, running comedy clubs including "Jesters" in Glasgow, and regularly compered at clubs in Glasgow, Manchester
, and Liverpool
. She played regular dates in the Netherlands
and played in New York City
.
She was, for a time, a BBC Radio Five Live
entertainment
correspondent
, reporting for former British MP
, Edwina Currie
's Currie Club show from London
, New York
, and New Zealand
.
's TV2 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 August 2003, Godley's one-woman play
, The Point of Yes, about Glasgow's heroin problem in the 1980s, was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival and, according to the BBC, her Fringe comedy show Caught in the Act of Being Myself was "hotly tipped" as a Perrier Comedy Award nominee.
In April 2004, she started writing her daily on-line blog
on the Chortle comedy website; it continues today on her own website. In May 2004, Stuck in The Middle a BBC Radio 4
documentary series on relationships
to which she contributed won a gold
at the Sony Radio Academy Awards
. In June, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival
.
Throughout August, she performed her new 60-minute stand-up comedy show Good Godley! at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning 40 stars in reviews and was again tipped for Perrier nomination.
In October, she appeared for a fortnight on the daily Channel 4
/E4 (channel) reality show Kings of Comedy. In December, she performed Good Godley! at the Soho
Theatre
in the West End of London
and contributed to Channel 4's four-hour The 100 Greatest Christmas Moments.
In June 2005, she again performed at Glastonbury
and her non-humorous autobiography Handstands in the Dark was published in the UK and Ireland
by Ebury Press, a division of Random House
. It told the story of 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. That same month, a revised version of The Point of Yes was staged at the Soho Theatre. In August, she contributed to We're All Grown Ups Here, another radio documentary
by Stuck in The Middle's Sony
Award-winning producer Sara Conkey. Her new stand-up show Janey Godley is Innocent was staged throughout August's Edinburgh Fringe.
Other appearances included regular spots on BBC Radio 4 chat show Loose Ends both as interviewee and interviewer and a major profile/interview on award-winning Swedish
TV Arts
show Kobra as well as contributions to the BBC TV documentary Scunnered about the Scots
dialect
.
In December, she performed Janey Godley Is Innocent to 100 long-term prison
ers (including lifers) inside Glenochil high security prison in Clackmannanshire
, and an extended two-hour version of the show at London's Cochrane Theatre
. Her book Handstands in the Dark was voted a 'Best Read of 2005' by listeners of BBC Radio 4's Open Book series.
, London, in the five-hour Malcolm Hardee Memorial Show. In March 2006, she started a video
blog; and she performed Janey Godley - Unscripted! at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. She continued to be a regular on Loose Ends and on chat shows on various BBC channels.
In May, she performed Good Godley! at the ODDFELLOWS New Zealand International Comedy Festival; she won the Spirit of The Festival Award and "Good Godley!" was nominated for Best International Show.
In August, her autobiography was released in a paperback edition becoming a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller and she performed in 83 shows in 24 days at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival including, each day, her three separate hour-long shows: her play The Point of Yes, her new stand-up show Janey Godley's Blog - Live! (which premiered at London's Soho Theatre in June) and Square Street, a comedy sketch show co-written and co-performed with her daughter Ashley Storrie.
In October, she was nominated as Scotswoman of The Year in the 44th annual contest, reached the final six shortlist and was runner-up. In November, she sang for charity on BBC1 Scotland's annual "Children in Need" appeal night and blogged for Amnesty International. In December, she was nominated by the New Zealand Comedy Guild as Best International Guest of 2006.
In March, she performed a one-off show, Janey Godley - Live!, at the Glasgow Comedy Festival and began writing a weekly column for the Monday edition of The Scotsman newspaper. In May 2007 she performed her play The Point of Yes in The Green Room at 45 Bleecker Street
, Manhattan
and, in June, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival (her third consecutive appearance - there was no Festival in 2006). In August, she appeared in two daily shows throughout the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Janey Godley - Tell It Like It Is! at the Pleasance Dome and Janey Godley's Chat Show at The Green Room (a sister venue to the New York theater); both shows received 5-star reviews. During the year, she performed in her show Good Godley! at various venues around Scotland as well as Belfast, Toronto and off-Broadway in New York.
in the BBC1 Scotland TV drama series River City
, the first time she had acted in a full-length drama not written by herself. She performed Domestic Godley throughout the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in May and was, for the fourth time, nominated as Best International Guest by the New Zealand Comedy Guild. Her new show Godley's World ran throughout the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2009.
' 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 HMP Shotts (prison) in North Lanarkshire
.
She was also commissioned by a Scottish Drug Forum to run comedy workshops for 15 -18 year olds and drama
workshops for recovering heroin addicts
, using their own experiences as inspiration. In 2004, 2006 and 2007, she ran Confidence in Kids comedy workshops in Glasgow and, for Equity
, a comedy industry
workshop at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe.
One of her paintings was sold at Arthur Smith
's award-winning Arturant Exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2007, with the money going to two charities: the Justice For Gordon Gentle
campaign and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
(ICAHD UK).
In October 2007, she auctioned off another painting in aid of The Samaritans and, later that month, she became the Patron of Glasgow's DRCAF (Dumbarton Road Corridor Addiction Forum).
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. Her autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, Handstands in the Dark, was a UK Top Ten bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
and she was a 2006 Scotswoman of The Year finalist. She was a columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
for the Monday edition of The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
from 2007 to 2009.
Early life and career
Brought up in ShettlestonShettleston
Shettleston is a district in the east end of Glasgow in Scotland. Like many of the city's districts, Shettleston was originally a small village on its outer edge. Today Shettleston lies between the neighbouring districts of Parkhead to the west, and Baillieston to the east, and is about 2 and a...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland, at the age of 18 she married into a Glasgow gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
family. Her 2005 autobiography Handstands in the Dark describes working-class Glasgow in the years 1961-1994.
For 14 years, she ran a public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
the Weavers Inn (formerly the Nationalist Bar, later the Calton Bar) in the tough Calton area of Glasgow
Calton, Glasgow
Calton is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. The name Calton is derived from the Gaelic "coillduin", which means "wood on the hill". It is situated north of the River Clyde, and just to the east of the city centre...
where she staged the first performances by comedian and magician Jerry Sadowitz
Jerry Sadowitz
Jerry Sadowitz is an American-born Scottish stand-up comic and card magician, known for his frequently controversial "sick humour". An accomplished practitioner of sleight of hand, he has written several books on magic and invented many conjuring innovations. He is widely acclaimed as one of the...
.
Later, she became a full-time stand-up herself, running comedy clubs including "Jesters" in Glasgow, and regularly compered at clubs in Glasgow, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, and Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. She played regular dates in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and played in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
She was, for a time, a BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio Five Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...
entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...
correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
, reporting for former British MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, Edwina Currie
Edwina Currie
Edwina Jonesnée Cohen is a former British Member of Parliament. First elected as a Conservative Party MP in 1983, she was a Junior Health Minister for two years, before resigning in 1988 over the controversy over salmonella in eggs...
's Currie Club show from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
2002-2004 - First recognition
She first gained wider attention on her 2002 tour of New Zealand, where she won Best Show Concept at Television New ZealandTelevision New Zealand
Television New Zealand, more commonly referred to, and stylized as TVNZ, is a government-owned corporation television network broadcasting in New Zealand and parts of the Pacific. It operates TV1, TV2, TVNZ7, TVNZ Heartland, TVNZ U and new media services....
's TV2 International LAUGH! Festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
. At the same year’s New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards, she was nominated as Best International Guest and as Best Visiting Comedian.
In August 2003, Godley's one-woman play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
, The Point of Yes, about Glasgow's heroin problem in the 1980s, was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
Festival and, according to the BBC, her Fringe comedy show Caught in the Act of Being Myself was "hotly tipped" as a Perrier Comedy Award nominee.
In April 2004, she started writing her daily on-line blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
on the Chortle comedy website; it continues today on her own website. In May 2004, Stuck in The Middle a BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
documentary series on relationships
Interpersonal relationship
An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the...
to which she contributed won a gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
at the Sony Radio Academy Awards
Sony Radio Academy Awards
The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...
. In June, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
.
Throughout August, she performed her new 60-minute stand-up comedy show Good Godley! at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning 40 stars in reviews and was again tipped for Perrier nomination.
In October, she appeared for a fortnight on the daily Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
/E4 (channel) reality show Kings of Comedy. In December, she performed Good Godley! at the Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
Theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
in the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
and contributed to Channel 4's four-hour The 100 Greatest Christmas Moments.
2005 - Autobiography published
Glastonbury
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...
and her non-humorous autobiography Handstands in the Dark was published in the UK and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
by Ebury Press, a division of Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. It told the story of her sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
as a child between the ages of 5 and 13, the murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
of her mother, Glasgow's heroin 'plague' of the 1980s and her troubled marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
amid a world of gangsters. That same month, a revised version of The Point of Yes was staged at the Soho Theatre. In August, she contributed to We're All Grown Ups Here, another radio documentary
Radio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
by Stuck in The Middle's Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
Award-winning producer Sara Conkey. Her new stand-up show Janey Godley is Innocent was staged throughout August's Edinburgh Fringe.
Other appearances included regular spots on BBC Radio 4 chat show Loose Ends both as interviewee and interviewer and a major profile/interview on award-winning Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
TV Arts
ARts
aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....
show Kobra as well as contributions to the BBC TV documentary Scunnered about the Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
.
In December, she performed Janey Godley Is Innocent to 100 long-term prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
ers (including lifers) inside Glenochil high security prison in Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire
Clackmannanshire, often abbreviated to Clacks is a local government council area in Scotland, and a lieutenancy area, bordering Perth and Kinross, Stirling and Fife.As Scotland's smallest historic county, it is often nicknamed 'The Wee County'....
, and an extended two-hour version of the show at London's Cochrane Theatre
Cochrane Theatre
The Cochrane Theatre is a receiving and producing theatre that aims to present all aspects of the performing arts within a proscenium arch. The theatre is situated in Holborn, London.-History:...
. Her book Handstands in the Dark was voted a 'Best Read of 2005' by listeners of BBC Radio 4's Open Book series.
2006 - Scotswoman of the Year nominee
In February, she performed at the Hackney EmpireHackney Empire
The Hackney Empire is a theatre on Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney, built in 1901 as a music hall.-History:Hackney Empire is a grade II* listed building...
, London, in the five-hour Malcolm Hardee Memorial Show. In March 2006, she started a video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
blog; and she performed Janey Godley - Unscripted! at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. She continued to be a regular on Loose Ends and on chat shows on various BBC channels.
In May, she performed Good Godley! at the ODDFELLOWS New Zealand International Comedy Festival; she won the Spirit of The Festival Award and "Good Godley!" was nominated for Best International Show.
In October, she was nominated as Scotswoman of The Year in the 44th annual contest, reached the final six shortlist and was runner-up. In November, she sang for charity on BBC1 Scotland's annual "Children in Need" appeal night and blogged for Amnesty International. In December, she was nominated by the New Zealand Comedy Guild as Best International Guest of 2006.
2007 - Starts Scotsman column
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street is a street in New York City's Manhattan borough. It is perhaps most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street is a spine that connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was once a major center for American bohemia.Bleecker...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
and, in June, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival (her third consecutive appearance - there was no Festival in 2006). In August, she appeared in two daily shows throughout the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Janey Godley - Tell It Like It Is! at the Pleasance Dome and Janey Godley's Chat Show at The Green Room (a sister venue to the New York theater); both shows received 5-star reviews. During the year, she performed in her show Good Godley! at various venues around Scotland as well as Belfast, Toronto and off-Broadway in New York.
2008 - Awards
In February 2008 she received the annual Fringe Report Award as Best Performer on the London Fringe. In March 2008, she won the annual Edinburgh WAG of the Year Award as best after-dinner speaker. In April, Time Out, London, readers voted her No 3 in their list of Top Ten comedians. She performed Domestic Godley throughout the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August; it won as 'Best Show' at the Funny Women Fringe Awards and Janey won the 'Best Stand-Up Award as the funniest woman on the Fringe and "one of the most prolific and extraordinary stand-up comedians working in the UK". In November, she was nominated as Best International Guest of the year by the New Zealand Comedy Guild.2009 - BBC Drama Series
In January, she appeared as a psychicPsychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
in the BBC1 Scotland TV drama series River City
River City
River City is a Scottish television soap opera, first broadcast in Scotland on BBC Scotland on 24 September 2002. River City storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional district of Shieldinch in Glasgow...
, the first time she had acted in a full-length drama not written by herself. She performed Domestic Godley throughout the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in May and was, for the fourth time, nominated as Best International Guest by the New Zealand Comedy Guild. Her new show Godley's World ran throughout the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2009.
Social involvement
Godley ran comedy workshops at the 2001 London Comedy Festival. After the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe, as well as continuing her stand-up work, she was commissioned by the Scottish Health Board and several local Scottish councilsLocal government of Scotland
Local government in Scotland is organised through 32 unitary authorities designated as Councils which consist of councillors elected every four years by registered voters in each of the council areas....
' social service departments to perform her play The Point of Yes to housing associations in 'problem areas', to drug
Drug
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...
forums around southern Scotland and to the inmates of HMP Shotts (prison) in North Lanarkshire
North Lanarkshire
North Lanarkshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It borders onto the northeast of the City of Glasgow and contains much of Glasgow's suburbs and commuter towns and villages. It also borders Stirling, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and South Lanarkshire...
.
She was also commissioned by a Scottish Drug Forum to run comedy workshops for 15 -18 year olds and drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
workshops for recovering heroin addicts
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
, using their own experiences as inspiration. In 2004, 2006 and 2007, she ran Confidence in Kids comedy workshops in Glasgow and, for Equity
British Actors' Equity Association
Equity is the trade union for actors, stage managers and models in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1930 by a group of West End performers....
, a comedy industry
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
workshop at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe.
One of her paintings was sold at Arthur Smith
Arthur Smith (comedian)
Brian Arthur John Smith is an English alternative comedian and writer. He was born in Bermondsey, South London, brother to Richard Smith...
's award-winning Arturant Exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2007, with the money going to two charities: the Justice For Gordon Gentle
Gordon Gentle
Fusilier Gordon Gentle was a 19 year old soldier from Pollok, Glasgow, who died in Iraq on 28 June 2004, after completing his 26-week basic training course at the Infantry Training Centre in Catterick. He was serving with the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers. Gordon's lightly armoured Snatch...
campaign and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is an Israeli peace and human rights organization dedicated to ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories and achieving a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians...
(ICAHD UK).
In October 2007, she auctioned off another painting in aid of The Samaritans and, later that month, she became the Patron of Glasgow's DRCAF (Dumbarton Road Corridor Addiction Forum).
Podcasts
In July 2010, She began podcasting with her daughter, Ashley Storrie which she regularly updates with candid conversation and views on various topics.Books
- Godley, Janey (hardback, 2005). Handstands in the Dark. Ebury Press/Random House. ISBN 0091900298 / ISBN 978-0091900298
- Godley, Janey (paperback, 2006). Handstands in the Dark. Ebury Press/Random House. ISBN 0091908779 / ISBN 978-0091908775
Stage: full-length shows
- 2002 - Full Measure of Scotch
- 2003 - Caught in the Act of Being Myself
- 2003 - The Point of Yes
- 2004 - Good Godley!
- 2005 - Janey Godley Is Innocent
- 2006 - Janey Godley and Ashley Storrie's Square Street
- 2006 - Janey Godley's Blog - Live!
- 2006 - Janey Godley - Unscripted!
- 2007 - Janey Godley - Live!
- 2007 - Janey Godley - Tell It Like It Is!
- 2007 - Janey Godley's Chat Show
- 2008 - Janey Godley - Live & Unleashed!
- 2008 - Domestic Godley
- 2009 - Godley's World
- 2010 - Tall Storrie & Wee Godley
- 2010 - The Godley Hour
Newspaper interviews
- Evening Times, Glasgow, 5 November 2009
- Evening Times, Glasgow, 27 July 2009
- New Zealand Listener. 10-16 May 2008
- Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2006
- The Scotsman, 15 July 2006
- Sunday Times, 2 July 2006
- Sunday Times, 19 February 2006
- The Scotsman, 15 June 2005
- Observer, 12 June 2005
- Sunday Herald, Glasgow, 25 July 2004
- Evening Times, Glasgow, 1 March 2004
External links
- Janey Godley's official website, including newspaper cuttings, TV and radio interviews
- Janey Godley's written blogs
- Janey Godley's video blogs
- Biography on BBC website
- Janey Godley on Chortle
- Janey Godley's Podcasts