It’s only in the past few years and in particular since the onset of Covid in 2020 that Scottish comedienne Janey Godley became a household name, but it was back in 2016 at the Turnburry Golf resort in Ayrshire where she was photographed proudly holding her protest banner for the arrival of Donald Trump, with the now unforgetable words on it: “TRUMP IS A C * * T”. Suddenly Janey’s name was known all over the UK and beyond.
Covid arrived in 2020 and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon started her daily briefings on television. It didn’t take long before Janey started adding her now infamous voice overs and the phrase was coined “Frank! Get the Door”. It was at that point, more people were tuning into Janey’s hilarious interpretations than actually watched the FM.
Janey is no stranger to television. She regularly appears on Des Clarke’s Breaking The News on BBC Scotland and often broadcasts on BBC Radio Scotland. She has been a regular Fringe performer for many years, winning a multitude of awards for her comedy and writing and she has to date apperaed on three episodes of Have I Got News For You, sitting on both Paul and Ian’s team. In 2006 she published her autobiography “Handstands in The Dark” with a new updated edition released in March 2021.
Born in the early 60’s and brought up in Shettleston, in the East End of Glasgow. For 14 years, Janey Godley and her husband ran the Weavers Inn pub in the Calton area of Glasgow where she staged the first performances by comedian and magician Jerry Sadowitz.
She later became a full-time stand-up herself and ran comedy clubs including Jesters in Glasgow and regularly compered at clubs throughout the UK, the Netherlands and New York City. She has even performed a number of times at the late night club at Glastonbury Festival.
For a time Janey worked as an entertainment correspondent reporting from London, New York and New Zealand for former MP Edwina Currie’s BBC Radio Five Live show.
In April 2004, she started writing her daily online blog, which continues today. In May, a BBC Radio 4 documentary series on relationships to which she contributed Stuck in The Middle won a gold at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.
In June 2005, her non-humorous autobiography Handstands in the Dark was published in the UK and Ireland. It was her first book and became the number 3 bestseller in Scotland and was also voted a ‘Best Read of 2005’ by listeners of BBC Radio 4’s Open Book series.
Her autobiography was again reprinted and she started a regular video blog and she performed ‘Janey Godley – Unscripted!’ to a sell-out audience at the Glasgow Comedy Festival. She continued to be a regular on Loose Ends and on chat shows on various BBC channels.
In 2005 she performed Good Godley! at the ODDFELLOWS New Zealand International Comedy Festival in both Auckland and Wellington she won the Spirit of The Festival Award and was nominated as Best International Comedian.
Throughout the soccer World Cup in 2006, Loose Ends carried weekly extracts from the Godley-scripted Nancy Dell ‘Olio’s Diary.
2008 saw Janey Godley win the Wag of the year at the prestigeous Wags Dinner in Edinburgh’s Roxburgh Hotel. The competition in aid of Epilepsy Scotland and hosted by Grant Stott had Janey speaking alongside Joyce Falconer from BBC’s River City, SFA chairman Gordon Smith, Top motivational speaker Kenny Harris and controversial socialist MP Tommy Sheridan.
Jane also won ‘best female comic’ at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe and was nominated ‘Best International Comic’ at the New Zealand Comedy Festival 2009.
Her 2009 Edinburgh show at the Fringe ‘Godley’s World’ got three FIVE star reviews.
Edinburgh Evening News review: The queen of Scottish comedy… She’s a bold, take-no-prisoners type of comic, totally honest and hilarious with it… Godley has a fast comic mind… uproarious and touching in equal measure. This was intelligent and skilful comedy of the highest order.