Janey Godley

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Janey Godley is a stand-up comedian, writer and raconteur, born in 1961 and brought up in Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland.

Aged 19, she married into a Glasgow gangster family. Her 2005 autobiography Handstands in the Dark describes working-class Glasgow from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Contents

[edit] Early career

For 14 years, she ran a public house the Weavers Inn (formerly the "Nationalist Bar") in the tough 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, ran comedy clubs including "Jesters" in Glasgow, and regularly compered at clubs in Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool as well as regularly playing dates in the Netherlands, and successfully playing 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.

[edit] 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 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 non-humorous one-woman play The Point of Yes about Glasgow's heroin problem in the 1980s was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

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.[1] 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.

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.

[edit] 2005 - Autobiography published

In June 2005, her non-humorous autobiography Handstands in the Dark [2] 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 [3] as well as contributions to the BBC TV documentary Scunnered [4] about the Scots dialect.

In December, she performed Janey Godley Is Innocent to 100 long-term prisoners (including lifers) inside Glenochil high security prison, Stirlingshire[5]... 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[6].

[edit] 2006

In February, she performed at the Hackney Empire, London, in the five-hour Malcolm Hardee Memorial Show.[7]

In March, 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 [8] 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 [9]and she performed in 83 shows in 24 days [10]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! (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. [11]

In October, she was nominated as Scotswoman of The Year [12] in the 44th annual contest, reached the final six shortlist [13] and was runner-up. In November, she sang for charity on BBC1 Scotland's annual "Children in Need" appeal night [14]and blogged for Amnesty International[15]. In December, she was nominated by the New Zealand Comedy Guild as Best International Guest of 2006[16].

[edit] 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 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 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 and 2006, she ran 'Confidence in Kids' comedy workshops in Glasgow and, for Equity, a comedy industry workshop at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe.

[edit] Books

  • Godley, Janey (hardback, 2005). Handstands in the Dark. Ebury Press/Random House. ISBN 0-09-190029-8.
  • Godley, Janey (paperback, 2006). Handstands in the Dark. Ebury Press/Random House. ISBN 0-09-190877-9.

[edit] Stage shows

  • "Full Measure of Scotch" (2002)
  • "Caught in the Act of Being Myself" (2003)
  • "The Point of Yes" (2003)
  • "Good Godley!" (2004)
  • "Janey Godley Is Innocent" (2005)
  • "Janey Godley - Unscripted!" (2006)
  • "Janey Godley's Blog - Live!" (2006)
  • "Janey Godley & Ashley Storrie's Square Street" (2006)

[edit] Newspaper interviews

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sony Radio Academy Awards 2004 winners.
  2. ^ Random House listing.
  3. ^ Swedish TV "Kobra" programme, 26 October 2005.
  4. ^ BBC TV "Scunnered" programme, 22 August 2006.
  5. ^ Guardian, 17 December, 2005.
  6. ^ BBC Radio 4 "Open Book" list.
  7. ^ Chortle comedy industry website review, 6 February 2006.
  8. ^ NZ Comedy Festival Award List.
  9. ^ Sunday Times Bestseller List, 17 September 2006.
  10. ^ Glasgow Evening Times Diary 2nd page, 15 September, 2006.
  11. ^ Daily Telegraph, 10 September, 2006.
  12. ^ Glasgow Evening Times, 10 October 2006.
  13. ^ Glasgow Evening Times, 13 October 2006.
  14. ^ Glasgow Herald, 7 December 2006.
  15. ^ Amnesty website, 25 November 2006.
  16. ^ Glasgow Evening Times, 8 December 2006.

[edit] External links

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