EDINBURGH: Janey Godley Domestic Godley Stand-Up Comedy Show
Written by Janey Godley
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Who knows what the show is about? Not Janey. She has improvised her way through her life just like her mother before her and just like her previous 4 and 5 star stage shows in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand and off-Broadway in New York.
JANEY GODLEY – "DOMESTIC GODLEY"
30th July – 25th August
7.00pm - Pleasance Queen Dome
JANEY'S NEW STAND-UP COMEDY SHOW at the EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL
Who knows what the show is about? Not Janey. She has improvised her way through her life just like her mother before her and just like her previous 4 and 5 star stage shows in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand and off-Broadway in New York. She has been performing hour-long Fringe shows since 2002. None of them has been scripted. In 2003, she was barred from consideration for the Perrier Award because they decided she wasn't performing the same show each night.
This year, Janey outlived her mother. Janey's mother Annie was murdered when she was 47 and Janey was 21. Now Janey has reached 47 and her daughter Ashley is 21. The show will be about that and, as the real' press release says, extraordinary home truths about family, friends and her lack of housewifery skills as a far-from ordinary woman next door. Real life comedy from a real woman.
But who knows what she'll say on the night? Not Janey.
Last year, both Janey's Fringe shows - a stand-up show and a chat show - won 5-star reviews. She really is a comedienne, not just an over-friendly Glasgow woman who comes on stage for a wee chat with the audience.
This year, she has won the annual Fringe Report Award as "Best Performer" on the London Fringe; a Scots award as best after-dinner speaker; performed sell-out shows in New Zealand; and, in an April poll for "Best Comedian", Time Out readers voted her 3rd - after Ricky Gervais and Stewart Lee, but ahead of Bill Bailey, Peter Kay, Harry Hill and Lee Evans.
Not bad for a bestselling author, award-winning blogger, weekly newspaper columnist, mother, wife and comedienne who is just making it up as she goes along.
Janey has been called "Scotland's funniest woman" and "Britain's most outspoken female comedian… the most ribald and refreshing comedy talent to have risen from the slums of Glasgow since Billy Connolly". The late Ned Sherrin affectionately called her "Glasgow scum made good". Writing in the Sunday Times, Nicholas Parsons talked of her "amazing character". Despite this, she tends to come last on Radio 4's 'Just a Minute'. In 2006, she was runner-up in the annual Scotswoman of the Year contest as "the most inspirational woman in Scotland"; she was pipped at the post by a Polish doctor… And she's still not on English TV! But maybe – just maybe - her luck will change this year.
Who knows what the show is about? Not Janey. She has improvised her way through her life just like her mother before her and just like her previous 4 and 5 star stage shows in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand and off-Broadway in New York.
