NNobody did comedy like Janey Godley. This wasn’t just a matter of her background, which in turn became the currency of her live act – her childhood poverty (“a world of almost Dickensian misery”, as one Scottish newspaper described it), her marriage to a notorious gangster from Glasgow. family. Her career curve is also striking. Other comics build a reputation online, move on to stand-up, and then do something else. Godley did it completely the other way around and took up live comedy at the age of 30, as a deviation from (or, she would say, an extension of) her bar work. But she saved her biggest splash for her 50s, with a series of viral videos that put her – and her broad Glaswegian comedy – at the heart of Scottish public life.
My first experiences of Godley’s work took place on the outskirts of Edinburgh, where – as a middle-aged working-class woman from Glasgow – she rightly claimed to be an endangered minority. Godley’s work has always centered on that life experience – not surprising, since it offered her material (on child abuse, gun stashes and organized crime, for example) that few other comedians had access to. There was a self-conscious fearlessness to her comedy, and for good reason: “If I stand in a room of 600 people and talk for 15 minutes and no one laughs, it’s no worse than holding a gun to your head. And I’ve already had that, so I’m not really afraid of it.”
Although she was a comic to be reckoned with – Godley knew her own voice, enjoyed it and could make a mean joke – she was never a critic’s darling. Her stand-up was notable more for the topics it covered than the way it tackled them. That was fine with her: she wanted to please the audience, not comedy snobs, and performed at the Free Fringe in Edinburgh to keep her performances accessible to the widest possible audience. And yet, over time, cultural cachet also came her way. Images of her lone protest against the US president’s visit to Turnberry golf course in 2017, armed with a “Donald Trump is a cunt” sign, won progressive hearts. Then her breakthrough voiceover videos came online, featuring her dubbing footage of Nicola Sturgeon and others in her own no-holds-barred Glasgow patois.
The resulting sketches, sometimes made with her comedian daughter Ashley Storrie and intended to reveal what entrenched politicians were really thinking, provided a striking foray into the traditionally urban territory of British satire by a working-class female voice. (Watch the one that re-renders Theresa May’s resignation speech to the House of Commons, where the divide between dialect and environment is so steep it could make your nose bleed.) They were also credited with helping Scotland get through the lockdown, and exalted Godley to national treasure status. She was commissioned by the country’s National Theater and led the Scottish Government’s public information campaigns. However, she lost the latter role and was sacked from an Aberdeen panto in 2021 when a series of racist tweets came to light. A month later, still in the eye of a media-political storm, Godley was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
No doubt those ugly social media posts, for which she apologized, tarnished Godley’s egalitarian image. They tarnish but do not overshadow a distinguished career in comedy, not to mention her work as a playwright, memoirist and novelist. Firmly situated in the great tradition (Billy Connolly, Frankie Boyle, Kevin Bridges and beyond) of brusque and uncompromising stand-ups in Glasgow, she took the gallows humor needed to survive the first half of her life, and used it to thrive – to pave her way. in an industry that is not normally open to women of her background, and which can entertain thousands of people. Godley’s was a comedy career built, as if she were living her life, on her own terms, and will be remembered fondly.
