Janey Godley, no-nonsense Glasgow-born comedian who mined her dramatic life story for material

“[People] have come to a comedy night, not a Christian gathering,” Janey Godley said of her take-no-prisoners style

Janey Godley, who has died aged 63, was a Scottish comedian whose material drew on her poverty-stricken childhood, her mother’s death and – latterly – her terminal cancer diagnosis.
Prolific with her opinions and blunt in her delivery – “[people] have come to a comedy night, not a Christian gathering,” she declared – Janey Godley started out as something of an oddity on the comedy circuit, by virtue of her age (33 at the time of her first show) and her sex.
Her early material attracted the attention of stalwarts such as Stewart Lee, who advised her to focus on her family background as another aspect that set her apart. She went on to perform in New York and New Zealand, where she was nominated “Best International Guest” by the New Zealand Comedy Guild on four occasions.
Back in Britain she appeared on Just a Minute, Loose Ends, Breaking the News and Have I Got News For You. Her take-no-prisoners approach drew comparison with Billy Connolly’s, although not everyone approved; she recalled being asked to be “more gentle” and “less aggressive” on stage, an injunction she ignored. As if to emphasise the point, her memoir of her tumultuous early life and journey into comedy was titled The Woman Who Wouldn’t Shut Up.
An early and enthusiastic user of Twitter (now X), Janey Godley scored a number of viral hits, often by taking aim at conservative politicians. A 2016 picture of her protesting at Donald Trump’s golf resort, with a sign reading “Donald Trump is a c—”, was picked up by several international news outlets and later referenced in a Dolly Parton lyric.
As the world headed into lockdown in early 2020, Janey Godley took to satirising the Scottish government’s response to the Covid pandemic. In voiceovers of news footage, she supplied the inner monologue of Nicola Sturgeon, much of which was unprintable in a family newspaper. Even Sturgeon professed herself a fan, and Janey Godley was taken on by the Scottish government to front a campaign encouraging the use of masks and lateral flow testing.
Her social media history proved her undoing, however, and a number of “unacceptable” tweets resurfaced in several newspapers. She was hastily dropped from the campaign. She remained a supporter of the SNP, though, despite the party’s travails, and was happy to share a stage with Sturgeon at a Glasgow book festival.
The final Sturgeon voiceover video, released to mark the First Minister’s resignation in 2023, had her vowing to head “doon the caravan” before launching into a rendition of Abba’s Dancing Queen.
Jane Godley Currie was born in Glasgow on January 20 1961 and grew up in the district of Shettleston, one of the city’s most deprived areas. For much of her childhood Janey was abused and raped by her uncle, David Percy; as an adult, she took him to court and secured a conviction. Her father Jim and her mother Annie were both alcoholics; Annie was also addicted to pills and struggled with depression.
Janey’s parents split up in the mid-1970s and thereafter her mother’s health declined. There was often no food at home, forcing Janey to scavenge in the bins at school. She left Eastbank Academy at 16 with no qualifications and married the son of a local gangster. Her mother died in 1982, murdered – Janey Godley believed – by her violent boyfriend. He was never charged by police.
Janey spent her twenties running a pub in Calton – another poor neighbourhood of Glasgow – with her husband. It was here that she honed the skill of crowd control and the comic timing essential to a career in stand-up. But a dispute over the ownership of the pub turned sour, and the family (by this time Janey had a young daughter) had to leave their home one night, never to return.
She turned to comedy in the early 1990s, doing open-mic nights in London. “I thought, ‘How hard can it be? It’s just talking, en’it?’” she recalled. Her show Caught in The Act of Being Myself appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2003. Meanwhile, her first straight play, a harrowing account of poverty and heroin addiction, was performed at the festival in August of that year.
Later Edinburgh shows included Good Godley (2004) and Domestic Godley (2008); the latter won the Nivea Funny Women Fringe Award.
Janey Godley continued to write and perform after ovarian cancer was diagnosed in 2021, producing a murder mystery novel (Nothing Left Unsaid) and a touring show called Not Dead Yet.
She had her own, well-defined ideas about what might await her in the next life. “I think I get to have quite a lot of weird sex with Donny Osmond,” she told The Herald. “He doesn’t have a choice. It’s just how it is.”
Janey Godley married, in 1980, Sean Storrie. They had a daughter, Ashley, also a comedian; mother and daughter were both nominated for an “Outstanding Contribution to Scottish Comedy” award in 2019 (Janey took home the prize).
Janey Godley, born January 20 1961, died November 2 2024