Oddfellows Comedy: Good Godley!

Oddfellows Comedy: Good Godley!

Janey Godley – Scottish comedienne, actress, playwright and best-selling author – described by the UK press as “a gangster’s moll” - is in New Zealand from 8th May to 3rd June.

The last time she was here, in 2002, she won the Best Show Concept award and critical acclaim at Television New Zealand's International Comedy Festival. At the same year's New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards, she was nominated as Best International Guest and as Best Visiting Comedian. The New Zealand Herald wrote that she “demands intelligence from her audience - and rewards it well.”

This year, Janey will be performing runs of her near-legendary comedy show GOOD GODLEY! at the ODDFELLOWS New Zealand International Comedy Festival in both Auckland and Wellington. She will also be in the Festival's opening gala in Auckland (televised on TV1 the following week) and presenting the 'Comedy Divas' show, the Festival's "5-star female comedy showcase".

The word most used to describe Janey by reviewers, journalists, radio/TV reporters is “unique”. Brought up in near-Dickensian poverty in Glasgow, from the ages 5-13 she was sexually abused and relentlessly raped by her uncle (whom she successfully prosecuted and got imprisoned around 30 years later). Aged 18, she married into a Glasgow gangster family. Her mother was murdered by a psychopathic boyfriend, her body thrown into the River Clyde.

Janey ran a pub in the tough East End of Glasgow for 14 years, where stabbings and slashings were common and even crucifixion was not unknown. During the ‘Trainspotting’ years, 17 of her friends died from heroin in a 22 month period. All this is the subject of GOOD GODLEY! – she has received wild critical raves for this comedy monologue about child abuse, murder and gangsters.

When GOOD GODLEY! was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004, the London Times reported that Janey risked arrest because of a claim she made during the show's final 9-minute anecdote. If prosecuted, she faced a charge with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK.

She was not prosecuted. The New York Times called GOOD GODLEY! "some of the sharpest-elbowed comedy in the world". The Glasgow Herald wrote: "If all of this show is true, and she is extremely convincing, she must have a damn good lawyer." The Financial Times review read: "It's not unlike the sensation of shock and delight, thirty years ago, of seeing very early Billy Connolly."

The same subjects are also covered more seriously in her bestselling 2005 autobiography "Handstands in the Dark". Her 19-year-old daughter Ashley Storrie, a central character in that book, will accompany Janey on her New Zealand visit.

Full details on Janey’s background, with newspaper cuttings, reviews, downloadable performance clips and downloadable high-resolution photos are available on her extensive website www.janeygodley.co.uk which also has links to her extraordinary and award-winning daily online blog, carried by at least 30 websites worldwide.

ENDS

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