Janey Godley documentary Janey coming to cinemas and the BBC
- Janey follows Janey Godley performing her Not Dead Yet show around the UK
- The film features her discussing "cancel culture" with Jimmy Carr and her popular Nicola Sturgeon voiceover videos with the former First Minister of Scotland
- Culminating in an emotional performance at the 3,000-seater SEC Armadillo in Glasgow, the documentary also accompanies Godley to her treatment for terminal cancer and to the childhood home where she was sexually abused
Janey Godley is the subject of a feature-length documentary, coming soon to cinemas and the BBC, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.
In Janey, the stand-up is followed on her 2023 Not Dead Yet tour around Scotland, as well as performances in Belfast and London, as she is treated for terminal ovarian cancer; reflects upon being "cancelled" for historic racist tweets; the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her uncle as a child; her mother's murder; protesting Donald Trump's visit to Scotland in 2016; and the sense of freedom tinged with guilt that she experienced when she became a comic in 1994, all culminating in an emotional show at Glasgow's 3,000-seater SEC Armadillo venue.
Featuring footage of Godley as a 13-year-old, family home videos and clips from the pub that she and her husband Sean ran in the Calton area of Glasgow in the 1980s and 1990s before they were forced to flee his gangster family, the film also captures her in conversation with Jimmy Carr, former First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and in frank exchanges with her daughter and support act, fellow comic Ashley Storrie.
Interspersed with stand-up clips of stories about her childhood, Godley revisits her home in the Shettleston area of Glasgow where she and her sister Ann were molested by their uncle, David Percy, and stands at the River Clyde, where the body of her mother, Annie Currie, was found in 1982. She is also shown receiving last year's inaugural Sir Billy Connolly Spirit Of Glasgow Award, awarded for displaying the warmth, resilience and sense of humour representative of the city.
Directed and produced by John Archer (My Old School) for Hopscotch Films (Fern Brady Goes Viral!, Ooh The Banter), the 78-minute Janey is Godley's third feature film, following acting appearances in Josie Long's 2018 rom-com-turned-dystopian nightmare Super November and the acclaimed country music drama Wild Rose, released the same year.
"It was a joy working with Janey over this past year and getting to know her," Archer told BCG. "Nothing was off-limits for filming. She is a great collaborator, totally open and happy to make people laugh even about the bleakest moments in her life - and there've been a few.
"I hope that Janey takes viewers behind the performance, to get to know the warm, quick-witted person she is, full of heart. I look forward to cinemagoers experiencing her in a new light, in what will undoubtedly be emotional screenings."
Her Not Dead Yet tour resumes at The Lowry in Salford on the 29th of January.