Janey Godley obituary: Turning tragedy into comedy

Janey Godley, who has died aged 63, turned an early life full of pain and tragedy into a successful comedy career.

A tough upbringing in the east end of Glasgow was the thread which ran through her humour. Often angry, she specialised in wringing laughs out of the most unlikely material.

Her act mirrored the city that shaped her: working-class, foul-mouthed, simultaneously angry and sentimental. She delivered her comic broadsides at high speed, jabbing her points home like a street-fighter.

For her fans, she was one of them – and as her reputation grew so did her influence. The former pub landlady became close friends with Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, after her videos voicing-over the FM’s Covid press conferences became a viral sensation.

She was born Jane Godley Currie on 20 January 1961 in the Shettleston area of Glasgow, the youngest of four children. Both her parents were addicted to alcohol and the family home was both chaotic and very poor.

As a young child she was sexually abused by an uncle. Thirty years later in 1996, she and her sister went public to talk about the abuse after their evidence convicted David Percy. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Interviewed at the time, she said: “We waited 30 years but we did it, and we did it together. Anyone who has been abused knows you cannot shake off the guilt. But the guilty one was Percy.”

There was more tragedy. In 1982 her mother Annie was found dead in the River Clyde. Godley was convinced she had been murdered by her violent boyfriend though the man was never charged, despite the family’s calls for an investigation.

By then, Godley had married and was running a pub with her husband in the Calton area of Glasgow. They had a daughter, Ashley Storrie, who would later follow her mother into comedy.

Her in-laws became an integral part of her comedy act. She often spoke of their criminal connections and it was a family dispute that led to her taking to the stage in her mid-30s.

The schism forced them to leave the pub and left them homeless and out of work.

She had been performing at occasional open-mic nights but began taking it more seriously. Years of honing her comic patter behind a bar helped and she quickly became established on the comedy circuit.

Her stage act was uncompromising. In 2019 she spoke to the Guardian about her material.

“I spoke about my ma being murdered, child abuse, gangsters. Back then, even comics were saying: ‘You shouldn’t talk about that.’ But I’m so glad I did.

“The amount of people that came up to me and said: ‘I was abused and I’ve never laughed before’.”

As her fame grew she wrote a memoir and novel and became a regular on panel shows. She appeared with Billy Connolly and the late Antony Bourdain, and played a barmaid in the film Wild Rose.

Two things introduced her to a global audience and brought her into the world of politics.

In 2016 she was photographed at the Turnberry golf resort holding a sign with an offensive word, protesting the visit by the club’s owner, President Trump. The picture went viral.

Then, during the Covid lockdowns, she began creating videos in which she voiced-over Nicola Sturgeon’s media briefings, portraying the first minister as a plain-talking, occasionally foul-mouthed figure, exhausted by the demands of the pandemic and exasperated by the media’s questions.

A committed supporter of independence, she had appeared on stage with Alex Salmond and was praised by Nicola Sturgeon.

That connection was tested in September 2021 when comments she had posted on social media a decade before came back to haunt her.

She was dropped as the face of a Scottish government health campaign and admitted the tweets had “terrible, horrific undertones”.

Two months later, Godley revealed she had ovarian cancer. She documented her illness and treatments on social media and by touring.

For a while she was considered clear of the disease but in December 2022 she announced that it had returned.

She had been told she could die within the year but continued working. She made a BBC radio programme about her condition and remained a presence on X, formerly Twitter.

She was a contributor to BBC programmes including Have I Got News For You and Breaking the News. More recently she made a BBC documentary following her 2023 tour called Janey.

In April that year she won the inaugural Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award.

He said: “She’s a great girl, a great comedian and an extraordinary life story.”

Godley said: “I can’t believe I’ve won this. I have won an award from a man that I’ve admired since I was a child.”

Holding up the prize, she said “This is going to be my tombstone.”