SHREWD politician that he is, Alex Salmond knows that it is good to please a city crowd by involving a favourite local person and that is certainly a description that applies to Glasgow’s own Janey Godley.
One of Scotland’s finest stand-up comedians, Godley will appear on stage with the former First Minister when the latest Alex Salmond Unleashed show takes place tonight in the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
Born in the east end of Glasgow, Godley has been one of the happy Unleashed crew since the early shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, and her routines – especially the hilarious voiceover segment – have had audiences in stitches.
She is looking forward to appearing in front of her home crowd and revealed that she has found it challenging to be part of a group on stage rather than standing on her own in front of an audience.
Godley said: “It’s been different for me because as a stand-up comedian I normally work on my own. Being on stage as part of an ensemble cast has been quite a challenge for me, because normally I try and control everything myself.
“As a solo stand-up taking part in a bigger show it has been quite an experience for me, occasionally frustrating, but I have to say it’s been good fun.”
The voiceover sketches are truly memorable – if you have not seen them please try Youtube – and Godley reveals what inspired her to dub her voice on various politicians, lip syncing her satire onto clips of Theresa May and Ruth Davidson.
“It was boredom,” she said. “At the general election last year I was just getting bored seeing and hearing all this stuff about politics and I just thought somebody needed to do something funny about it.”
Not giving too much away but the latest instalment may well feature May and Davidson going round Scotland smashing up the Scottish Government’s baby boxes – “it’s what they did for International Women’s Day,” quipped Godley, whose comedian daughter Ashley Storrie helps out with the voiceovers.
“We take the mickey out of women and men too – my latest was [the journalist] Quentin Letts, saying that Mhairi Black had a skiing lodge in Val d’Isere with a gold toilet.
“We need to have more satire – we lost a lot of satire when Spitting Image went, and what’s funny is that a lot of politicians ask me to ‘do’ them.” She may be a comedian but Godley is other things too – an actress and a committed political campaigner.
Her screen acting career is taking off – she has just been making a film with Julie Walters called Country Music that is partly set in Glasgow and features Godley in a fight scene that she hugely enjoyed making.
She has also made a short film herself but her biggest fun in the movie world was the experience of attending her first film premiere, Super November, starring Josie Long that was part of the Glasgow Film Festival.
“It was scary attending the premiere of a film to see yourself on screen,” said Godley, “but then my daughter appeared in the film and I didn’t even know she was in it.”
Comedy remains her bread and butter, and Godley is delighted that all her Comedy Festival shows at the Oran Mor in Glasgow’s West End have sold out.
It’s East End humour that she embodies, however, and she is launching a range of Wee Glasgow Wumman cards featuring the city’s female patois – “you’re either oot or yer in,” and “that’s me up to high doh” – for which she is currently doing the artwork.
She remains a socialist who supports independence and the SNP: “I try and do every part of my life with socialist values. I try and work for people and not big corporations, but when you are a small business owner as I was when I ran a pub, and you are up against corporations it’s hard. That’s why I won’t ever befriend a Tory.”
She will always take the mickey out of them, which is what makes Janey Godley so consistently funny.
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