• 11 months ago
Janey Godley is the subject of a feature-length documentary titled Janey.

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.

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Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - So Jenny, how does it feel to have the film
00:08 about your life story as the world premier
00:11 at Glasgow Film Festival as it's been closing gala
00:14 on the 10th of March?
00:15 - That's quite frightening that you've told me that.
00:18 For mine to be the world premier gala
00:21 at the Glasgow Film Festival seems bizarre.
00:25 I mean, I'm just a woman who talks really loudly.
00:28 I'm not even a comedian.
00:29 I'm just an over-friendly cleaner that wandered in.
00:32 So yeah, I'm really excited.
00:34 - And how are you feeling about the red carpet?
00:37 - The red carpet is gonna be quite an event.
00:40 I've got a lot of my friends are coming
00:43 and they're all deciding what they're wearing.
00:45 I'm just trying to figure out how my hair will behave
00:48 'cause right now I'm at the urwally stage
00:50 of the post-chemo hair.
00:52 I can't wait to see what it does by that time.
00:54 - And you mentioned that you've a long history
00:58 of coming to GFT to see films with your family.
01:02 Any favourite memories of coming to see anything here?
01:04 - Oh God, yeah.
01:06 I remember bringing Ashley to see "It's a Wonderful Life"
01:09 and it was at Christmas.
01:10 It was just such a special atmosphere.
01:12 And growing up in the cinemas,
01:16 the State Picture Hall in Shettleston where I was raised,
01:20 it means everything to me.
01:22 And Ashley has been a film buff since she's been tiny.
01:24 And she was a producer on this too
01:27 and she did a lot of camera work on it.
01:29 So she's exceptionally proud of it.
01:31 And I'm really proud of her.
01:33 The two years still, I just can't quite believe
01:34 that there is a film called "Janie".
01:36 I keep expecting somebody else to turn up on the screen.
01:39 - I was gonna ask how do you think you'll feel
01:42 when you see yourself on the GFT cinema one screen?
01:46 - I think my heart is gonna be that huge.
01:48 It'll burst with happiness.
01:50 That's the only way I can express it.
01:52 I am incredibly proud, especially of John Archer
01:56 and all the people at Hopscotch Films who made the film,
02:00 who made the documentary.
02:01 They were superb to work with.
02:03 I mean, they literally never even did much.
02:06 They just stayed in the background and pointed a camera
02:08 at me and Shirley most of the time.
02:10 - It's so important, I think,
02:11 to have that trust with someone
02:12 'cause you're sharing very personal, difficult things.
02:16 - We did have a lot of trust.
02:17 John let me take the absolute pew at him as well.
02:20 There's lots of outtakes of me slagging him off
02:23 and the car with him and his son.
02:24 And I wish they had included them.
02:26 There's a lot of fun in me just annoying John quite a lot
02:29 because I was very bored backstage at some time.
02:32 So I just took it out on John and he and I had such laughter.
02:35 But they cut that out.
02:36 They should have another film of the outtakes.
02:39 - For an extended version for the festival.
02:42 - Yes, absolutely.
02:44 - After its world premiere at Glasgow Film Festival
02:46 on the 10th, it's then going out to cinemas
02:48 all across the UK, I think from the 15th of March.
02:51 So I suppose it's, what would you feel for,
02:55 how do you feel about audiences seeing it
02:57 and maybe people who maybe not seen you live before?
03:00 - I can't believe that there's people
03:02 gonna be watching me in the cinemas across the UK.
03:05 That just seems absurd.
03:07 I think this is all a big mistake.
03:09 I still think this is a huge mistake that yous have all made
03:12 and I can't wait for people to see it.
03:14 And I can't wait to hear their feedback as well.
03:17 I can't wait.
03:18 I'm just super excited.
03:20 There's a part of me is really stressed and worried
03:22 because I'm waiting on the scan results
03:24 'cause I'm still living with terminal cancer
03:26 and there's still this part of me going,
03:28 you need to stay alive for all this.
03:30 So yeah, it's keeping me going.
03:33 - For viewers who aren't familiar with you,
03:35 maybe this will be their first sort of introduction
03:37 to you and your life and your work.
03:38 What can they expect?
03:40 - Well, there's a lot of old film footage
03:43 from my days in the pub.
03:45 They will see that.
03:46 Then we even have the cameras in the Beatson
03:49 where I'm getting chemotherapy,
03:51 which will be quite a shock to the people
03:53 who say I'm faking cancer.
03:54 They'll see a lot of standup.
03:58 There's a lot of footage of me,
04:00 especially on stage at the SEC, 3,000 people.
04:03 So they'll get to see that.
04:04 They'll see standup.
04:05 They'll see me backstage.
04:06 They'll see me and Ashley in the house.
04:09 There's quite a lot of, as I say,
04:11 archive footage of the pub,
04:15 which I saw for the first time in 30 year.
04:18 That was quite a shock.
04:21 Never knew my husband had that much hair.
04:23 There's archive footage from the mid '80s
04:27 right through to when we closed.
04:29 There's the last day of the pub.
04:30 You see Ashley pouring a pint
04:32 in the complete darkness of the pub
04:34 'cause it's closing down to get renovated.
04:37 And then there's video footage of me on stage,
04:41 me chatting with Ashley,
04:43 me and Shirley, who makes a brilliant chemo picnic.
04:47 Shirley always has a sandwich ready.
04:50 A lot of, there's gonna be a lot
04:52 of intimate conversations as well.
04:55 You'll see me talking about death,
04:57 talking about life, talking about being canceled,
05:01 talking about how I felt
05:03 when I was faced with the worst of adversity,
05:06 whether it be child abuse or my mother's murder or whatever.
05:09 You're getting to see it all.
05:11 And I can't wait for people to see that
05:13 and see how they feel about it.
05:15 The pub in the Calton was very influential in my standup.
05:19 I mean, people say to me,
05:20 how do you feel when you get people who troll you online?
05:23 They never stood behind the bar in the Calton
05:25 in the early '80s when wee drunk men came in
05:28 and went, "Do you want a sore face?"
05:30 And I'm like, "Why are you giving that one away?"
05:32 They don't know the schooling that I had.
05:35 We are the wee hard cases in the Calton.
05:37 So anything after that is literally
05:40 a skip in the picnic time.
05:42 So working in the pub really did ground me for standup.
05:47 Nothing scares me.
05:48 Nothing scares you.
05:49 After you've done a shift in the Calton
05:51 for a few years in a pub,
05:53 you literally could be on the front line in Afghanistan
05:57 and go, "Bring it on, boys."
05:59 Don't think the guys would really have much fight.
06:01 We had a lot of Glasgow women on their menopause.
06:03 That's who we should send to wars.
06:05 We should stop sending men.
06:07 Just send a lot of women to feed the gorbals
06:09 and cast them out on their menopause to war zones
06:12 to see if that would sort them out.
06:13 "What are you looking at?"
06:15 Yeah, I think that would work.
06:17 That'll be my next film.
06:19 (upbeat music)
06:21 (upbeat music)
06:24 [MUSIC]

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