Janey Godley’s blog

Fringe Report Awards

nobody@vox.com(Janey Godley) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:17:52 +0000

Landing in London on Monday I was exhausted. I had been up half the night with nightmares. Sometimes I suffer really badly from the scary dreams and that night had been a spectacular horror fest. My emotions were ragged and I felt as though my brain would explode.

I didn’t want to let the bad dreams spoil my special night. I had won Best Performer at The Fringe Report Awards and I wanted to feel really good and enjoy the moment.

I arrived at the lovely flat in London and had some lunch then a quick sleep. Around 5pm I got up and got myself ready.

On arrival at The Arts Theatre in Great Newport St in the West End of London and there were loads of people milling around. Me and my best mate Monica managed to get a coffee and a sit down in a nearby café before the event, as she was knackered and had been working all day.

Eventually we got into the main Theatre and we chose a row where some crazy lady had brought her entire belongings and stuffed them beside her. Monica and I nearly fell over trying to get onto the seat.

The room went dark and the ceremony began. I had planned on a quick smile and thank you as I took my award, but as people started getting their awards they were making lovely emotional speeches.

My nerves kicked in and I realised I had to make a speech. I was nervous as hell. Monica giggled and I asked her to let me out to go for a pee.

“No, your award might be next and I am not going up there to collect it for you”

“I really need a pee now move” I hissed.

“No, now shut up and be respectful of other people up there” she snapped.

My bladder got bigger, I swear it went to the size of a scatter cushion, my nerves got worse and I REALLY needed a pee.

Finally the lovely man John up onstage read out a lovely testimony to me and people cheered and I had to get up and collect my award. The woman with the bags refused to move her stuff, my bladder swished about and I tripped over a bag on my way out of the row. Monica laughed.

I got to the stage with shaky legs and possibly a leaky bladder and made a touching (I think) speech and thanked people and made off with my box of Champagne and lovely certificate. The crowd gave me a resounding applause.

I was so touched at the award, truly I was.

To be given an award in London by such a prestigious set of critics was awesome.

I made it back to our row and tripped yet again over that scary woman’s bags and Monica pissed herself laughing as my head dropped almost to the floor. My legs were entangled amongst that woman’s shitty baggage. Monica laughed her head off.

We had a great night; I am so very pleased and now am home!

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Glasgow, London and Me

nobody@vox.com(Janey Godley) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:47:10 +0000

I had such a great time being the compere at Glasgow Jongleurs over the past weekend. The acts had a good time and the audiences loved the shows.

But last night (Saturday) as I stood on stage I noticed a wee red light in the back of the room shining every time I was onstage and I realised I was being secretly filmed!

It’s not legal to film comics onstage, I don’t like it as people can easily tape you, upload it onto their PC and send it round the internet. I like to control what is seen as it represents me.

Standing on stage I spotted it and shouted to the bouncers “That guy on the back balcony is taping me can someone go check it” and sure enough they showed me his phone and he had about six three minute clips of me. So I explained they had to be deleted. The guy was ok about it and to be honest he could have been thrown out for taping me, I told him to go to my website and he can see comedy clips of me there.

People watched me chatting to him and I think they thought I was being a wee tad over the top, but this is how I make a living and you really should get permission to tape people. He could easily have manipulated the footage and made me appear naked onstage with George Clooney in a photo-shop way…hang on, I would like that!

That aside it was great night and audience members told me they were coming to see me at The Garage on March 6^th on my one woman show. So that was good news.

I am off to London tomorrow night to pick up my Fringe Report Award for Best Performer and am all excited.

By the way I have lost ten pounds on my diet, I have been very strict and at last my knickers fit me!

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My Old Uncle John

nobody@vox.com(Janey Godley) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:08:05 +0000

Back in the late 70s my old Uncle John came to live with my highly dysfunctional family. In our small two bedroom flat there was my brother Jim, his girlfriend and their baby, my other brother David, his best pal Charlie, my mum and my old Uncle John.

Uncle John was my dad’s brother and when my dad and mum split up, Uncle John would sporadically live with us. He always seemed to never have a home of his own. I never questioned it at the time; he just lived with people, that’s what he did. And in the later half of the seventies he stayed a lot with us.

My mum and Uncle John hated each other. Most days were like a Mexican stand off with the pair of them.

“Is he drinking tea again? How many fucking tea bags can that big bastard use in a day?” My mammy would shout when she heard Uncle John clattering about in our wee scullery.

Uncle John never really shouted back at her much, he would just skulk off to his room, which he shared with David and Charlie, who were in their late teens at the time. He slept on a mattress on the floor and listened to the radio a lot.

Uncle John was maybe 15 years older than my mum at the time, so he was probably in his mid 50s at that point.

He was cantankerous, funny and I loved him. The feeling was mutual. Uncle John had a dodgy past, I knew he had been in prison before, I knew had never had a wife nor kids, but he rarely spoke about his past and refused to be questioned when I tried.

Still, I knew he loved me back.

I was just 16 at that point and I adored his quirky ways and stoical sense when the madness of our living arrangements exploded and everyone was arguing, Uncle John would take me for a walk. We walked everywhere together.

He was a bit of a drinker, yet I don’t recall seeing him staggering about drunk or incapable.

On Friday nights when I got off the bus from my work with my wage packet in hand, he would be there.

“Now what are the chances of bumping into my favourite niece today? Your Old Uncle needs a few bob to go for a beer, don’t forget who saves you bread for your breakfast?” he would giggle.

I would laugh out loud, as I knew his old tricks and I knew he was as poor as me, but with a wage packet in hand I would always give him some cash. I never missed it and he was good to me.

He must have been watching every single 62 bus that stopped waiting for me to get off.

What made me really giggle was the time he decided he wanted some of my mum’s cigarettes.

“Janey, here’s what we will do, I will get her in the hallway and argue and you sneak two fags from her packet”

“No, Uncle John, she will know and I will get killed” I hissed.

He ignored me and shouted loudly from the kitchen “Who the fuck used my last tea bag?”

My mammy screamed and ran through the house like a snarling wolf; she was well ready for this fight- tea bag occupation was her domain.

“You fucking have never bought a tea bag in years you big bastard” my mammy screamed as she grabbed at my uncle.

Uncle John winked at me and I ran into the living room and tentatively opened her cigarette box with the quiet careful dexterity of a bomb disposal expert.

I could hear them screaming in the back ground, I slipped two fags out of the box and froze as I heard my mammy shout from the kitchen “Are you opening my cigarette packet? I can hear you Janey”

I was stunned, how did she know? Did she have extra sensory hearing?

I quickly slipped the fags into my pocket and shouted back “No, I don’t smoke you know that Ma”

She came screeching into the living room, hair messy and spitting “Where are my fags?”

I pointed to the packet sitting beside the fireplace.

She grabbed the packet, opened it and I watched her face trying to work out just how many fags she had. I knew by her actions she didn’t know and Uncle John and I were home and safe.

I quickly left the room and threw the cigs at Uncle John as I passed him in the hall.

“See it was easy” he smirked.

Uncle John died in 1993; I miss his quirky mad ways.

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Something’s Are More Important than eating

nobody@vox.com(Janey Godley) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:11:44 +0000

The year was 1978. I was standing in the blazing sunshine on a beach in Redcar, in Yorkshire. Wearing a woolly jumper wasn’t a good thing, but I didn’t own a tee shirt or any semblance of summer wear.

Redcar was the place I ran to when I left my home in Glasgow; I was 17 years old and constantly hungry. My mate Maggie and I were starving most of the time as all our cash went on paying our bed and breakfast. We were literally left with £5 a week each to pay for laundry, shampoo and food for each day. We lived on slices of cold meat and things that could be eaten by a plastic spoon as we were not allowed to use anything from the kitchen of the B&B.

Totally unprepared for hot weather and homelessness, we stuck together and did our best to keep each other’s spirits up.

We couldn’t get a job as the woman who owned the small family run guest house made us clean the rooms of the B&B daily. If we didn’t do her menial tasks she threatened to evict us. She knew we were vulnerable and immature. She was a clever and cunning woman.

We were too young and naïve to work round her bully tactics. So every morning we ate the breakfast she was legally obliged to provide and we filled up on toast to see us through the whole day. Sometimes we would sneak toast into a bag, but she would catch us and make us either eat it then or give it up. She had issues!

We never had the cash to eat an evening meal and the smells from her kitchen at tea time was unbearable at times. We survived on a cooked breakfast at 9am for almost a year.

Once we stole food from a self service café. We walked in grabbed scones and ran right out of the door, hysterical with excitement, stuffing big dry scones into our mouths as we ran like the clappers down a cobbled back lane. Hunger makes people do things.

But that sunny day, Maggie and I sat on the hot beach and watched families sit around having picnics. We jealously stared at big cuts of meat being draped onto thick slices of bread, flasks pouring out hot sweet tea into big plastic mugs. How we really wanted some of that food!

Then I found 50 pence in the hot sand. It was warm in my hand and Maggie and I giggled and I ran up the beach clutching it hard in my palm.

We walked up to the Bar-B-Queue grill, it was a local seaside café and the tables had little jukeboxes fitted into each table in the booths.

Maggie and I slid into the seat; we could afford a cup of tea between us. The woman knew us and simply smiled as we sat down and said “One big mug of tea?”

We both nodded in unison. We got 10 pence change. I could have bought a biscuit to share, but I knew what I really wanted. I wanted a song.

I dropped the coin into the metal box and flicked through the screens on the top with my index finger, I found the song I wanted and sat back with my eyes closed, anticipation simmering through me.

The box clicked and the speakers above the door hummed as the record spun.

‘Take the long way home’ by Supertramp came blasting through. I loved the song and Maggie and I sat in peaceful harmony, ignoring all the other noises around us.

Sipping hot tea and sharing our love for music was wonderful.

Food is unimportant when good music is on offer.

Redcar is a long way off in my memory now, but I recall the music of 1978 more than anything.

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