Janey Godley (1961-2024) was a stand-up comic, from Scotland, who crossed career paths with Jimmy, on the circuit, for many years (see posts here). Including one memorable (rowdy) gig in 2006 – The Malcolm Hardee Benefit show (here).

In November 2021 she announced that she had Ovarian cancer, got the all clear in 2022 but then announced that it had spread to her abdomen.

As she later told Lorraine (here) she had decided to cancel her tour but her “mate Jimmy Carr” persuaded her to continue.

Jimmy had asked her ‘Is your mouth not working?’ and when she replied ‘Yeah, my mouth works’ he said, ‘Well get back on tour.’”

Her response was: “And I thought, he’s right. What am I going to do? Sit in the house and draw wee cats?”.

2023 saw her Not Dead Yet tour traverse Scotland, Belfast and London and she was filmed for a fly-on-the-wall documentary, which Jimmy contributed to.

Janey

Just called Janey it is 78 minutes long and debuted at the Glasgow Film Festival on March 10^th 2024.

It seems to only have been shown on BBC Scotland and there is an overview (here) of the tale of someone born into poverty in Glasgow’s East End (trailer for the movie is here).

Her mother was an alcoholic and, as a child, Janey was sexually abused by her uncle. She tells the story of her mother’s horrific murder when Janey was 21, revisiting the river where her body was found.

At age 19, Janey married into a notorious family of Glasgow gangsters, running a successful pub for them with her husband.

There is a 90 second clip here of her telling Jimmy that being “cancelled” for old tweets was more upsetting than getting cancer and him empathising with her.