Not many people would choose to go on a comedy tour when they have incurable cancer. But Janey Godley isn’t like most people. Since being diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer, the Scottish stand-up, 62, has juggled chemotherapy with going on the road. “It’s definitely picked me up no end,” she says cheerily from her hotel room, with her daughter – and support act – Ashley Storrie in the background. Initially she was going to cancel the tour, until she realised this could be her last chance to perform – but doing a live show while undergoing treatment isn’t without its issues. “I didn’t sleep well last night because it’s the first night of chemo,” she admits. “One of the side effects is my nose hairs come out, so my nose was running constantly on stage.” Godley spent much of the show apologising to the audience, while also warning them that she had diarrhoea and may need to run to the bathroom at any moment. Godley sighs. “So that was fun.”
You can tell Godley, her hair a cropped grey compared to her previous long brown tresses, is tired from touring. But if it wasn’t for the cannula bruises on her hands that she shows me over Zoom, you might not know she has cancer at all, given her surprisingly chipper tone. To say the diagnosis came as a shock is an understatement. “It was like throwing a f***ing grenade into my family.” But before all of that, Godley carved out a place for herself as an outspoken voice after cutting her teeth on the comedy circuit in 1994, delivering material about “the darkest subjects” – her childhood sexual abuse, her parents’ addictions, her mother’s death. “I was talking about mammy’s murder and child abuse and rape in 2000… way before it became ‘confessional comedy’,” she says, matter-of-factly.
