Directed by John Archer, following comedian Janey Godley on her 2023 Not Dead Yet Tour, after her diagnosis for ovarian cancer. Janey tours with her best mate Shirley, and daughter comedian Ashley Storrie. Intercut with her stand up we tell the story of her extraordinary life, told with her trademark take-no-prisoners honesty and dark humour. Featuring interviews with Nicola Sturgeon and Jimmy Carr.
You can often find that documentaries which list themselves as being honest, give themselves too much credit but Janey is well and truly frank. It’s refreshing and inspiring to see someone going through something as difficult as cancer and inexplicably managing to just get on with it, it’s very Scottish. Janey Godley is an effortless subject to follow, she’s so blunt and has no pretences so you know where you stand with her, which is comforting to watch.
The film starts exactly that way, it gets straight to the point, it’s efficient and effective at introducing the audience to Janey. The rest of Janey follows in much the same way, there is so much to learn about her past and present, a lot of which is quite surprising and some genuinely harrowing. It also never gets stuck on overly focusing on her illness, it’s a part of her story but it doesn’t take over her life, we still get a fantastic, wide perspective of her experiences.
If there’s one thing you can point to as the key strength to Janey, it’s the absolutely charming sincerity that it holds from start to finish. It moves in such a natural way as to let her genuine and hilarious presence guide you through her whole story. Weaving through her comedy on stage, her childhood, illness, relationship with her daughter, how she manages her illness and her period of being ‘cancelled’. There’s a great deal of ground to cover and John Archer does extremely well to never make it feel rushed or over-packed.
Janey is filled with brutal honesty which encompasses so much from pure comedy to harrowing experiences. It’s funny and sincere, letting Janey tell her story in her way, there’s no unnecessary structure or formula, it’s all very organic and intensely charming. Not to mention that Janey’s relationship with her daughter, the equally hilarious Ashley Storrie, is moving to watch. It’s a great documentary, whether you go in as a fan of Janey Godley or even not knowing who she is.
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