Janey Godley is a Glaswegian pub landlady turned stand-up comic. She was abused by an Orangeman uncle aged five, her mother was later murdered, and she married into organised crime. She delights in exploiting the incongruity between her "over-friendly cleaner" appearance and her blunt material. There aren't many stand-ups whose stories end with "and so I had him killed". Fewer still from whom you'd believe it.
The rest of us may find her advocacy of, say, vigilante justice hard to stomach. But it makes for compelling stand-up. She has a seemingly limitless supply of outlaw anecdotes. There's the story of the forged fivers, and of the arms cache hidden in her father-in-law's house. But there are also tales from the right side of the law, all of which trade on Godley's ballsy personality.
Throughout, the delivery is bracingly unsentimental: "I got married so young I got Ker-plunk as a wedding present." Few of Godley's peers have such chequered lives to draw on, or can shine a light on such an unfamiliar world. Were it not for the whiff of Semtex and laundered banknotes, you'd call Janey Godley a breath of fresh air.
· Until tomorrow. Box office: 0870 745 3083.
