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Janey Godley: The C Bomb

4. I Don't Know How Long I've Got Left

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 Extra

Available for years

Janey Godley doesn’t know how long she’s got left, so she’s telling ALL the jokes! This is her extraordinary story. Fearless and unflinching, yet life affirming stand-up at its very best.

In this last episode of the series, Janey confronts her terminal diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and jokes about how she copes, how the people around her cope, and what she thinks her legacy might be. She tells a fascinating story about her mother and friends around the kitchen table singing, and there's a bolt of comedy lightning that's very fitting.

Since Janey’s comedy career began, she’s exposed, on stage, many painful traumas from her life - from childhood neglect and sexual abuse, to marrying into a gangster family who eventually turned on her, and even the murder of her mother - with a seeming lack of sentimentality and the blackest of humour.

Relentlessly authentic, she's also had to face up to her own mistakes - taking responsibility and apologising both publicly and onstage, as well as sharing the shame of being ‘cancelled’ and the very dark place that took her to.

Then, just months later... the hand grenade of a cancer diagnosis forced her to start fighting for her life.

Now, after finally admitting that after everything she’s been through in life, maybe she‘s not “fine”, and with a terminal diagnosis, she’s submitted to the ultimate ‘C bomb' for many men and women of her generation - counselling.

And as a result of this insight, she’s more hilarious and compelling onstage than ever.

Recorded live in front of an audience in her hometown, Glasgow.

A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4 Show less

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