'LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, please welcome Janey Godley,' hollers Janey Godley, taking matters into her own hands and striding on to the stage after a delay to the start of her show.

As you'd expect from a Glaswegian former pub landlady, she's quick to set boundaries, advising patrons to switch off their mobile phones as 'it'll be hard to answer after I've jammed it up your arse', and clarifying that, yes, she is the comedian and not the cleaner.

By acknowledging the fact that Fringe-goers aren't used to being addressed by a wee Scottish woman with attention deficit disorder and gangsters for in-laws, Godley manages to establish a fantastic rapport with the audience.

It's difficult to explain how this East End wifey manages to turn her incredibly grim life story - sexual abuse, murder, organised crime - into darkly comic anecdotes that induce gales of laughter, but her totally unpretentious storytelling style allows an hour to pass by in a flash.

She makes damn sure we get the full show - woe betide any twentysomething with a clipboard who tries to argue - but it feels like she's just scratching the surface with tales of eating Jesus and finding Semtex in the washing machine.

From your average gag merchant these would be surreal flights of fancy, but there's a certain glint in Godley's eye that tells you that in her world, truth is stranger than fiction.