A MAN who was talked out of jumping to his death from a building by a comedian appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe has spoken of how she gave him the will to live.

Iain, who is an alcoholic and unemployed, was smiling yesterday, but on Friday evening he had climbed out of his fourth-storey window and clung to a drainpipe as he contemplated taking his life. He said that amid the Edinburgh festivities he could not think of a reason to carry on living.

Tourists assumed it was a publicity stunt for a Fringe show, and took photographs, but Janey Godley realised Iain was serious. She talked him out of it.

Godley has incorporated the story into her stand-up act at the Smirnoff Underbelly venue, and invited Iain, 41, to her show, the first he has seen on the Edinburgh Fringe. Pointing into the audience, she said: “Do you know the name of the person?” Iain replied: “Yes, it was me.”

Iain told The Times that he had been anxious about seeing the show, but had given Godley permission to tell his story. “I can laugh it off now,” he said. “It hasn’t hurt me. Listening to Janey lifted my spirits. I felt a bit down before the show but I had a laugh and a giggle and afterwards I felt a lot better about myself. It has been a long time since I’ve had a laugh.”

In Caught in the Act, Godley tells how Iain had climbed out of his flat in the city centre and clung to the drainpipe, deciding whether to jump. She called to him to come down and take his time. She said: “I used humour. I said to him, ‘Don’t jump down — if you land on me you’ll kill me and I have two shows to do.’ ” He shinned down to safety.

As Godley dressed the cuts on Iain’s hands, she said, a policewoman told him: “Don’t do that. You will frighten the tourists.”

Godley and Iain have become friends and she plans to take him to more Fringe shows. “I feel strongly about people like Iain being left out of the festival,” she said. “People see the bright lights and big shows, but don’t look at the people on the streets.”

Godley, 42, who was born in the East End of Glasgow, knows all about life on the streets. Her brother is a heroin addict and she lost her cousin, Sammy, after he died from using an infected needle for a heroin injection. “I feel very protective of Iain,” she said. “Perhaps it’s because I’m trying to make up for Sammy.”