JANEY GODLEY stands soaking on the streets of Edinburgh, with chocolate ginger biscuits tucked under arm. The comedian from Glasgow reveals she's out buying them for the publicity people behind her new Festival show. It's a real Mother Theresa moment of niceness, highlighting a concern she shares for others.

But a couple of seconds later the girl who grew up in the Calton is cheerfully sharing thoughts about how she once got away with a crime so horrid that had it been discovered she'd have spent some lengthy time in the pokey.

"In this act I confess to a crime," she explained, with a wicked laugh. "I tell the audience all about it - but then swear them to secrecy. I tell them if they talk about it I could end up inside. I admit this is a wee bit risky, but if the polis do talk to me I'll just deny and say it's just comic material."

She added: "I'll tell them I'm an inveterate attention-seeker. And thousands of people who've seen me perform can be my witnesses."

Janey's act reads like pages from her life. From working as a teenager in a shady east end pub and becoming embroiled with some of the city's most brutal villains to attending the Baftas, where she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Rachel Weisz (who she thinks gave her an eye infection) she is "a magnet for weird experiences".

She talks about being abused as a child by her uncle - and manages to bring laughs to the table - all the time capitalising on the raw shared-experience value of the audience. Ever one for an interesting life, she reveals she even married a man with a form of autism called Asperger's syndrome, which provides further, somewhat cruel, material.

This is real cutting-edge comedy and Godley goes into areas others would need a social worker, three counsellors and a police dog to even think about.

"It's what makes life interesting," she said. "You have to talk about your experiences. It's real."

Janey's life story will be published next year, And she admits that when writing the book she continually ran into the same problem - that telling a story would end up reopening old unsolved crimes.

"But you have to take the chance," she said, grinning.

Her tactic is paying off. Godley is attracting great reviews for her new show.

Said one reviewer: "Given the often-bleak subject matter, you might not be surprised to learn that this is not laugh-a-minute stuff - although it is undeniably funny.

"There are a few clearly identifiable jokes, but it's Godley's natural wit and brutal frankness that carries the show so well. The tales are absorbing, even more so in her capable hands as a skilful storyteller, and the material so obviously unique that lapses in keeping it perpetually funny are easily overlooked.

"Let's just hope the gangsters and the police are equally forgiving."