Comedian Ashley Storrie puts her autism up front in Dinosaur, the BBC's new Scottish comedy

How playing a character allowed the star of the show to be herself

Ashley Storrie stars and co-wrote the new BBC comedy drama series Dinosaur. Pic: Steve Ullathorne

For comedian and actor and radio host Ashley Storrie, making her TV acting debut in BBC comedy drama Dinosaur was a liberating experience. Playing Nina, who like Storrie herself has autism, gave her the opportunity to stop a lifetime of masking.

“The good thing about being Nina is she’s an unmasked autistic person so a lot of the things that take a lot of pressure for me to do every day, to just behave like a normal person, I didn’t have to do. I would love to be able to just be how my brain wants to be without having to apologise for it or ask permission but that is not the world we live in. It was good for the brief time we filmed Dinosaur, and that was so nice,” she says.

Diagnosed in her twenties, Storrie who can be heard live on Radio Scotland as host of The Ashley Storrie Show and the Friday Night Music Show, channeled much of her own experience into co-creating the character of Nina with Matilda Curtis for the six part series which sees the thirtysomething in her first starring role. Prior to this she played a small role in the Josie Long film Super November (2018) but otherwise has performed as herself, doing stand up since she was a teenager, releasing comedy videos online.

Ashley story as Nina, a palaeontologist in the BBC's new comedy, Dinosaur. Pic: Contributed/BBC

From Fleabag and The Tourist producers Two Brothers Pictures, the Dinosaur cast includes Kat Ronney, David Carlyle, Lorn Macdonald, Sanjeev Kohli, with Greg Hemphill and River City’s Sally Howitt as Nina’s parents, was produced by Brian Coffey and made in partnership with All3Media International and American streaming channel Hulu.

“Dinosaur is a show about a woman who is a palaeontologist. She loves her family, her sister Evie, and her life is really happy, then out of the blue her sister tells her she’s getting married to a man she’s only known for six weeks, which is absolutely ridiculous, and throws Nina’s whole life into turmoil,” says Storrie.

While Nina’s family are delighted for the impulsive, free-spirited Evie, her sister is alarmed.

“She’s at a crossroads where she wants to be a good sister, maid of honour and friend but has an overwhelming desire to prove it’s a bad decision.”

Ashley Storrie stars as Nina, who like Storrie, has autism in the new BBC comedy drama, Dinosaur. Pic: Steve Ullathorne

“It probably doesn’t help that Nina is autistic. I always forget to mention that because I don’t say ‘Hi, I’m Ashley, I’m autistic’ when I meet people because it’s so far back on the list of cool things about me. But for Nina that element thrown into the mix makes it all the more difficult to cope with this big change.”

With such unpredictable behaviour on display, it’s Nina who appears to be the sensible one in this family drama.

“I think the interesting thing about Dinosaur is people who have seen previews have said that everybody else is weird and Nina is the normal one, and that’s kind of how I feel mostly in my life - that everybody else is… wrong,” she says and laughs, “and that my brain is right.”

Storrie was able to inform the character with a lot of her own experiences but there are differences as well as similarities.

Dinosaur sees the live comedy and radio host take on a drama role for the first time. Pic: Steve Ullathorne

“There’s a lot of me poured into Nina but she is a palaeontologis and really into dinosaurs, not something I’m that interested in. Her life is quite far removed from mine; Nina’s parents live in a nice house, she’s got a sister and I’m an only child. But we’re both Glaswegians and I think the crossover is our sense of humour. She thinks she’s funny and I think I’m funny, but sometimes it just isn’t the time or place so I think inopportune comedy is what we have in common. Also I think we are both loyal to a fault and very much love our families.”

With an overall story arc building up to Evie’s wedding, the action follows Nina’s own relationships and moves towards autonomy as the sister’s paths diverge.

“I think the sisters are co-dependent. It’s too simple to say because Nina is autistic she’s the one who is dependent when she offers so much in the relationship and she’s the straightforward one who can do paperwork and make sure everything is right and on time and Evie relies on her a lot.”

“A lot of it is about Nina becoming an autonomous person,” says Storrie. “I think it’s easy to make yourself about other people then when they move on that can be difficult to shape your own way, and that’s something I can relate to with my mum.”

Ashley Storrie as Nina in Dinosaur, a comedy drama from the makers of Fleabag and The Tourist, which is set in Glasgow. Pic: Contributed

Storrie’s mother, award-winning comedian and viral force of nature Janey Godley was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021 and after receiving a terminal diagnosis, embarked on a Not Dead Yet tour last year which culminated in a performance at the 3,000 seater SEC Armadillo in Glasgow. Storrie accompanied her mother on the tour, performing, filming and co-producing the recently released documentary Janey, which Godley is currently touring, while planning a Why is She Still Here? Autumn tour, celebrating her recent Billy Connolly, Spirit of Glasgow Comedy Award.

How is her mum, who is receiving chemotherapy, right now?

“She’s all right. She’s in a lot of pain with a hernia and just living scan to scan, waiting to find out when the inevitable is coming, which is a weird thing, so it is terminal and… yeah. The only way to keep going is to keep going.”

Has Godley seen any of Dinosaur?

“She’s seen a tiny bit of the pilot, but no. It became like a weird thing where I was like ‘stay alive until it comes on TV’ and she’s ‘I’m not going to watch it until it comes on television’ because we didn’t want to jinx her.”

Now Godley will be able to watch it in the home Storrie shares with her and father Sean.

Ashley Storrie has been performing stand up since she was teenager but this is her first TV drama role. Pic: Steve Ullathorne

“Yeah. I bought my own house and thought this is it, freedom, everything’s going to happen now, then Covid happened and my mum got cancer, so that was a shortlived dream. My dad’s like ‘I’m never leaving’.

Working with a big cast was a new experience for Storrie who is used to one-woman shows and radio, so how did she find it?

“It was the best experience ever. There were people it was super important for me to get involved and Greg Hemphill was one. He came to my school and had little scripts from Still Game and asked people to volunteer to read. I was very unpopular but was desperate and - I’ll never forget it - the rugby players all made fun of my very working class voice - I think I was the only person there who worked in a fish and chip shop after school - and it broke my heart, but I did an old lady voice as Isa and my whole class screamed with laughter, then Greg Hemphill said in front of them all ‘if you want a job when you leave here, I’ll give you a job kid’. For a week I was popular and it was such a good feeling, because he praised me in front of my class. On Dinosaur we went for breakfast on the first day of the shoot and Greg said ‘imagine if I’d been horrible to you’.”

Being praised by a professional actor was a proud moment for Storrie, who knew she could make people laugh, having worked at the Fringe since the age of 11, initially flyering at her mother’s shows, then putting on her own before moving into radio - for which she won the 2020 Scottish Comedy Award for Best Radio Comic, but she had received little encouragement to consider acting.

“I had always wanted to do it but been told repeatedly that being on TV or in films wasn’t going to happen for me because I didn’t look right and should focus on behind the scenes. That’s why I went to film instead of drama school. I was told I don’t sound right, I don’t look right, and it’s not going to be. People were trying to be kind, telling me to temper my expectations and for a long time I let them grind down my aspirations.”

Studying film at university in Glasgow saw Storrie hone her script writing and film making skills and while she continued with standup, the freedom provided by the internet and live radio allowed her to put herself out there just as she is.

“I came out of school, tried to get work, couldn’t get work, made internet content myself and got work,” she says.

Part of what makes Storrie funny is an authenticity and warmth that chimes with an audience, whose stories she loves as much as her own.

“The best part of comedy and any sort of storytelling is communication with people, and I love hearing their funny stories. I think authenticity is the only way you can really approach that.”

Behind honest, as she was putting her life story out on Radio 4 with What’s the Story, Ashley Storrie?, authenticity is something she was keen to have around Dinosaur, not only in the characters and Glasgow setting, but it affected how the shoot was handled, with cast and crew allowed to be themselves.

“My main concern was what if I’m too autistic or weird because I can only do the masking for so many hours a day. But they said ‘you be you and everybody else will just learn to cope’ and that was the base point for everybody else too so it worked very efficiently. There was never any yelling and when people got upset they were allowed. Because beyond filming there was a lot going on with mum’s cancer, and I was going through that and needed to just to be able to cry in a car at times. And nobody made me feel bad about it. Let it go. Just cry it out.”

Does Storrie think being neurodivergent is an advantage in being funny?

“It certainly helps to come from a different perspective but it’s a disadvantage and an advantage, because I never know when is the right time and where the line is and sometimes I need somebody to tell me. It can come off as edgy and cutting edge and sometimes as rude. I’ve got good people around me who I ask ‘can I say this?’ and they’ll say no. But it opens up my idea of what funny could be and helps me find a more obscure or weirder take.

“I’m worry that if I lost my autism, would I be funny? When I got diagnosed they said I probably had ADHD as well, and asked if I’d like a formal diagnosis but I said no, because I don’t want medicine. I’m scared it will make my brain not as funny. I’m all for leaning into it. I think it’s the best way to be.”

Getting into character wasn’t hard for Storrie as she had been masking her autism by adopting characters her whole life.

“I used to work for East Renfrewshire City Council as the tea girl for the Lord Provost and had a whole character I did. If those people met me now they’d be like ‘who are you and what happened to the Ashley we knew?’” she laughs, “because I had a whole schtick I would do every day at work and that was how I coped. How I spoke, my voice, my accent, my demeanour, everything changed. I was really friendly and pretended I was a bit dafter than I was so I wouldn't get asked to do hard tasks.”

Highlights of the Dinosaur shoot included filming in Rothesay where Storrie spent many childhood summers, and the island came up trumps with the weather.

“It was so fun and looked so beautiful. It put on its Sunday best and I was so pleased I had dragged everybody there,” she says.

“I worked in a pub there when I was a teenager because my aunt and uncle used to own a hotel, so when we were filming I was telling the guys about the arcades where there was a claw machine you could win watches and my Uncle George would give me £20 to clear the machine and bring the watches to the pub and hand them out so I got banned. None of the crew believed it then we walked into a pub and the guy who owned it said ‘I know you. I used to own the arcade, you’re the watch girl!’ My claw machine days are over but my legacy lives long.”

For Storrie the hardest scenes were “any of the bits where I have to chase a bus! And emotionally any scene where I was really upset, because I have to make myself upset to do them. There are two schools of acting, the Jessica Chastain who can just make herself cry and it’s fully technical and there is no emotion behind it, and people like me who think about something sad. Then I would have to sit in the car and process the sadness”.

However Dinosaur is received, and as Storrie says, ”I’ve been a female comedian on the internet for a solid ten years so I’m well aware that not everything is for everyone. I’m reminded of that on a daily basis”, for her it was a dream come true.

“And for people like me to see someone like them on screen, because I never felt represented, I’m excited about that.”

For the future Storrie would love to make a second series of Dinosaur and with two work in progress stand up shows at the recent Glasgow Comedy Festival, intends to “just keep playing it by ear. I’ve never been one for a life plan. Let what happens happen.”

And she’ll keep following her mother Janey’s advice: “If you can’t be an inspiration, be a dire warning.”

Dinosaur airs on BBC Scotland and BBC iPlayer on 14 April and BBC Three on 18 April.

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