Fame, Family, Autism

After spending her childhood looking after her parents, Scots actor and comic Ashley Storrie is now enjoying her own moment in the spotlight

- STEPHEN GALLACHER

WHILE filming her first lead role earlier this year in the sitcom Dinosaur, Ashley Storrie could easily have consulted the wealth of W experience around her on whether it was going well.

The show was produced by the brains behind Fleabag.

She had co-stars like veteran funny man Greg Hemphill, and of course she could always call her mum, stand-up comic Janey Godley.

Yet perhaps it was her own roots as a stage comic, and living in Glasgow's East End, which turned her attention instead to the reaction of the sparkies working on set.

"If you've ever been on a film or TV set, the electricians are the least interested in what's going on," she said. "They don't care. They just want to put up lights and bits of electrical cable with gaffer tape and talk about what's happening with the weans.

"As we were filming I was constantly looking out the side of my eye thinking, 'Are Joycie and Connor laughing?' If I got a smile out of them, then knew I was having a good day."

Dinosaur, which is available on BBC iPlayer, sees Ashley fronting a sitcom about love, friendship and being your own self.

It's about Nina, an autistic palaeontologist from Glasgow navigating her 30s, who loves a specific strand of Harry Potter fan fiction called My Immortal.

As it happens, Ashley, 37, has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), lives in Glasgow and is a fan of My Immortal. The role wasn't written for her but the fit is, she admits, uncanny. It almost seems like fate and, when I ask if she believes in that sort of thing, there's no hesitation.

"One hundred per cent," she says.

"I won't buy crystals but if I see a penny lying in the street I'll say to myself that it's a sign. I just have my own very weird signs and portents that I believe in."