'A lot of people felt ownership over my mum - my grief didn't feel my own'

When Ashley Storrie's mum Janey Godley was nearing the end of her life, she had a simple message for her daughter.

"My mum was adamant that I didn't stall and didn't crumble after she died," recalls the comedian, 14 months after Janey's death from cancer, aged 63.

That meant Ashley kept up her normal routine as her mum was in end-of-life care. She was broadcasting her regular BBC Radio Scotland show, and she kept writing.

Now that work is to be shown, with Ashley's popular BBC sitcom Dinosaur returning for a second season this Sunday.

" I was in writers' rooms in London while my mum was dying in a hospice," Ashley says.

"She had told me to keep working, so it was a big driving force for me and I didn't want to let let her down by being too sad. That may have been unhealthy but there's no manual for a parent dying.

"The night I knew she was dying I said goodbye to her, then went to Pacific Quay to do my radio show. I didn't stop."

Weeks after her mum - one of Scotland's famous and popular comedians - had died, Ashley was experiencing a different kind of emotion.

She won two Bafta Scotland awards for the first season of Dinosaur, where she played neurodiverse palaeontologist Nina - a woman trying to cope with changes in her life caused by her sister Evie getting engaged.

Collaborating with writer Matilda Curtis, Ashley had found herself both acting and writing a sitcom for the first time.

Yet the work paid off, with both awards and popular recognition, to the extent that she now hears from people across the world about the programme.

"I get messages around once a week, from all over the world, from people who have see Dinosaur - it's even been translated into Spanish," she says.

"I get messages from women who felt like they haven't been seen, and there's loads of us. We don't really get representation unless we are the butt of the joke, and it's good to give weird men and weird women the representation that they deserve."

However, she admits that 2024 was a strange period, juggling the success of Dinosaur and early work on the second season with her mother's public health struggle.

That oddness carried over into the weeks after Janey died, given she was such a popular and well-known figure.

"A lot of people felt ownership over my mum so my grief didn't feel my own," she says.

"I'd go out the house and people would want to talk about her, or ask weird questions about her death. It was a very strange experience. I don't know if I'll ever get past it.

"But I know she would be chuffed I kept working."

Her mum is referenced in the new series, with a character called Janey and a picture of her hanging in the family home of Nina's parents.

For Ashley, she felt a lot more comfortable in general this time around.

She compares going back to now established characters to writing fan-fiction, penning tales for already established franchises such as her personal favourite Game of Thrones.

"It was like I knew the notes to the song this time. I understood the rhythm, so I could up the joke rate and that was easier for me," she says.

"It was very comfortable this time, like the hard work had been done [with Season 1], now you're getting to play with the characters, push them to their limits and pull them back in."

For Ashley's character Nina, that means stepping outside her own boundaries, including with a new love interest, Clay, played by Hyoie O'Grady.

"Nina's seeing who she is as a person when not in the context of her family, as Evie has moved on and has a husband," Ashley explains.

"Nina has always seen herself in regards to where Evie is, or her work. Work's changed and Evie's changed, and she has to find a new way of defining herself."

As someone with autism and ADHD herself, Ashley says she found it easy to relate to Nina's changes.

"Nina making decisions about her work, and the things she wants to do, based on her comfort levels – that's something I struggle with all the time," she says.

"Making decisions of what's good for me against what's safe for me, and not always staying in the safe zone, is a difficult path to walk."

This balancing act extends into her work too, with well-meaning friends trying to tell Ashley not to over-burden herself, given her work as a comic, presenter and actress.

"People talk to me about self care all the time and I don't really get what it is, it sounds like shaving your legs," she laughs.

"I'll be told 'have some self care or have a day in the bathroom'. Lighting a candle isn't soothing to me - I just worry I'm going to set my house on fire."

However, Ashley does have some simple pleasures - like buying a Lego set to build [a brick version of 80s hit film The Goonies is her most recent task} or watching her favourite TV programmes.

This includes long-running detective show Midsomer Murders, a show Ashley liked so much she devoted an entire podcast to watching it.

Her admiration doesn't stop there, either.

"I want to be a victim on it," she says. "I've even got a plot in my head - I can be a podcaster who comes to Midsomer and lives in the house from the very first episode, which I still think is one of the finest hours of British TV ever made.

"I'm doing a podcast about all these murders there, then I get murdered for discovering something. That is my dream role."

Whether she manages to join the lengthy list of Midsomer's deceased remains to be seen, but at the moment she seems content with life.

"I'm in an all right place," she says.

"I've made new friends recently, which as an adult is mad. I'm finding out who I am as Ashley, and that's good."