Comedy of the Week - What's the Story, Ashley Storrie?

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Ashley documents the ups and downs of trying to make friends while being ‘weird’ - or an undiagnosed autist.Relating more to wizards, aliens and ghosts since childhood, Ashley has developed her own unique ways of seemingly 'fitting in’, despite the confusing world of human relationships.After a childhood full of failed attempts, Ashley spent years obsessing over how to solve the problem of making friends in the only way she knows how - using strategies and methodical research within her peer group.Now she shares her findings, as well as the epiphany she reached at the end of her study.Expect niche cultural references, streams of consciousness and a healthy dose of Harry Potter references.With Rosco McClellandProduced by Julia Sutherland Sound Design by Sean KerwinA Dabster production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. Simple Evening features Herway and Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Gustavo Jimeno in conversation. Together, they dissect the mesmerizing layers of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, followed by a complete soul-stirring rendition of the famously unnerving piece, Symphony Exploder. April 5th at Roy Thompson Hall. For tickets, visit tso.ca. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello there, you high-browed so-and-so,

sitting there in seven different flavours of tweed, wondering, who is this woman and what on earth is she saying? I'm Ashley Storey. I'm from Glasgow. You'll get used to my voice. And this is my guide to friendship. Ashley, Ashley Story Ashley, Ashley's story Every time I do one of these shows,

I'm told that I need to do an introduction of sorts to not assume that you, the listener, knows me or what I know. But I do assume those things because I'm autistic and autistic people always assume that you know what they know. You should say you're a person with autism, not autistic. Put the human first, Ashley, not the disability. I don't care, either way. Yeah, but you should care because you have a platform

and I know that technically we're the same person and I'm just you with a platform and I know that technically we're the same person and I'm just you with a sexy baby voice but you're really letting yourself down babe. My name is Ashley Story, I'm an adult person with ASD. Julia! Can they not just go and listen to the first series of the show where I explain who I am and all that. No! Do your introduction. Ugh, fine. My name's Ashley Storey. I'm a stand-up comedian turned humorist, because technically you don't need to be as funny if you call yourself a humorist.

Hashtag life hack. I was raised by an autistic retired gangster and a problematic female comedian in Glasgow. I love William Shatner, fan fiction about the Harry Potter characters in their 30s struggling with office jobs in the Ministry of Magic, and the music of Taylor Swift. And here is my guide to friendship. I'm actually not that good at making friends or keeping them. When I was at school, I would wake up every day and think,

today I will be normal. Today you will not spend your entire lunch squeezing your head between the railings, no matter how good it feels to be squished. You will smile at the other girls and you will not get distracted by how itchy tights are. You will sit still. Today, you will keep talk of Harry Potter to a normal amount. I assumed that everyone else was doing the exact same thing. Psycing themselves up to be a human.

I didn't know I was different, like on a medically diagnosable level. I just thought I was quirky. The dream, when I was a preteen, was to become the genius in a ragtag group of adventuring friends. The movies really gave me a warped sense of what lay beyond the four walls of my house. In the film The Goonies... The Goonies? Now that was comedy. No, The Goonies. It's a film from 1985 about a group of children who save their parents' home from a commercial real estate agent with gems they've found on a pirate ship while being chased by three bank robbers and a man called Sloth who shouts,

Hey you guys! Was Bill Odie in that? Go away! This is why you don't have friends. The Goonies sold me a dream of defeating armed mass murderers with not more than guile, friendship

and comedic chattering teeth attached to a slinky. I did try. I once attached sparklers to my Fisher Price rollerrice roller skates, on safety mode so I couldn't free roll, obviously, and I approached some local youths, inviting them to solve a crime with me. Hello there, good sirs. I've just finished a great educational series about the plight of the peregrine falcon. Would you like to assist me in protecting this bird of prey

from poachers? No? Oh, I'm being hit. Needless to say, the children beat me up and I couldn't get away because the safety mode on my skates had jammed, forcing me to stay in place as they punched my big brained head. The poaching of rare bird eggs was something I was constantly worried about as a child. Like, I talked about this all the time. I'd steal eggs from the fridge and keep them in my bed and pretend it was a baby falcon. I do not know how it took so long to diagnose me as autistic. That roller skate story was weirdly harrowing, Ashley. Tell a funny story now. So this one time I was friends with a girl at my school who was two years older than me and for my birthday my parents took both of us to Alton Towers and she gave me this necklace that

said best friend which was so cool because I'd never had a best friend before and I was like 13, which is sad. Anyway, I wore the necklace to school and... She told everyone that I'd bought it for myself. Everyone made fun of me. No, it's even the teachers. Ashley. Ashley, babe This is one of those times where you can't read the room

And I, the weird hyper self-aware part of you Has to step in Tell the posh people who listen to Radio 4 A funny story about friendship That isn't wildly traumatic. Okay, funny friendship story. Ready? I had an imaginary friend called John who I think might have been a ghost. Oh no. He died by bayonet and one time I dreamed that I was him and I was standing in a doorway in France and I was just getting stabbed over and over again.

It's actually quite dark. I need to do some circular breathing and tap my face. What I wanted was to be Data from the Goonies or Brains from the Double Deckers. I wanted to be the clever know-it-all who is initially hated but wears everyone down with bravery and wisdom. Given that I had no idea about autism when I was 11, being a wizard seemed like a viable reason to explain why I was so weird. A wizard or like an alien. I would lay in bed at night and fret about how my working class family would cope

with the burden of me being a magical being and having to go to Hogwarts. The communication alone would have been difficult. Mobile phones do not work on the Hogwarts grounds, but students are free to use the school Owlery to write home to their parents. I can't send an owl back to my house. My uncles will trap that thing and start one of those businesses where they walk around a shopping centre

offering children a commemorative photo with a bird of prey. I'm back. Ugh. Are you talking about Harry Potter again? It's one of my special interests. You can't shame me for again? It's one of my special interests You can't shame me for that It's part of my autism

I can't shame you technically But I can let you know that it's really annoying And a big reason why you have no friends I do actually have friends Most of them live in other continents though One friend I see for three hours a week for work And that's enough I do actually have friends. Most of them live in other continents, though. One friend I see for three hours a week for work, and that's enough. I have a best friend, a girl who's known me since I was 12.

She didn't like me at first, but I wore her down. Oh, my God, I am Hermione Granger. Anyway, she's great. She doesn't care that I can go months without speaking to her for no other reason than I got distracted or that I sometimes have to get out of a car and scream in a bush when I get overwhelmed. She's called Vicky and she won't be listening to this because she doesn't trust things that talk to her without a face. So back to my initial intent of this episode, how to make friends. this episode. How to make friends. If you want someone to like you who doesn't initially like you, don't be yourself. That's probably why they don't like you. Songs and episodes of sitcoms

from the 90s lied. If you want to be yourself, you're going to have to find people who are like you. And if you're like me, that won't happen unless you're in some pretty niche corners of the internet shout out to all my erotic friend fiction writers computer yes ashley i'm looking for an enemies to lovers steampunk alternative universe mystery where a clever spinster solves a murder and then does it with a vampire here's what i found on the web draco malfoy folded his arms over his chest in triumph and stared at the screen before him. How had he gone so long without the assistance of spreadsheets? Muggles weren't so bad after all. He looked around at Hermione Granger, the muggle who'd taught him control shift percent sign, and smiled. And then they did it.

control shift percent sign and smiled. And then they did it. Do-win-it, do-win-it, do-win, do-win-it, do-win-it, uh. And by doing it, I mean had sex. Full penny. About eight years ago, I started infiltrating a group of comedians who are all friends. They know who they are and they know what I did. Anyway, I took notes on their dynamics and the hierarchy of their friendship structure in a totally normal and not at all creepy or problematic way. Should we be admitting to this on Radio 4? We didn't do anything wrong. We just wanted to know how friendships work, so we embedded ourselves in a group of our peers, openly analysed their comings and goings, keeping

extensive notes on their behaviour. It was anthropology! I was like that lady who was in the mist with the gorillas. It was weird. I'm autistic. You have autism. My findings were as follows. In friend groups, there are tiers. You have your leaders, the alphas of the pack.

They dictate the tone and the future direction of the group. Now, if you want to be in a friendship pack, start mirroring the tone and attitude of the leader, but in a way that's not too obvious. Like, reinforce their interests. I think mixed martial arts are the bomb. Or, Ronaldo is a goat. Or, have you heard that new song by Drake? It's fire.

You'll never usurp this leader because you're weird and a woman and you take notes on people but you can use a tonal echo to trick the war level members of the friendship group into respecting your authority. Is this not manipulation? I don't know.

I don't know how people do this without a plan and instructions. I can't just be myself. People don't like myself. I have to do the steps that I planned in my head beforehand. It's a very fine line between autistic and evil genius. Now, to get in, you need to kind of just be there all the time. You don't necessarily have to speak. I actually found it worked better if I didn't. I would just exist in their peripheral vision. Fight the urge to be over-eager or too nice. Instead, opt to be an agent of neutrality

and only show generosity when it's a one-on-one situation and nobody else can see. I say this with all the love in the world, but I think we need to go to therapy. Then I got diagnosed with autism and the hyper fixation I had on friendship was over. And I realised that the company of other people was exhausting for me. I got bored of studying relationships. I don't know what I'm going to do with those three notebooks filled with mundane information about these friends that sit on my shelves. Maybe I'll write a book. I came to the realisation that while it may not be conducive to gaining popularity, I find solace in being true to myself, despite my own difficulties in loving who I am.

I'm Ashley Storey. I'm an adult woman who enjoys looking up mansions on the internet and then building them in the Sims. I eat meals which consist of nibbles, separated in a compartmentalised bowl. Hashtag autistic girl dinner. I don't know what to do with my hair. at girl dinner. I don't know what to do with my hair. I spent lockdown writing a whopping 1.5 million words of erotic fiction that nobody will ever read. I hate shaving. I don't like the music of Drake and I have five friends, two of which are my parents, but the rest aren't ghosts anymore, so that's a good thing. Shout out to John the Ghost, my best friend from childhood,

wherever you are, buddy. Love you. And that was a peek into my very unique brain and an entirely unhelpful guide on how to make friends. The conclusion being, don't. Tune in next time where I'll be counting down my most

criminal relatives by the years they spent in prison. Next up on Radio 4, it's a guide on how to clean your corduroy. I'm kidding. I don't know what's next. Thanks for listening to the Comedy of the Week podcast from BBC Radio 4. If you want more, check out the Friday Night Comedy podcast, featuring The News Quiz, The Now Show and Dead Ringers. I had just fought one guy and I got jumped by his friends. On a summer's night in Glasgow city centre

two childhood friends become mortal enemies. We risked a friendship for one match. I'm Matthew Side and from BBC Radio 4 this is

Sideways. In the first episode of the new season, step into the ring to explore the cost of holding grudges sideways. Listen on BBC Sounds. You're invited to an immersive listening party led by Rishi Keshe Herway, the visionary behind the groundbreaking Song Exploder podcast and Netflix series. This unmissable evening features Herway and Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Gustavo Gimeno in conversation. Together, they dissect the mesmerizing layers of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, followed by a complete soul-stirring rendition of the famously unnerving piece,

Symphony Exploder, April 5th at Roy Thompson Hall. For tickets, visit tso.ca.