10 April 2024 – Nina, Evie and Bo’s Mum, Diane, grew up in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art, and around this time met Ade, a cool, slightly older, out of towner who was visiting. They soon married, partly as an act of rebellion, partly because their landlady refused to rent a room to any couple living in sin. While Diane had an easy relationship with Bo, Nina was more difficult. Diane was the one who noticed that Nina might be different. Despite this insight, Nina has always been a challenge for Diane, and she’s never been able to have the same easy connection that Ade has with Nina. It was Nina’s diagnosis of autism that led Diane’s career as a psychotherapist.

In your own words, what is Dinosaur about?

Dinosaur is about a lovely girl who is autistic and it’s really about her family life and her relationship with her brother, sister, her friend and her mum and dad. Basically, how she sees the world.

Tell us about your character Diane? What kind of mum would you describe Diane as?

Diane is just quite middle class, a little bit eccentric, but she’s a trained psychotherapist. She’s married with three children, there’s all these things that aren’t me. She’s obviously highly intelligent, that’s the same obviously. Very chaotic though, I love the fact that what she does and how she, in a way, fails to be able to deal properly with her daughter is like all parents that seem to put their children in pigeonholes. It’s like ‘Oh, Evie’s so gorgeous and she’s met a guy and she’s going to get married to him in six weeks and that’s okay, you know.’ That’s what Evie’s going to achieve, but Nina ‘Oh she’s an academic, she’s a paleontologist. She won’t need to have a boyfriend; she’s probably going to stay at home with us and that’s it.’ Again, she’s got them in a box with all the good intention, but our expectations are kind of low in different ways for our children, but I think parents do that. I love the fact that no matter how intelligent or educated you are, you still can fail as a parent in the nicest possible way.

Do you have a favourite moment or scene within the series?

There’s a moment at an engagement party which turns out to be a very up tight tense affair where we’re all trying to be something we’re not to impress Sachin, played by the wonderful Sanjeev Kohli. We’re liberal and come as you are and he’s just so uptight, so high end, artistic, intellectual, academic, pretentious and it all goes horribly wrong in the most beautiful way. He’s completely deconstructed and gets pied in the face, metaphorically, as it were. Then we all in turn get custard pied, but it’s just this lovely big mess, but then the reality is born from that mess. So, it was a lovely and very funny scene to do, watching everybody at play.

Were there any standout moments from filming?

There’s going to be an on camera funny moment when I’m getting into a pair of spanks. I’m kind of dreading that but looking forward to it because I’m just thinking how funny is that going to be? I just hope it’s not too grotesque for the viewers so that’s been on my mind, the spanks scene.

I’ve had to say a few expletives. I say had to, but they didn’t have to twist my arm — so that is so lovely, it’s quite brutally frank, the Glasgow banter, I would say. It’s quite sudden, can be quite aggressive, but the warm heartedness underneath that takes the sting out the tail. I was really really happy to see ‘bawbag’, it’s a personal favourite of mine in the script, I won’t mention any others because I don’t want to give any spoilers away but it’s just lovely. It will be interesting to see what American audiences feel about that, I just hope there will be a little handbook of Glasgow banter being translated because that’s a particular favourite of mine.

What has it been like filming Dinosaur in Glasgow?

Every location that I’ve been in Glasgow has been the west end and I have to say Finnieston, Kirkcaldy University, Kelvingrove Park. Every time there’s been a setup, it’s been all over the west end of Glasgow and it really is extremely gorgeous with the blonde sandstone, the Victorian architecture. It looks stunning and then obviously Rothesay, I’d never been, I recommend everybody to go to Rothesay. It’s an absolute jewel in the Scottish crown of places to visit, so beautiful, the people are lovely, all the cafes, the bars —not that we went to many bars, maybe a couple of nights — and the wonderful fish and chips and the ice cream, but just the whole view of the place it’s stunning.

What has been your favourite thing about working with the cast & crew?

Generally, the banter, the stories that have been told when we’re all sitting about in between breaks are – they’re not repeatable some of them – but that’s Sanjeev Kohli for you, you know. The dynamic is that we were becoming an actual real family and very inclusive, slagging each other off already, you know there’s all the banter and ‘I’ve got your number’ kind of thing. A very lovely atmosphere, such a nice place to work and just the right mix, that just sounds cliché, but I just feel like they got the right mix of people together. Niamh, the director, is adorable, that’s a word I would use to describe Niamh. She’s so understanding, she’s so patient and she’s got everything missing but the angel wings. On the set, she helps coax out of us the performances and it’s like ‘Niamh do we need to reign this in? Do we need to make this bigger?’ She just lets us try things, experiment, she does it seamlessly.

Audiences will know you from River City. How different was this to film?

I started out in comedy unit stuff from BBC Scotland anyway, so it’s just your thing you know. It was something that I love to do. So, I think going for straight drama or going for people being really intensely consummate about whoever it is they are and then becoming unstuck, that’s always funny. I think for me it’s the custard pie.

Three words to sum up Dinosaur?

I would say glorious, fantastic and moving.

About Dinosaur

Dinosaur (6 x 30) is a Two Brothers Pictures (Fleabag, The Tourist) production for BBC Three, BBC iPlayer and BBC Scotland in partnership with All3Media International. Dinosaur was commissioned by Jon Petrie, Director of BBC Comedy and Louise Thornton, Head of Commissioning for BBC Scotland. It is based on an original idea by Matilda Curtis. The Executive Producers are Sarah Hammond, Katie Churchill, Harry Williams, Jack Williams. Catriona Renton is Co-Executive Producer. The Director is Niamh McKeown and the Producer is Brian Coffey. The BBC Commissioning Editors are Emma Lawson and Gavin Smith.

Dinosaur will air on BBC Scotland from Sunday 14 April, BBC Three from Tuesday 16 April and BBC One from Friday 19 April.

All episodes will be available on iPlayer from Sunday 14 April. It is also available on Hulu in the US.