The Funny Life Of...

Julia Sutherland meets comedian Ashley Storrie for a personal and detailed look at her life, revealing some of the hardest moments a person can face, and how she has used comedy as a form of release.

Julia Sutherland meets comedian Ashley Storrie for a personal and detailed look at her life, revealing some of the hardest moments a person can face, and how she has used comedy as a form of release.

Ashley was a born performer, and growing up above a pub with a gangster family and a father with Aspergers Syndrome means she has more personal drama to draw on than most other comedians.

Aged seven, a family death and ensuing feud saw her flee home, losing everything other than a few belongings stuffed into bin bags. Unable to tell anyone what was happening, she isolated herself further from classmates at school.

With such an unconventional childhood, it is perhaps no surprise that in 1999, she became the youngest ever stand-up to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe, aged just 13.

Losing the desire to do comedy, as puberty caused her to hide away in her room, it was over a decade before she got back on stage, where she belonged.

Her love of the fantasy worlds of Harry Potter and Star Trek are hints of a little girl who never wanted to grow up, but her worldly-wise intellect means her perspective is mature and incisive.

Now she's become an online star, with a recent video garnering over 24 million hits, and she's also found peace with herself.