Dinosaur season two review – a hilarious, heartwarming comedy

The second series of Dinosaur opens on the Isle of Wight — a mere seven-hour drive and ferry ride away from our heroine’s beloved Glasgow. Nina (Ashley Storrie) is eight months into a dig, homesick and missing Lee, her almost-sort-of boyfriend who used to make her morning coffee outside the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

Asked to stay another year, she must choose between the dig and a meet-up at the exact midpoint between the Isle of Wight and Glasgow, setting off the madcap rush (in a very slow buggy) to a park bench in Knutsford. At first glance the show covers familiar sitcom territory — loving yet dysfunctional families, regional quirks, farce and the cringingly cute will-they-won’t-they strand.

That so-called normality is undercut by Nina’s autistic perspective: her autism is both fundamental to every scene and not what the series is about. In that balance, Dinosaur feels fresh among recent shows centring autistic people and largely avoids thoughtless stereotypes.

United Kingdom, Glasgow, Knutsford, Isle of Wight

dinosaur, ashley storrie, nina, glasgow, knutsford, isle-of-wight, autism, sitcom, kelvingrove, dig