Why isn't there more neurodivergent comedy on TV?

Lorelei Mathias has some suggestions to help get these unique stories to screens

It’s great so many comics are exploring their neurodiversity at this year’s Fringe. But representation of ADHD, autistic or dyslexic voices in the TV industry remains disappointingly low. Brilliant stories, from trail-blazing minds that see the world in a unique way are not getting told. As the Edinburgh TV Festival kicks off tomorrow, it’s time to ask ‘why’?

The answer is simple: unlike other marginalised communities, the way we are under-represented is exacerbated by the very thing that makes us different: our brains. They don’t work in the way neurotypical producers and agents are used to. The industry is not built to welcome ideas from screenwriters who may talk a little too much, or miss social cues, or have four hundred ideas a second.

Square peg, round hole

Sure, we’re starting to see the words ‘we welcome applications from neurodivergent creatives…’ on submissions pages which is great. But just saying ‘please apply’ isn’t going to fix the deficit. As my doctor once put it, that’s a bit like inviting someone with an invisible broken leg to walk up ten flights of stairs.

While quotas can help improve inequality for BAME, female-identifying or other underrepresented groups, they aren’t enough here. The solution is more nuanced. We also need to build a ramp. Or to put it another way (because one is never enough with ADHD), if commissioners genuinely want more neurodivergent minds through the door, they need to overhaul the mechanism of the door.

To do that, neurotypical (NT) people first need to understand the reasons neurodivergents – an umbrella term for anyone having a different brain type – are under-represented…

So here’s a little insight into what it’s like to live with ADHD from my own perspective. I mean, I once lost a burrito while I was eating it. Not all neurodivergents can claim that accolade.

ADHD can be funny AF. Leaving the house takes five re-entries, minimum. You lock up. You forget something. You go in to get what you forgot, put something down. Lock up, remember you’ve left that thing. This goes on and on, ad infinitum. It’s as close as you can get to everyday clowning without a Gaulier diploma.

The struggle is clinical

ADHD can also be horrific. The pre-frontal cortex part of the brain that should handle focus, organisation and navigation is deficient in dopamine (so more of a pre-frontal vortex). Think of it as: your brain has no air-traffic-control, so all the thought-aeroplanes keep crashing into one another. Or like you’ve programmed the SatNav but it turns out it’s possessed and keeps changing its mind… also the driver is an orang-utan on acid and keeps turning the wheel and veering off into B roads. Or like you’re writing an article but keep jumping metaphors and saying the same thing in three ways.

How does this make it harder to get a commission? Let me count the ways

We can’t see the log for the trees.- Our thoughts run at lightning speed, in all different directions at once. We see the connection between things, as well as the things themselves. When I write a script, my brain goes down every eventuality of every path of storyline, climbs every branch, every twig. So I can't always see the wood for the trees – or for the forest, let alone the ‘log’-line…
No inner editor. We have great ideas but distilling them into the neurotypical format (logline/one-pager/spartan character count) is sometimes much harder. Also, isn’t that basically the same point I made above? See.
Little temporal awareness. We literally live in another time zone (GMT +2). Things that should take minutes, take hours. The adrenaline of deadlines are the only way we get anything done. But despite our best efforts, scripts will mostly be submitted at 23.59. And almost certainly the wrong version of the PDF.
Poor focus. When you have an idea, there’s another four inside it, nesting like matryoshka thought-bubbles which could burst at any time if you don’t act on them that second. So much so that I actually now live in a state of suspended terror of having new ideas.
We lose stuff. ‘IRL’ and virtually - from scarves on the bus, to documents in Google Drive. I spend three days a month on ‘Lostmin’ - the admin of lost things, looking for and replacing missing items, and wondering if I have dementia.
We can struggle to read the room. Sometimes we know when to stop talking. We sometimes accidentally outstay our welcome - like, how long is this goddam article? We don’t always read social cues, understand small talk or the ‘silent no’.
We find it hard to wait our turn.We live in the gap between worrying we’re interrupting, and the fear our thoughts will melt like a Dali clock if we don't say them in time.

Computer says no

What makes this all even harder is that it’s an invisible condition. When I’m not tangled up in scarves or choking on my iPhone cables, I mostly appear ‘high functioning’ as do most neurodivergents. So it’s hard for producers or colleagues to know.

To make matters worse, we still don’t exist according to most dictionaries. As I write this, the word ‘neurodiversity’ is still being underlined with a squiggly red line, like it’s not even a thing. I mean… what? How is the world going to become more inclusive if Google, Microsoft and Apple think we’re a typo?! More neurodiversity on our screens would be a start. To make that happen sooner, how about we make some ‘reasonable adjustments’ to the process?

How to build a ramp. Some suggestions

ADHD-friendly submission schemes. How about a ‘wood for the trees’ programme to help neurodiverse screenwriters get their scripts seen, even if they haven’t whittled it down to the perfect logline? It could be a programme that invites writers to submit ideas in a less restricted format? As opposed to ‘just upload it to this complicated website that crashes and only tells you the character count once you’ve entered it all and would give a nervous breakdown to even those without impaired executive functioning’. Say.
Co-writer matchmaking. Some writers are great at structure and story but not dialogue, and vice versa. Beat sheets can be kryptonite to someone with impaired executive functioning… but chances are they’ll have whip-smart dialogue and left-field scenarios in spades. How about setting up an introduction service for co-writers with complementary strengths?
Mentoring. Invite established writers to help neurodiverse newcomers with story structure and help editing pitches to be less overwhelming.
See it, be it. Actively hire more neurodiverse commissioners that are able to ‘speak our language’ and help recruit more neurodiverse executives and show-runners.
Flexibility on length. Yes, it’s annoying to open an email or PDF that’s four days long. But with ADHD, cutting and re-writing feels impossible when you have an under-developed pre-frontal cortex. Was Blaise Pascale ADHD? I mean, he totally nailed it when he said: ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time’.
Flexibility on time (as above). Allow a leeway of 30 mins after deadlines to allow for last minute tech-related meltdowns?
Training in different behaviours. With different brain types come different levels of perfectionism, attention to detail, ability to let things go that can come across as more ‘difficult’ to work with. Do agents and producers need to have training in the ways in which clients may display these traits, and be able to be more patient?
Timetables that play to everyone’s strengths. My co-writer and I work relay shifts around when we know each other’s brains are at their best - and it’s never Dolly Parton’s schedule.
Respect boundaries. My co-writers and I always send a brief text when voicenoting, to check if the other has brain space. We know the pain of being brain-jacked when you’ve finally achieved focus on something else!
Tolerate voicenotes. Yes, to some they are the devil’s tool but to some ADHD-ers, voice-notes are a lifeline, as are apps like Otter which transcribe while you waffle. Garry Starr creator Damian Warren Smith swears by them: 'When I need to outline my ideas or visions for a show to my producer, she lets me send her voicenotes, as it would take me so much longer to articulate them in written form.’ My director Peter Lydon and I voice-noted across time-zones while editing our last film. On email or phone that would have taken weeks.

Trailblazers, not typos

As much as it can feel like a disability sometimes, when ADHD is treated and understood, it is also a superpower. In spite of my brain I’ve had books published, made two comedy shows about neurodiversity (both finalists at Edinburgh TV Festival’s New Voice Awards… both uncommissioned, obvs) and won a pass to this year's festival from Comedy 5050 and The TV Foundation.

In between the chaos and the burnout, we have superhuman energy and make shit happen (I don’t say this to brag, but a friend said I was selling myself and other ADHDers short by only mentioning the difficulties)

Some of history’s greatest thinkers have had ADHD. From Albert Einstein to Richard Branson to TV’s Ant McPartlin. As Rory Bremner put it in his BBC documentary: 'People living with ADHD are the shark bait, the ones that go the extra mile and warn others of danger. We’re the ones who take the risks… show others where the possibilities are.’

Think different

TV as a medium has a huge power. It shines a light on areas of life we know nothing about. It helps make visible what has been invisible. As the ones holding the torch, commissioners have a duty to sometimes point it at the harder-to-find places. Sure, things are improving slowly. Last year, BBC Three aired the excellent Dinosaur from Two Brothers, there’s a new agency, Divergent Talent, and writer Jack Thorne set up the lobbying group Underlying Health Condition to champion accessibility in TV. But we've still a long way to go. As Steve Jobs put it, the square pegs are the ones who push the human race forward. So these are voices that need to be heard.

I’m here all week

If any producers, commissioners or fellow neurodivergents would like to chat more about how we can improve things over a burrito, I’m up in Edinburgh for the TV Festival!

• Lorelei Mathias is on Twitter @loreleimathias. Here is a trailer for her Edinburgh New Voice Awards-nominated show Life In ADHD