Ruby Wax BAFTA Craft Awards 1996 opener

[DRW50]

This is a lot of fun, especially the various hotel staff trying and failing not to crack up.

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[DaytimeFan]

I loooooove Ruby Wax. She has transformed her career in the last decade and her work on the brain is fascinating. But her television documentaries and interviews with celebrities at the height of their fame were on par with the best of anyone else. She put so many 'journalists' to shame with what she was able to accomplish.

[DRW50]

What has she been doing? I remember reading about her struggles with depression.

[DaytimeFan]

Well, Ruby's last BBC series ended in 2003, and it sounded like she was pushed out of the BBC, then she had a major depressive episode and went to the Priory Clinic. After leaving the Priory, Ruby was asked by a mental health charity if they could use her likeness for ads about mental health. She agreed, only to discover that the campaign was huge and that her face was all over London, especially in the tube stations...so she set about writing a one woman show called "Losing It" to capitalize on the exposure provided by the mental health campaign, which she performed in the West End, throughout England and, finally, for Priory patients, to much success.

She also received a Masters in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford a year or two ago. She then embarked on creating a new one woman show, "Sane New World," all about mindfulness and the brain, while also writing a book, of the same name, which became a massive bestseller (I loved it personally). She's toured "Sane New World" in LA and New York and South Africa and Australia and the UK and Ireland. She did a documentary for Channel 4 about mental health, "Ruby Wax's Mad Confessions," which I also loved. All of this culminated in a TED Talk:

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She's also kept up her collaborations with Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, she's been the script editor for every episode of Absolutely Fabulous and was a big part of the recent 20th anniversary episodes. And she's still married and raised three kids who are now university aged. So she's done just great and is a helluva woman.

[DRW50]

Thanks! Very concise recap. I'm glad she's doing well. It's a shame the BBC tosses so much top talent.