Arriving in Britain from the United States in 1977, Ruby Wax began her acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She went on to write and perform in her own hugely popular television programmes for the BBC and Channel 4 and was Script Editor on all series of Absolutely Fabulous. She has also worked as a stand-up comedian.
She has a Masters degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy from the University of Oxford and spoke at TEDGlobal. Ruby has become the poster girl for mental illness in the UK.
Ruby has been a prolific and prominent television personality, presenting BBC’s Ruby (1997-2002). The Ruby Wax Show (2002) and Ruby Wax’s Mad Confessions from Channel 4 in 2012.
Ruby regularly speaks of her keenness to normalize mental health by talking openly about it. She describes her experience of trying to keep anxieties under control, but finding out she simply couldn’t cope after becoming famous. Her show Sane New World revolves around the fact that one in four people suffer a mental health problem at some time in their lives.
Sane New World: Taming The Mind, Ruby’s non-fiction work on mental health and mindfulness, was published by Hodder on June 6th 2013 and is a Sunday Times No. 1 Bestseller. The paperback was published in 2014. A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled was published 7th January 2016 by Penguin Life.
In 2017 Ruby appeared on BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are?
“Ruby Wax was the latest celebrity to rummage around in her ancestry… what unfolded was a gut-punching story of Jewish persecution and mental illness.” – Michael Hogan for The Telegraph.
