★★☆☆☆
Is it a motivational talk or a one-woman show? As an infomercial for her recently published book on mindfulness and coping with the stress of everyday life, Ruby Wax’s show works well enough. Just to make sure that you don’t forget about investing in a copy, she makes a point of using the flyer on every seat as part of one of her therapeutic exercises.
As a show, it falls flat. Sometimes you get the impression that Wax must have scribbled out the script half an hour before she set foot on the stage. Sitting in a comfy armchair on a bare stage, she asks herself questions from a clipboard, rummages around in her childhood, digs up some likeable OCD tales about her ultra-neurotic mother (think Mommie Dearest in a Mitteleuropean accent) and later, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, dresses up as a Hawaiian hula dancer. Oh, and be warned — the running time is barely an hour and a quarter.
Then again, it would be wrong to judge Wax purely in conventional showbiz laughometer terms. Since going public with her experience of depression she has turned herself into an indefatigable mental health campaigner. What matters, in the long run, is how many people she helps, not how many times she raises a chuckle from an impatient critic. In that respect, the most important part of this evening was the Q&A at the end, when Wax turned into a friendly therapist and let the audience take over the microphone. Most of the questions tonight were not particularly interesting, to be honest, but that is the nature of the game.
The contrast between her new persona and the noisy, fame-obsessed TV celebrity of yesteryear adds a little spice too. If you found her unwatchable in her heyday, you will be glad to discover that the more vulnerable, self-aware Wax is more congenial company. True, the old, pushy Ruby still peeps out from time to time, only now she has better things to boast about.
Box office: 020 7734 2222, to June 24