ruby wax new tour

Ruby Wax: I'm Not as Well as I Thought I Was

Róisín dubh comedy presents ruby wax: i’m not as well as i thought i was, thu 17 oct, 8pm live at the everyman.

After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand-new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed sell-out tour, How to Be Human .

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution. Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

★★★★ “Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy” – The Times ★★★★ “A fascinating hour in the company of a survivor” – The Telegraph

Running time  120 min | Interval

Age recommendation 16+

Trigger Warnings  none

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Ruby wax announces new tour dates.

After a sold-out run in 2023 and enormous demand, Ruby Wax and Impatient Productions have announced 2024 dates for her most raw and funny stage show yet, ‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’, with over 30 new dates added and more to be announced.

Laced with humour and based on her bestselling book of the same name, in the I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was stage show Ruby reflects back on a series of life-changing journeys she undertook in search of meaning – swimming with humpback whales; embarking on a 30-day silent retreat in California; joining a Christian monastery – that ended up taking her in a very different direction. After ten years, Ruby’s depression resurfaced, and at the start of 2022 she was admitted to a mental health clinic.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution. Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

Directed by Alison Summers, the show sees Ruby subvert our stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding mental health and happiness in her most honest, compelling and vulnerable performance yet.

Ruby Wax is a successful comedian, TV writer and performer of over 25 years. Ruby additionally holds a Masters’ degree in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University and was awarded an OBE in 2015 for her services to mental health. To date, Ruby has sold over one million copies of her books worldwide. She is the author of books Sane New World and A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled and has toured all over the world with the accompanying one-woman shows. Both books have reached the number one spot on the Sunday Times bestsellers list, along with a third book, How to Be Human: The Manual. In March 2017 she launched Frazzled café in partnership with Marks & Spencer and held daily sessions online at Frazzled.org during the coronavirus lockdown.

More information and to book tickets visit: rubywax.net, impatientproductionsuk.com

Nationwide tour dates:

1 May 2024 – Anvil, Basingstoke 2 May 2024 - Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury 3 May 2024 – Courtyard, Hereford 4 May 2024 – Old Vic, Bristol 22 May 2024 – Dorking Halls, Dorking 23 May 2024 – Sub Rooms, Stroud 28 May 2024 – Royal & Derngate, Northampton 29 May 2024 – Playhouse, Nottingham 30 May 2024 – Crucible Theatre, Sheffield 5 June 2024 – Pavilion, Bournemouth 6 June 2024 – Playhouse, Salisbury 7 June 2024 – Ashcroft Playhouse, Croydon 11 June 2024 – Gardyne, Dundee 12 June 2024 – Pavilion, Glasgow 13 June 2024 – Tivoli, Aberdeen 20 June 2024 – Civic, Chelmsford 21 June 2024 – Regent Theatre, Ipswich 28 June 2024 – artsdepot, Finchley London 29 June 2024 – Warwick Arts, Coventry 30 June 2024 – Lowry Quays, Salford 1 July 2024 – City Varieties, Leeds 4 September 2024 – Palace Theatre, Southend 5 September 2024 – Pavilion, Worthing 12 September 2024 – Derby Theatre, Derby 13 September 2024 – New Theatre, Cardiff 14 September 2024 – Lyric, Carmarthen 19 September 2024 – Swan, High Wycombe 20 September 2024 – Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds 28 September 2024 – Royal Spa (festival), Leamington Spa 24 October 2024 – Theatre Royal, Winchester 26 October 2024 – Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells 2 November 2024 – Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham

Picture credit: Charlie Clift

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After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax 's rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘How To Be Human’.

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Ruby Wax: I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was review – wandering towards wellness

Soho theatre, London This one-woman play aims to dramatise Wax’s globe-trotting spiritual quest but gets sidetracked into anecdote

T his isn’t what she usually does, Ruby Wax confides in the preface to her show; this is a play. And so an expectation is set that I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was does not, alas, meet. This autobiographical show is a companion to Wax’s recent memoir , recounting her worldwide adventures in pursuit of enlightenment, which lead our narrator – unexpectedly – to a mental health clinic. The ingredients are here for a telling narrative, in which Wax’s outward searching gives way to an inward quest. But those ingredients aren’t assembled effectively, in a show that too often feels like one disconnected globe-trotting anecdote after another.

Those anecdotes – told by Wax in pink pyjamas, with an office chair, table and laptop for a set – can be entertaining in themselves. Whether struggling with the strictures of a meditative 30-day retreat in Marin County or taking up residence in a Yorkshire monastery – but not so much, understandably, when rescuing Afghan refugees – wicked, self-mocking Ruby knows how to raise a smile. But even then, the quality of the jokes is distinctly variable: see “I shit myself” as the punchline to two separate tales of whale-watching in the Caribbean.

The problem is that Wax has set the compelling opening scenes of her play (directed by Alison Summers) in the clinic where she’s receiving treatment for severe depression. The globetrotting stories are told in flashback, which invites us to parse them for clues to her mental condition – clues that are seldom forthcoming. That makes all the comic detail Wax stuffs in (character sketches of macho whalers; random trips to the doctor; relieving herself by the side of the road en route to a book reading) feel extraneous.

There’s no great revelation about our host’s mental ill-health, but more detail about its origins in her parents’ flight from the Nazis, and her harsh upbringing in the US. Wax concludes with a statement of her own rootlessness (“wherever I’m standing is my home”), which makes some retrospective sense of the meandering paths the show has trod. At the time, though, it does feel like a lot of meandering.

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Ruby Wax: I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was

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After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘ How To Be Human’. 

★★★★ ‘Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy’ – The Times

★★★★ ‘A fascinating hour in the company of a survivor’ – The Telegraph

Ticket Price

Full Price: £26

Dates & Times

• Date:  Sat 26 Oct 2024 Time:  7.30pm Book Now

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Sun 30 June

Ruby Wax - I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was

After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘How To Be Human

Additional information

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Ruby Wax announces more tour dates

About how she sought happiness... and ended up in a mental health clinic

Ruby Wax has announced another 32 dates for her tour, I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was, based on her memoir of the same name. 

In it, she recalls a series of life-changing journeys she undertook in search of meaning – swimming with humpback whales; embarking on a 30-day silent ​retreat in California; joining a Christian monastery.  

But it did not stave off her depression, which resurfaced, and at the start of 2022 she was admitted to a mental health clinic.  

She says: ‘The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. 

‘I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution. Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.’

» Ruby Wax tour dates

Published: 13 Dec 2023

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Ruby Wax: I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was

After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand. “The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution. Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.” ‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘How To Be Human’. Director & Artistic Collaborator: Alison Summers Set Designer: Bob Crowley Sound Designer: Eleanor Isherwood Lighting Designer: Matt Eagland Photo Credit: Charlie Clift

Show 70 minutes; Interval 20 minutes; Q&A 30 minutes

Age restriction: 14+

Event Details

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Wed 12 Jun 2024

The Pavilion Theatre

★★★★ Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy

- the times, ★★★★ a fascinating hour in the company of a survivor, - the telegraph.

Get your tickets for Ruby Wax: I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was

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Ruby Wax: I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was

• Date & Times
• Teams & Cast

After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax's rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘How To Be Human’.

Age guidance: 14+, strong language

Dates & times.

‘Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy.'

The Telegraph

'A fascinating hour in the company of a survivor.'

Team & Cast

• Director & Artistic Collaborator: Alison Summers
• Set Designer: Bob Crowley
• Sound Designer: Eleanor Isherwood
• Lighting Designer: Matt Eagland

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On stage. on tour. online, ruby wax: i’m not as well as i thought i was.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was loo king for.”

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Ruby Wax: I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was

• Thursday 13 Jun 2024
• Tivoli Theatre

After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax’s rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet announces brand new dates for 2024, thanks to enormous demand.

“The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution.

Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘ How To Be Human’. 

★★★★ ‘Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy’ The Times

★★★★ ‘A fascinating hour in the company of a survivor’ The Telegraph

Director & Artistic Collaborator: Alison Summers

Set Designer: Bob Crowley

Sound Designer: Eleanor Isherwood

Lighting Designer: Matt Eagland

Important information

Age – 14+

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After a complete sell-out first run in 2023, Ruby Wax's rawest, darkest, funniest and most compelling stage show yet is coming to Ireland in Autumn 2024, due to enormous demand.

‘I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was’ is Ruby’s first tour show in four years following her critically acclaimed, sell-out tour, ‘How To Be Human’. 

Ruby Wax said of this new show: “The original idea behind this show was based on the extreme journeys that I wanted to take in order to find an antidote to living a frazzled life. Along the way I wanted to find meaning, peace, happiness – the stuff we’re all chasing. However, after some transcendent experiences, I ended up in a mental institution. Obviously, I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

“Deeply thoughtful and resolutely frothy” - The Times

“A fascinating hour in the company of a survivor” - The Telegraph

Tuesday 22nd October 2024

Ruby Wax : I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was

Tuesday 22nd October, Town Hall Theatre

DOORS: 19:30 | SHOW: 20:00 | AGE 16+

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