Life and times

The comedian on bumping into her ex and teaching MPS to calm down

Ruby wax

Strange things happen tome. a friend from Canada is visiting and we’re tearing down por to bello road when suddenly... ‘ruby?’ a voice from behind interrupts us. i turn and see my ex-husband.

i look around for hidden cameras – surely i’m being punked. it’s been 30 years since i saw him. ‘Why’d you never get in touch?’ i ask.

i’ve always assumed he was upset because i wrote about him in my first book, How Do You Want Me?. i used a pseudonym but everyone knew that it was him. i described how we married for convenience in Las Vegas at a venue for both funerals and marriages. there was as light chill in the air as elvis did the vows; i think he did the funerals too. to make a mends for writing about it without asking him, i invite him for dinner.

two days later, he’s in my house and we are reminiscing about how we met. at the time he was an acting agent and iwa sin the royal Shakespeare Company–iwa sn’ ta great actress thoug hi could play wenches like no one’s business. But in the end he encouraged me to change my career from acting to comedy. i have him to thank for rerouting me.

‘ What about you, what have you been up to?’ i ask.

he says he has been working for a women’s television network in america, making terrible shows like Manicurist

by Day, Trucker by Night. i ask how long he has worked for the network.

‘ninety-seven menstrual cycles ,’ he says.

great to see he is still hilarious.

My daughters are both comedians, so i take a break from my Frazzled tour and travel from dublin to Brighton to watch t hei r joi nt show. they a re called Siblings. not only am i anxious about seei ng my k ids per for m, but it ’s hot a nd i’m laden wit h luggage, which i’ve lugged on and off the plane, through London on the tube and now on to a train. there are no vacant seats so i lie on t he car r iage f loor and fa ll asleep from the heat.

i arrive three hours early. My daughters don’t want me around while they’re getting ready because i am an object of embarrassment, so i head to a park and create a makeshift mattress out of the contents of my luggage, and wake up with a seag ull pecking crumbs out of my hair. ‘What are you doing here?’ asks a bemused stranger. ‘performance art.’ he puts some money beside me.

Finally, show time. i drag my suitcase back through Brighton to see my daughters perform. i’m terrified. Will people laugh? thankfully, t hey do. i can breathe again.

One Week Later i am in parliament giving a talk on stress in the workplace.

Mps, along with the rest of us, are stressed to them ax, and i think it’ s incredibly open-minded of them to acknowledge that times are tough and work out how to think clearly in such a frazzled climate. Being aware of your stress is the first step, rather than pret ending everything is fine when it’s not. if you do this, people can tell you’re bluffing, but if you speak the truth they trust you.

Ruby Wax will be performing her onewoman show, Ruby Wax: Frazzled , at the Underbelly Edinburgh Fringe from 10 to 12 August and nationwide from 16 October to 3 December (rubywax.net)

I wake up in the park. ‘What are you doing here? ’ asks a stranger. ‘Performance art’