Ruby: ‘I can never stop trying stuff and experimenting’

Ruby Wax has never been afraid to swim against the tide, finding fame as a comedian and showcasing her sharp one-liners and sarcastic quips on Nineties TV series like Ruby Wax Meets.

She’s been open about her struggles with depression, and in more recent years has become an acclaimed campaigner for mental health awareness.

Even so, her latest cause – trying to persuade us that there is some ‘good news’ and hope to be found, at a time when the world seems beset with gloom and fear – seems a challenge.

“I know what you’re thinking, is it some kind of macabre joke? Has she been in a coma? How can Ruby Wax write a book about good news when the world is facing the worst disaster since the plague?” says Wax, whose book is chirpily titled And Now For The Good News…To The Future With Love.

It’s the result of three years of research by Wax, 67, who visited a huge array of organisations, businesses and communities trying to work in different, kinder ways and promote more people and planet-friendly attitudes.

The pandemic has actually made the book all too timely, she believes, because “we need hope so that we can overcome the fear and the bad news agenda that is besetting us all the time and makes us so stressed. We need to know even more that there are positive things out there,” says Wax, “and what’s possible if we look at the world differently.

nd Now For The Good News… To The Future With Love by Ruby Wax is published by Penguin, priced £14.99. Available now.