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With her mix of standup, TV shows and mental health campaigning, Ruby Wax is a hugely loved and instantly recongnisable cultural tour de force. Ahead of a return to the West End later this month with a one-woman play based on her hugely personal book about mental breakdown, and a talk entitled ‘why we are out of our minds’ at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival on Sunday 22nd, we invited Ruby to be the latest Camdenist Guest Editor…

“It was during lockdown that I felt - like a lot of people did - that one chapter had ended, and I needed to come up with what I was going to do next. My plan was to go on a series of great journeys to try and find meaning in life, and write a book about it.

I did things like a 30-day silent retreat, went to help in a refugee camp in Afghanistan, lived in a Christian monastery…. But when I handed a first draft to a girlfriend, she told me that it was interesting, sometimes hilarious, but not really a book. And then I got ill.

I don’t know if my body chose to do that just to improve the book, but I got depression after 12 years of it being hidden in the closet. So in the play you come on a journey with me using soundscapes and lights, from the incessant gongs of the retreat to swimming underwater with humpback whales, and then it keeps returning to the mental asylum where I was having all these procedures.

I’d been doing all these things I thought would give me faith, give me meaning, but it turns out I wasn’t going towards anything, I was running away from something.

In the second half of every show I run a Q&A session. A one-woman show is an act of narcissism, no question, but it’s nice when people have a chance to say ‘oh yeah, that’s me too’. It helps me feel a little less selfish and greedy about the rest of the show.

That’s also the point where parents tell me they are tearing their hair out and don’t know what to do about their kids mental health issues. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but at least they can air it all.

Society seems to have reached a situation where there are no breaks, just breakdowns. We try to blame technology, but as when Guttenburg created the printing press, I think this type of radical shift in communication had to come. Now we just have to work out how we handle it.

In my talk at HowTheLightGetsIn I’m going to look at the implications of all this for today’s culture. I wrote the book Frazzled about how we can attempt to deal with modern stress through mindfulness. You thoughts are all your own, but do you actually want to take them seriously, or not?

I think that’s the essence of being human: what do you come with? What do you do with it? How do you live with it? We’re entitled - we think we deserved this bullshit called happiness - but actually we’re often just seeking distractions and getting away from who we are.

In all my shows I’m just trying to be as authentic as I can be, to make people feel comfortable. It’s like, ‘I’ve just done a mental striptease in front of you all, so you can do it now because I went first’. I want my audiences to know that we’re all here in the same storm, in different boats.

Ultimately it’s all about awareness, and watching yourself, particularly if you seem to be running in one direction. I think the best advice I can give is just keep an eye on yourself. I’m doing that now, because eventually I’ll need to write another book and something’s gonna have to happen, because I’m not a fiction writer…

Ruby Wax: I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was is playing at the Ambassadors Theatre in Covent Garden September 16th-28th. Tickets and info here.

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MORE FESTIVALS & MUSIC

🥳 The final summer season street fest push

It ain’t over yet. Despite the scary stats of close-on 100 UK festivals throwing in the towel this summer, the local street festi scene has had a bumper year (last week’s shock cancellation news not withstanding).

And it all goes boom again this weekend, with Camden Inspire taking over Buck Street and surrounds, all day Saturday, 7th Sept.

Expect their now trademark mix of strong live music curated by local grassroots venues including Green Note, MAP Cafe and Fiddlers Elbow, plus residents from the big ‘ol Roundhouse, alongside workshops in art, circus, dance, clay and more, a speaker’s corner for poetry and spoken word performances, and lots of locally-sourced street food, too.

🎈 Then this Sunday, 8th, sees the return of the always mightily impressive York Rise Street Party, a local shindig that punches far above it’s leafy backstreet remit. Alongside masses of quirky craft stalls, tasty food and Two Tribes beer-fueled neighbourly bonhomie in and around the Dartmouth Arms pub, they aim to better last year’s attention grabbing live music line-up, too.

That saw the exclusive debut of newcomer band Centrist Dad, complete with MP-turned-TV-star Ed Balls on drums, ITV Political Editor Robert ‘I am the anti-Christ!’ Peston on vocals, and Radio 4 legend John Wilson on bass, with none other than the now-PM Keir Starmer and reborn ex-leader turned net zero champ Ed Miliband bopping in the proverbial moshpit.

For 2024, there’s the political-class-topping promise of, er, Dame Shirley Bassey, Cilla Black and Dolly Parton - or something close enough to ‘um - live on the Cabaret Stage, plus plenty more on offer from local speakers, authors and general wits. It’s essential.

🎻 After much Covid disruption, the London Folk Festival finally returns for 2024 in a new home at The Royal Academy of Music, this Sunday 8th Sept. Artists include Germa Adan, Bird in the Belly and Broomdasher.

FOOD + DRINK

🍖 Kentish Town’s sando sensation opens ‘up West’

You’ve gotta love a home-grown success story, and the stellar team behind Kentish Town Road’s hit Filipino bakery, Panadera, are no strangers to such a fortuitous hospitality trajectory.

Having successfully expanded some of their other NW5-born concepts, such as fusion noodle joint Ramo Ramen, and Manilla-inspired ‘dirty’ ice cream vendor Mamasons into viral West End hotspots, today sees the opening of their celebrated bakery in Marylebone, right next door to Selfridges.

If you’re reading this early enough, there are free drinks for the first 100 customers. If that ship has already sailed, then go for the two new exclusive signature ‘sandos’ - a Panko Aubergine with hummus and mozzarella, that sounds just toooo good, and the purple Ube Toast (pictured above), that harnesses the power of purple yam jam to great visual and no-doubt flavoursome effect.

🥗 Taking of success stories, South London’s fast-expanding Brother Marcus, which does modern Mediterranean brunch and beyond, just opened this week at Covent Garden’s plush The Yards complex.

🍴 And after 22 years away from the capital, sustainable seasonal menu sourcing specialists, Lussmanns, just opened their previously-reported new branch in Highgate Village this week, too.

🚫 Just as a reminder of how tough it is out there in restaurant-land right now, beloved Primrose Hill brunch destination Greenberry Cafe’s Belsize outpost, Greenberry Hill, shut its doors this week, having failed to make a success of their difficult, if still rather lovely, site on the slopes of Haverstock Hill.

🚫🚫 And less than five months(!) after it’s lavish and vaguely ridiculous star-studded launch bash, The Langham Hotel’s Parisian import, Mimosa, has already called it a day. We can only hope there’s a sustainable approach to re-re-doing that opulent interiour by whoever comes next that doesn’t just rip it all out and start (yet) again…

📊 This week's one-click poll

With acclaimed artist (and Gasholders resident) Anthony Gormley going very public about his objections to adding more shops and ‘grab ‘n’ go’ food retailers through the middle of Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, we want to know…

Camdenist Culture Campaign: Update

Still on the topic of railway land history, last week’s guest editor and poll generated our most comprehensively positive ‘landslide’ to date - in favour of Peter Darley’s proposed public opening of Camden’s historic Winding Vaults and catacombs.

See the full results and reader comments in the Community section below. And remember, you can support the work of the Camden Railway Heritage Trust in its quest by purchasing Peter’s new book here.

Meanwhile, if you fancy a brilliant vision of the Winding Vaults as a properly swish bar and music venue one day, check out the work of Royal College of Art student Xihe Chen here ⬇️

WHAT’S ON

🍿 A cinema pops-up in Camden’s old horse hospital

We’ve highlighted some impressive recent pop-ups at The Vanguard, Camden Market’s historic old first floor stables, which have also been home to the historic antiques market, bar/club/art space Proud Gallery, and most recently the Peaky Blinders immersive live show.

Following a stint as the official AC/DC tour ‘high voltage dive bar’ and a number of underground club nights, next up in the building is Camden Cult Cinema, a pop-up silver screen and a world class soundsystem, showing cult classics that celebrate music culture.

Launching on September 18th with the big recent Amy Winehouse bio Back To Black, the season also includes Aretha Franklin movie Amazing Grace, Pink Floyd’s classic The Wall, and a special 40th anniversary screening of the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense (Oct 17th). Unlike typical cinema screenings, that event will transform the space into a dynamic standing gig, recreating the dancing, energy and atmosphere of the original 1984 concert.

Grab tickets now on Dice.

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