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Brit funny girls can't hold
a candle to the acid queen of interviewers. Jan Goodey turns
the tables.
It's got to be one of the
trickiest things to accomplish: being an American performer
and gaining true acceptance over here. We're a discerning
public, unforgiving, and determined to make Johnny Foreigner
walk that extra mile. But with her shock of auburn hair,
bright red lippie and in-yer-face attitude, Ruby Wax has
managed to insinuate herself into the very fabric of our daily
lives, so much so that we just can't ignore her. With that
much cheek, it's hard not to laugh either. And it's not just
her charisma in front of camera, she's also been the brains
behind such TV classics as Not The Nine O'Clock News and
Absolutely Fabulous, scriptwriting her way to notoriety. It's
here that her ballsy eccentricity really came into its own and
didn't we just love it! She's best-known for the celebrity
interviews though, (Ruby Wax Meets...), where she won't shirk
from awkward put-downs, once asking extras on a Baywatch set,
"Do you speak? Or do you just have breasts and therefore
you are?" This kind of cutting one-liner has made her.
Lesser imitators may try for the cheap laugh, but Ruby goes
straight for the jugular everytime: she's a comedic Paxman.
And what a breath of fresh air,
when so much American TV is formulaic shows like Rikki Lake
and Friends, where you end up feeling: hey, aren't they're
flogging a dead horse here, there's no bite in what they do.
It's all too comfortable, crass even: seen one, seen 'em all.
Yet with the audience numbers these shows attract surely some
controversy could be injected somewhere along the line.
Hollywood's not much better. They've even taken to changing
the course of history in films like U-571. It turns out it was
the Yanks who cracked the German's Enigma Code during the war
and not the Poles and Brits after all. These films bolster
insidious and commonly-held beliefs that America polices the
world as a moral superior. Arabs are depicted as
fundamentalist fanatics, taking on the mantle of the baddies
once reserved exclusively for Russia. Anyone with a gun and an
American accent comes out on top - simplistic? You bet, and if
you've seen any of the recent blockbusters, tell me different.
But back to Wax; hovering at
around 50 - she never gives her true age away - she's been
married three times, twice for work permit reasons, and has
three kids: "My kids are so straight, so English, they
say thank you, thank you, thank you, all the time". Born
in Chicago to Austrian/Jewish parents she's as American as
pastrami on rye, with extra mustard. But you won't catch Ruby
peddling the same mediocrity as most of the American TV we get
over here. She's multi-dimensional and sharp enough to cut
through all that bland American kookie-ness, which others buy
into wholesale to boost outrageous financial rewards. How much
is Rikki Lake worth a series or Jennifer Anniston an episode
of Friends? £1m, £2m?
Wax came to Britain in 1977 and
later trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company, but she
didn't shine. Having the film flop Water (1985) on your CV
hardly makes you the next Maggie Smith. However it's her
brassy, loud-mouthed characters who hold sway in TV shows like
Comic Strip Presents..."Wild Turkey" (1982) and the
sit-com Girls On Top (1985), where she starred alongside
French and Saunders playing loud American Shelley Dupont,
dying for a career in acting. Art imitating life? Not really,
she's found her niche and it's late-night chat shows,
occasional cameos on the silver screen and big-name
interviews. This is the woman who single-handedly pulled in a
viewing figure of 14.8 million viewers by making a monkey out
of the then Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson - locking her out
of her own home and rummaging in her underwear drawers! But
it's not just froth, she can hold her own on more serious
topics and in a late-night slot Ruby! (BBC, 1998) showed as
much, quizzing Joanna Lumley, Helen Lederer and Boy George
amongst others.
If ever there was a paradox
here it is: a mainstream American comedian ploughing a very
British furrow. She's Barbara Windsor with brains. But with
her unique and highly unpredictable train of thought she's
more than just a carry-on.
Ruby Wax is Stressed at the
Theatre Royal, New Road, Oct 22, 7.45pm and The Hawth,
Crawley, Oct 24, 8pm.
copyright New Insight 2000
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