This 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.
