Artwork for Ruby Wax’s Absolutely Famous with Clive Tulloh, showing Wax holding a telephone in a bubble bath.

Ruby Wax and producer Clive Tulloh revisit the chaotic celebrity interviews that made her one of television’s most unpredictable stars in a hilarious, candid and occasionally uncomfortable evening at Oxford Playhouse.

At a glance

ShowRuby Wax: Absolutely Famous
Reviewed atOxford Playhouse
PerformanceThursday 3 September 2026
On stageRuby Wax and Clive Tulloh
FormatArchive interview clips, behind-the-scenes stories and an audience question-and-answer session
VerdictA funny, revealing and surprisingly thoughtful look back at a wilder age of celebrity television
Tour informationSee the remaining Absolutely Famous dates

Ruby Wax has always understood that the most memorable celebrity interviews are partly controlled accidents.

She interrupted, improvised, embarrassed herself and occasionally appeared to lose control of the encounter completely. Crucially, she also persuaded people who were used to carefully managed publicity appearances to lower their guard.

In Absolutely Famous, Wax and her long-time friend and producer Clive Tulloh return to the programmes they made together and reveal what was happening behind the cameras.

The first half combines archive footage with stories from the making of Ruby Wax Meets and Full Wax. After the interval, the audience is invited to ask questions.

At Oxford Playhouse, the result was frequently hilarious, occasionally toe-curling and considerably more reflective than a simple compilation of greatest hits.

A wilder era of celebrity television

The list of people Wax interviewed remains extraordinary. It stretches from Goldie Hawn, Carrie Fisher, Danny DeVito and Tom Hanks to Madonna, Pamela Anderson, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby and Imelda Marcos.

The famous names are part of the attraction, but the evening is strongest when it explores why these interviews worked.

Wax and Tulloh described a television culture in which a celebrity encounter could last for hours, days or sometimes longer. Rather than being given a tightly controlled five-minute slot, Wax had time to build trust, irritate her subject, change direction and wait for something unplanned to happen.

There was rarely a fixed script. Wax explained that she knew the background of the person she was meeting but often created the precise questions in the moment.

That lack of a visible safety net gave the programmes their sense of danger. An interview might become intimate, absurd, hostile or all three within a few minutes.

Wax and Tulloh contrasted that approach with today’s celebrity publicity circuit, in which answers are frequently negotiated, repeated and polished before an interview begins. Wax dismissed many modern celebrity responses as “beige”, a description that drew knowing laughter from the audience.

Her recollections of interviewing Sarah Ferguson during a period of intense tabloid scrutiny showed how much access the pair were once able to secure. It was not simply the subject’s fame that made the footage compelling, but the vulnerability Wax could sometimes uncover beneath the public performance.

Other stories were gloriously ridiculous.

Clive’s attempt to persuade Tom Hanks to laugh at everything Wax said, including the material that was not especially funny, was one of the evening’s highlights.

There were also memories of Wax talking her way into appearing as an extra on Baywatch, inspecting Imelda Marcos’s vast shoe collection and wearing an item from Madonna’s wardrobe on her head.

These episodes sound improbable when retold, but that was precisely the appeal of Wax’s television. The audience never quite knew whether they were watching a serious interview, an elaborate joke or a genuine breakdown in communication.

More than a nostalgic clip show

The relationship between Wax and Tulloh gives the production its warmth.

Wax described him as “the sperm to my egg”, adding that without his influence she would either have had no guests or ended up in jail.

Behind the joke is an effective description of their partnership. Wax supplied the speed, risk and unpredictability. Tulloh found the contributors, negotiated the access and kept the production moving when her instincts threatened to send it over a cliff.

On stage, that dynamic remains intact. Wax is restless, candid and liable to follow a thought wherever it leads, while Tulloh provides a drier and more measured account of what happened.

The second half is naturally looser because it depends on questions from the audience, but unpredictability suits Wax. Her answers move quickly from comic exaggeration to frank reflection and back again.

Importantly, neither she nor Tulloh treats the archive as uncomplicated nostalgia.

Several clips are uncomfortable to watch now. Encounters involving Bill Cosby and Donald Trump carry a different weight in hindsight, while the strained exchanges with Madonna offer a reminder that Wax’s approach did not work with everyone.

Wax admitted that parts of the footage now felt “totally humiliating”. That willingness to acknowledge failure prevents the evening becoming self-congratulatory.

She does not airbrush her younger television persona or pretend every provocation was inspired. Instead, she recognises the gurning, the eagerness to entertain and the occasions when her own discomfort became part of the spectacle.

That honesty gives the show more substance than its promotional premise might suggest.

Absolutely Famous is partly about the celebrities Wax met, but it is also about fame itself: what prolonged public attention does to people, why some remain recognisable beneath it and why others disappear into the image they have created.

It also captures a form of television that would be difficult to reproduce now. Greater care, accountability and safeguarding are not bad developments, but something genuinely spontaneous has been lost amid the layers of management surrounding modern celebrity culture.

Verdict

We laughed from beginning to end, but the evening stayed with us because it was not merely funny.

It offered a revealing portrait of a performer looking back at her most successful work with affection, embarrassment and a clear understanding of its contradictions.

Wax remains wonderfully quick and completely unfiltered, but there is considerably more to her than the abrasive television character preserved in the archive.

She is intelligent, brave, complicated and strikingly willing to expose her own mistakes. That combination makes Absolutely Famous more than a parade of celebrity anecdotes.

It is an entertaining examination of how interviews work, how fame changes people and how one deliberately chaotic partnership produced television that audiences still remember decades later.

Ruby Wax was a delight: funny, fearless and impossible to predict.

Verdict: A riotously entertaining and unexpectedly thoughtful return to a less controlled age of celebrity television. Catch the tour if the opportunity arises.

Ruby Wax: Absolutely Famous full tour dates

The Oxford performance has now taken place, but Absolutely Famous continues around the UK, Isle of Man and Ireland until May 2027.

Ruby Wax appears alongside her long-time friend and producer Clive Tulloh, revisiting footage from programmes including Ruby Wax Meets and Full Wax and sharing the stories behind some of their most unpredictable celebrity encounters.

DateTown or cityVenueBooking
Tuesday 6 October 2026LondonSoho Theatre WalthamstowTickets
Wednesday 7 October 2026LondonSoho Theatre WalthamstowTickets
Friday 9 October 2026HerefordThe CourtyardTickets
Wednesday 14 October 2026NewburyCorn ExchangeTickets
Thursday 15 October 2026WorthingPavilion TheatreTickets
Friday 16 October 2026BridportElectric PalaceTickets
Tuesday 20 October 2026CreweLyceum TheatreTickets
Sunday 25 October 2026Douglas, Isle of ManGaiety TheatreTickets
Tuesday 27 October 2026HarpendenEric Morecambe CentreTickets
Wednesday 28 October 2026BuxtonBuxton Opera HouseTickets
Saturday 31 October 2026EastbourneDevonshire Park TheatreTickets
Tuesday 2 March 2027SouthportThe AtkinsonTickets
Wednesday 3 March 2027MoldTheatr ClwydTickets and availability
Thursday 11 March 2027Potters BarWyllyotts TheatreTickets
Friday 12 March 2027HorshamThe CapitolTickets
Saturday 13 March 2027PortsmouthNew Theatre RoyalTickets
Saturday 20 March 2027HornchurchQueen’s TheatreTickets and availability
Thursday 25 March 2027PrescotShakespeare North PlayhouseTickets
Friday 26 March 2027PrescotShakespeare North PlayhouseTickets
Thursday 20 May 2027SligoHawk’s Well TheatreTickets
Friday 21 May 2027LimerickLime Tree TheatreTickets
Saturday 22 May 2027CorkThe EverymanTickets
Sunday 23 May 2027DublinVicar StreetTickets
Tuesday 25 May 2027BelfastMandela HallTickets
Wednesday 26 May 2027BalbrigganThe Lark Concert HallTickets
Thursday 27 May 2027GalwayBlack Box TheatreTickets
Friday 28 May 2027WaterfordTheatre RoyalTickets

Tour dates and ticket availability can change. Check the relevant venue or Ruby Wax’s official tour page before travelling.

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