Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

Ruby Wax's Mad Confessions (2012x28)

Date de diffusion: Juil 23, 2012

Ruby Wax campaigns to bring down the stigma that surrounds mental illness, supporting and meeting people who've been brave enough to discuss their mental health conditions. Audiences remember Ruby Wax as the larger-than-life comedian. Now her career has taken a different turn: 'I've become the poster girl for mental health,' she says. Building on the success of her mental health stage show, during which the audience is encouraged to speak openly about their own experiences, in this documentary Ruby campaigns to break down the stigma that still surrounds mental illness. She wants to support people who choose to stand up and be honest about their condition, and follows three successful businesspeople as they disclose their mental illness to their employers and, in some cases, their friends. Ruby also takes her cause to the House of Commons to find out the current state of the law, and meets the MPs who recently spoke openly for the first time about their mental health conditions during a parliamentary debate. Ruby's lively celebrity interviews are well known, but this documentary casts the straight-talking actress and comedian in a new light, sharing her own vulnerabilities with humour and warmth, while mentoring and empowering people to open up about their mental illnesses. Ruby also brings a depth of understanding to the subject matter as she is studying for an MA in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness at Oxford University. As well as performing her hit show, Ruby explores her life-long battle with depression and goes back to the places that were important on her journey, including the Priory Hospital. Her husband Ed Bye and her three grown-up children also give their own moving and frank accounts of facing this challenge with Ruby.