Friend and TV producer Clive Tulloh introduces Ruby Wax, who by her own admission is ‘Absolutely Famous’. For those of us who are old enough to have followed her career, she needs no introduction to a sold-out audience. Wax is edgy, cringe-worthy, and side-splitting all at once. The duo have had a decades-long working relationship and play bittersweet verbal tennis throughout like an old married couple.

What follows is a trip down memory lane with the aid of risqué clips from previous interviews with the likes of Donald Trump, O.J. Simpson, Pamela Anderson, and Carrie Fisher, who afterwards became Ruby’s close friend.

As we navigate the world of polished instagram-worthy content from overly sanitised celebrities worried about being cancelled (with impenetrable PR teams), it’s refreshing to see once again Ruby Wax’s radical interview style form the ’90s. It’s perhaps more shocking now than it was then. Wax interviewed some of the biggest A-listers and the most controversial names at the time, including dictators. Her trademark style was to get to the truth of each interviewee with a consistent and relentless probing often over a period of days or weeks.

This perhaps is Ruby’s great talent, her sharp wit, earthiness and charisma make her feel instantly like an old close friend and confidante. On the darker end of the sliding scale we see her probing in a way only Wax could – O.J. Simpson. This ended in an impromptu pretend stabbing motion from Simpson towards Ruby in the wee hours when he turns and asks the camera team for a knife, we all gasp. When asked did you ever feel unsafe? She wryly replies: ‘Well no, the producers and camera crew were there at all times, they would have gotten hurt first’. And of course there were also celebrities with whom she couldn’t break the ice. Her interview with Donald Trump long before his presidency was a hard watch. Trump completely shuts her down and kicks her off his private jet when she laughs at him for proclaiming that he will be running for President in the not-to0-distant future.

This was an emotive retrospective on a career that broke ground for every female comedian to follow.

‘Absolutely Famous‘ has finished its run