#ruby wax

[noel-fielding-web-page]

#Noel Fielding #Frank Skinner #Greg Davies #Aisling Bea #Aled Jones #Ruby Wax #Richard Osman #Room 101

[hbcsource]

@billie_charity: Some behind the scenes pics from @hayfestival 😍

#helena bonham carter #samuel west #ruby wax #appearances #2023 #appearances: 2023 #hay festival 2023

[hankhill420]

Obligatory “does this bird belong to you?”

Also I just noticed the Freud and Somïnex on the bedside table… hm

#shock treatment movie #shock treatment 1981 #shock treatment #richard o’brien #ruby wax #Charles gray #Christopher Malcolm

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

Girls on Top ♀️

I finally watched Girls on Top (starring Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ruby Wax, Tracey Ullman, and featuring Joan Greenwood). My immediate thoughts were: wow, the title graphics and theme tune are extremely '80s. They feel so old! They're kind of almost cute in how old and nostalgic they are. Also, the board saying "COMEDY DEGRADES WOMEN" that appears briefly in the first series' opening credits before Dawn's glaring face is revealed amused me.

I can see why for marketing reasons this was dubbed the female version of The Young Ones. That must have been an almost guaranteed way to attract viewers in 1985. In fairness, Girls on Top is about four young women sharing a flat (well, three once Tracey left after the first series due to pregnancy). As well as this, Dawn's character (Amanda Ripley) and Jen's character (Jennifer Marsh) can definitely be directly compared to Rick and Neil, respectively. The two groups share similar struggles of paying the rent, the four of them are very different and don't get on, and the last episode ends with a bang. The central set in both shows too is, of course, the shared living space.

That said, Girls on Top isn't a cut and paste female Young Ones, for a number of reasons. It isn't as surreal, has a more developed outside world for its characters to exist in, isn't about students, and I believe the fourth wall is only broken occasionally - at the end of episodes, which is arguably just the actors half breaking character to address the audience. Girls on Top was also made for ITV, not the BBC, which I'm sure will have had an impact too. I think the differences to TYO are a good thing, to be honest.

Anyway, though Girls on Top takes a few episodes to warm up, I liked it. The contrast of personalities between the characters works - the way Ruby plays Shelley DuPont compared to the way Jen plays Jennifer feel at opposite ends of the comic spectrum at points, but both work perfectly for the characters. I always appreciate sitcoms where women are allowed to be flawed and awful people, rather than stock types for the funny male characters to play off. Girls on Top is very much about women; if it wasn't obvious through all the regulars being women, you can tell by the jokes and references to periods, feminism, diets, etc. Amanda in particular is a self-righteous, man-hating, second-wave feminist (and a massive middle class hypocrite - you can see the obvious comparison with Rick 😂). I guess you could say, while The Young Ones is about young people, Girls on Top is about women. Obviously, it's not that the characters in Girls on Top aren't young (although, they're not meant to be as young as the lads from TYO... apart from Mike), but the fact that they're women is more integral to the premise.

In the same sense, The Young Ones' characters all being men doesn't seem to be something the show chose hyper specifically. Man was and still is the default over woman, so the specific choice TYO made was to have a sitcom about young people; the fact they all happen to be men is secondary to that, though not at all surprising. Of course they're men. The experiences of young men are the default young person experiences, right? The experiences of young women have to be defined by their Womanness before their Youngness, right? That's a very stripped down way of putting it, not even addressing other important social factors like race and class, but you get what I mean. Interestingly, Lise Mayer has talked recently about how she thinks, retrospectively, they could have had one of the main characters in TYO be a woman but that at the time the characters were all written for the specific comics who played them, who were all men (again, apart from Mike 😂). Obviously, the dynamic between men VS the dynamic between men and women (especially if the split is notably uneven) would make for different comedies, particularly back then, but it's still an interesting thought.

To get back to Girls on Top, I think I'd have to say my favourite character is Jennifer. She is very dim and absolutely the group punching bag, like Neil, but I think the fact she doesn't go out of her way to look for sympathy makes her more sympathetic than Neil (and Neil isn't NOT sympathetic, as much as any of the lads are meant to be sympathetic, it's just he's also a passive aggressive bastard too 😂). In the final episode, when she finally gets the opportunity to get one over on Shelley and Amanda, we're on her side. Her obliviousness in the face of other characters' - particularly Shelley's and Amanda's - overinflated egos and neuroses means she gets a fair few punchlines, as well. I mean, how does one respond to their bossy, melodramatic diva of a housemate threatening to off herself?

SHELLEY: Now, leave! I've decided to commit suicide!

JENNIFER: Alright then, if you're sure you're okay.

Amazing. 😂

I'd say this show is worth watching if you're into the "alternative comedy" cohort. Aside from the main quartet, almost every episode features a familiar face as a guest star. Some of the guest stars even appear in multiple episodes (Helen Lederer, Pauline Melville). Here's a YouTube playlist featuring the first series, from the same account that ended Hardwicke House's 30 years of obscurity:

#girls on top #me rambling #dawn french #jennifer saunders #ruby wax #tracey ullman #the young ones #tyo

[sweetness-doesnt-touch-my-face]

Please enjoy this priceless exchange between two ICONIC manic depressives, Carrie Fisher and Elizabeth Wurtzel.

#carrie fisher #elizabeth wurtzel #ruby wax #bitch in praise of difficult women #bipolar queens #90s talk shows #the ruby show #1998

[hislopchino]

Paul Merton, Ruby Wax, Clive Anderson, and Angus Deayton at The British Comedy Award Ceremony in 1992

Photo by Neil Munns

#Photo #Angus Deayton #Paul Merton #Clive Anderson #Ruby Wax

[jackbatchelor3]

SU2C Gogglebox

#Gogglebox #Gogglebox UK #SU2C #SU2C 2022 #Stand Up To Cancer #Stand Up To Cancer 2022 #The Ramseys #Charlotte Church #Luke Evans #Tom Daley #Dustin Lance Black #Scary Spice #Ruby Wax

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

#ruby wax #srk #shah rukh khan #Bollywood #Mafia

[avengersome]

No idea if this will post properly but this made me laugh.

From Ruby Wax’s Instagram.

Samuel West, Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Williams rehearsing at Hay Festival.

#samuel west #helena bonham carter #olivia williams #ruby wax #hay festival

[d-i-x-i-t]

How come every other organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy, except the brain?

Ruby Wax

#Ruby Wax #Ruby Wax quote #life #life quote #sick #mental #mental health

[donnahinkleystaceytroy]

#ruby wax

[usunezukoinezu]

‘‘I’ve had a mental love affair with a lot of women. I realised the power of interviewing when I became friends with Carrie Fisher. It connects you for life.

I’m not into religion. But I would have liked to have faith, because it gives you an automatic community.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt is to tolerate humiliation and envy. Both those emotions threw me.

Even if you don’t think you’re talented, keep going. I didn’t think I had a gift, but I didn’t stop pushing. It’s not a female thing to do but you have to.

If you have an insecurity, you don’t need to share it with other people. You’ll go down.’’

- Ruby Wax

#Ruby Wax

[sweetness-doesnt-touch-my-face]

Elizabeth Wurtzel on the late-night talk show, "Ruby" on BBC 2.

Air date: 29th July 1998.

#elizabeth wurtzel #lizzie wurtzel #prozac nation #bitch in praise of difficult women #ruby wax #1998

[strqyr]

writing ruby & blake as partners: it's about protecting your inner child, keeping the spark of hope alive no matter the odds, there are no answers only the desire to make the world a better place than it was yesterday. two beautiful flowers, one with thorns and the other highly poisonous. every light needs its shadow for it to not be blinding and every shadow needs its light to not get lost in the darkness as silver meets gold.

writing weiss & yang as partners: 'oh, not you again' part TWO!! fire and ice, the princess and the dragon, two opposites to such extremes and so stubborn that no one thinks it will work. but, after lots and lots of bickering, somehow... it does. they find a common ground, learn to compromise, the ice melts a little as the fire cools off, the bickering turns into teasing and oh boy do people wish they had stayed a bickering mess focused on each other bc one wrong step and still, the ice bites and the fire burns, except this time it's not just one of them, it's both.

#vitalis au #for ruby & blake it's waxing poetry at every corner #for weiss & yang it's like. a little bit of poetry under the surface— #the poetry is for them and THEM alone it does not leave their circle— #the rest is chaotic energy upped to eleven

[evanjadams]

wax carvings! by me

#jewelry #wax carving #wax casting #casting #fine jewelry #silver #gold #gemstones #emerald #ruby #diamond #topaz #tigers eye #amethyst