RUBY Wax’s mind “left town” – again and again.

Finally, after years spent grappling with depression and severe breakdowns, she decided to take matters in her own hands and learn how her own “engine”, understand brain, worked.

So she applied to Oxford University, as you do, and enrolled in a masters in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

In this inner sanctum of knowledge she discovered not only the make-up of the brain but the news of the millennium: our minds can be changed for the better. Our genes, hormones

and early learning do not determine our fates forevermore.

“We know so much about how the world works but so little about how our own minds work,” says the comedienne, who has written and performed in a string of TV shows across her career and even acted as script editor for Absolutely Fabulous.

“It’s like having a Ferrari on top of your head but no-one gave you the keys.

“Seeing how the brain works and that the brain can change, that was the find of the century for me.

You can learn to manage it so it doesn’t overwhelm you. We’re not doomed.”

Ruby’s odyssey through the mind began seven years ago when she was ‘outed’ by Comic Relief.

The charity was not entirely to blame. Ruby had agreed to pose for a photograph to help raise funds for the mental health arm of the appeal. She had omitted to enquire exactly what they planned to do with it.

A poster-size picture was soon plastered across tube stations around London, captioned “One in five people have dandruff. One in four people have mental health problems. I've had both.”

“I just thought it was going to be a stamp-sized photo on the back of a magazine. But it was a poster. It was everywhere. I was mortified. It happened to work but it could have been terrible. I had never gone out and campaigned about mental health. I was afraid I would lose my job.”

As she confesses candidly in her book Sane New World she had gone to extreme lengths to hide her battle with depression, actually checking herself out of the Priory to interview mental health patients for a TV programme only to return to the hospital for treatment at the end of a day’s work.

Sane New World, which explores the brain, and, she insists only briefly touches upon depression, draws on the same research notes as her dissertation and was published in 2013.

Much more digestible than said dissertation it is imbued with her trademark no-nonsense humour.

“I’m not than smart but I’m good at translating stuff into bite-size pieces. It’s about the brain, not depression. And it’s about everybody. We live busy lives and our brains get overloaded. We don’t know how to work them. We need to pause, pay attention and get back in gear. It’s about realising ‘I’m starting to burn out.’

“I tried to make the book very funny so that people can really understand it. There are a lot of things I can’t do but I can’t write funny about serious things.”

She went on to write a one-woman show based on the bestseller, which will hit the Wyvern stage on June 16.

Again, prepare to laugh - she left the lecturing where it belongs with her tutors in Oxford. Prepare for some home-truths too, about our manic pursuit of wealth, looks and fame at the cost of our sanity.

“You’re getting a tour of the brain but it’s not a lecture. The only way to deliver serious things is by doing comedy. That’s what comedians are supposed to do, saying this is the way we live and make fun of it.”

Sane New World will come to the Wyvern Theatre on Tuesday, June 16 at 7.30pm. Tickets are £19. To book call the box office on 01793 524481 or visit swindontheatres.co.uk.