Ruby Wax's diary

I'm in Edinburgh at the moment with my show Losing It. It's pouring with rain and it's crap outside. I'm performing every day at 4.10pm at Udderbelly's Pasture, which is an upside-down cow. I can't tell you how upsetting that is. I share a portable toilet with Neil and Christine Hamilton, who are also performing here. It doesn't get much more glamorous than that.

The first time I came to Edinburgh, 20 years ago, I took a show called Wax Acts, directed by Alan Rickman. When we got here there were no posters of me, so I went around Blu-Tacking up my own. Now I stand with my mouth open in front of the huge posters of me and say, 'Do you see how far I've come? I didn't even have to bring the Blu-Tack!'

Losing It is directed by Thea Sharrock. It's not cabaret but my co-star Judith Owen plays the piano with me and sings along. We've both suffered from clinical depression, but the show isn't about mental illness, it's about a collective malaise. Everybody in the audience is somewhere on the spectrum; we're all a bit lost. We've been working on it for two years now, we started out touring mental institutions because we figured that if we could make a schizophrenic laugh then we had a hit. We've been able to do that and people have come out crying with laughter.

The show has led to a bit of a movement. During the interval the audience started talking and we couldn't stop them; it was like they'd been unleashed. Off the back of this we're going to hold forums when we come to London for our five-week run at the Duchess Theatre. Once a week during the day we'll invite professionals from mental health charities to come in to give advice to anyone who needs help. For the opening night there I'll be inviting my old friends Ian McKellen, Theo Fennell and Helena Bonham Carter. They all came to my debut two years ago and I got some good advice from them - I always listen when they tell me what to change.

The last time I caught up with Alan Rickman was at the Harry Potter premiere, which was pretty sensational. He's godfather to my two daughters and they ran straight up to him and Helena Bonham Carter and said, 'Guess who's here? The cast of Made in Chelsea!' There was nothing he could say back to that. Wherever you are in showbiz you'll always get kicked in the teeth.

When it comes to style, I am Helena Bonham Carter at heart. We dress very similarly but she pulls it off better than me - although she did once make something called Pantaloonies, customised blue jeans hand-stitched by her. I laughed when she told me about them but supposedly she was selling them in Harrods.

I see Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French regularly in London. They came to my birthday party in April, which was hysterical. I made them all listen to me singing summer camp songs about canoeing and archery, and got away with it because it was my birthday. It wasn't as bad as my party two years ago: I'd ripped my Achilles tendon without knowing it, so when I bent over to blow out the candles on my big chocolate cake, I couldn't hold myself up and fell face first into it. I couldn't get myself back up so someone had to tear my head out of the icing. Jennifer Saunders peed herself she thought it was so funny.

I was in St Mawes in Cornwall for my holiday this summer. It's the first time I've sat in England in the rain for a holiday and now I know why I usually go abroad. The weather turned from thunderstorms to hailstorms and people were still walking on the beach. I sat inside most of the time and everybody said, 'Isn't this beautiful,' but I just didn't get it.

I was recently invited to The Box nightclub in Soho by David Tang. It was unbelievable. There was a Glenn Miller brass band and Carlos Acosta danced. Sex on legs! I managed to touch him and said something nonsensical about offering one of my organs. He just smiled at me. Russell Crowe was there, but he looked more like a truck driver than the god I'd expected. I didn't bother speaking to him, that's how bad it was. I sat next to Stephen Fry, who arrived in a big pink Care Bear head; he's the real god. Everything he says turns out to be a great line. I'd like to go back to The Box on a normal night because I've heard it gets pretty wild. The one in New York is really decadent. The most decadent it got that night was Hugh Grant joining in the conga.

Losing It is at the E4 Udderbelly at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until 29 August and at the Duchess Theatre from 31 August to 1 October (rubywaxlosingit.co.uk)