Judith Lucy cannot get a cold. A few hours before I\u2019m due to meet her for a walk around the rose gardens and classic conservatory of the St Kilda Botanical Gardens, a stone\u2019s throw from her home in Melbourne\u2019s south-east, the beloved comedian is on a telehealth call from the front seat of her publicist\u2019s car.<\/p>\n
Her doctor needs to go over the results from the previous day\u2019s scans to confirm everything is looking good \u2013 good enough to perform the double mastectomy they have planned for Friday, three weeks after she was diagnosed with breast cancer<\/a>. The cancer isn\u2019t appearing anywhere else on the scans, she learns, but a compromised immune system going into surgery would throw the whole thing out of whack. So with the blustery wind and grey skies at our backs, we retreat into her home instead. The walk up and down the hallway, from the front door of her lovely weatherboard cottage to the neat living room at the back will have to make do for our very short walk.<\/p>\n Lucy opens the door holding hospital paperwork, stapled stacks of invoices and forms. When I ask how she is, she warbles, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got cancer!\u201d with that unmistakeable intonation she has delivered punchlines in for her entire career.<\/p>\n For all her openness \u2013 in interviews like this and on social media \u2013 Lucy wasn\u2019t planning on sharing her cancer with the world. But the diagnosis landed a week before the release date for her latest book, Well Well Well \u2026 My Wellness Odyssey \u2013 a book years in the making. Initially envisioned as a romp through Lucy\u2019s life spent dabbling in experimental therapies, spiritual rites and the wacky shit that can serve as punchline or revelation, the hard-working performer suddenly found herself suffering from severe burnout. Lucy had announced her retirement from standup in 2022 and moved back to her home town of Perth. Once burnout set in, the remedies in the book that had started as good material were suddenly necessary for a woman genuinely searching for a way to feel a bit more well.<\/p>\n Lucy intends to focus on the greatest hits of wellness: nature, movement, spending time with friends and quieting her mind. Photograph: Charlie Kinross\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for the book, I probably wouldn\u2019t have [talked about the cancer],\u201d she says. \u201cI would almost certainly have come out the other side and then done a show about it.\u201d But a rapidly impending book release requires you to talk, and Lucy is such a self-confessed \u201cbig mouth\u201d it never could have stayed a secret. \u201cI was never going to pretend \u2026 So now look out Australia, you\u2019re going to hear more than you bargained for!\u201d<\/p>\n More than you bargained for coming from the person who has been thoroughly documenting the process of undergoing faecal transplants is quite something. She is a live wire, launching herself off the couch, all limbs and gravity-defying curls, to spread herself across the floor to paint a picture of how that procedure required her to drag her upper body towards the TV to wait for the daily foot-long syringes of a stranger\u2019s poo to do their job. \u201cI remember saying out loud, as you occasionally do when you live on your own, What have I done to deserve this?!\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Sunday morning<\/a><\/p>\n It would take a lot to stop one of the country\u2019s hardest-working comedians. Lucy has barely paused since The Late Show made her a household name in the early 90s: three decades of national standup tours, radio gigs and a run of television and film credits that includes Judith Lucy\u2019s Spiritual Journey and a stint as the resident \u201cwellness expert\u201d on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. She has published three memoirs since 2008 and starred in Samuel Beckett\u2019s Happy Days in 2023. \u201cI only had two modes of being: either busy or off my face,\u201d she writes in Well Well Well \u2026 \u201cI was a burnout case waiting to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy offers me a drink and starts making herself a cuppa. She has moved all the teabags and cups to a low drawer \u2013 after the surgery, reaching the high cupboards won\u2019t be possible for a while. There is a sweet pink box on the kitchen counter containing half a dozen tit-themed cupcakes. Iced in pink, each with a raisin on top. \u201cThey\u2019re gluten-free!\u201d she says, requesting a photo be taken of her holding them up in front of the real thing. \u201cI will do the classy thing of posting this on the day.\u201d<\/p>\n She is feeling quite at peace about only having a couple more days with her breasts. There is no great sense of loss or tragedy and any crumbs of fear she is hiding well. If the choice is between dying and not, she says, what\u2019s a couple of boobs? Right now, she is not planning reconstruction. \u201cEven five years ago I probably would have gone for it. But right now \u2013 I\u2019m 59 in a minute \u2013 I just can\u2019t be fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy has built a career on turning pain into material. In Well Well Well she writes: \u201cWhen I found out that I was adopted, after a horrendous family fight on Christmas Day at the age of twenty-five \u2026 I was doing a routine about it within the month. I didn\u2019t take time off when my father disowned me by fax and dropped dead six weeks later. Instead, I wrote a show about it and toured it around the country \u2026 Many years later, when it turned out that the man I thought I was going to grow old with had been stealing money from me for over two years, once I stopped hyperventilating, I wrote a show about that too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Gosh, there\u2019s nothing like hearing the word cancer to make you go, \u201cI really do need to make the most of every day.\u201d\u2019 Photograph: Charlie Kinross\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Lucy didn\u2019t just dive into wellness to research her book \u2013 she has spent 20 years trying just about every alternative therapy, psychotropic drug and offering from oddballs with aura cards at Sunday markets. Yes, she sees the comedic potential there but there is also a part of her genuinely looking for answers. \u201cI try to go in with an open mind. There\u2019s a little voice of hope in there too, especially when I was feeling pretty terrible, [saying] Maybe this will work. But as soon as it goes to shit, then it\u2019s straight into let\u2019s write some gags about it.\u201d That was the case for a self-help book she once read that insisted a vagina should be called a \u201csacred space\u201d and a penis a \u201cwand of light\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markIt would be great to have a year or two where I went, \u2018I\u2019ve got nothing to say\u2019<\/p>\n Right now, the thought of having to find the story, the hook, the punchline of her illness \u2013 right after navigating a burnout so extreme it made the previous years of constant insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome and chest infections look like a walk in the park \u2013 is low on the list of priorities for Lucy. Her commitment to the bit is waning. \u201cMy whole life\u2019s been really good fucking gear and I\u2019m a bit over getting so much material out of my life. It would be great to have a year or two where I went, \u2018I\u2019ve got nothing to say.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n With this next innings stretching out in front of her, she is pledging to focus on the greatest hits of wellness: nature, movement, down time, actually spending time with her friends, quieting her mind. \u201cGosh, there\u2019s nothing like hearing the word cancer to make you go, \u2018I really do need to be more mindful. I really do need to make the most of every day.\u2019\u201d The days of sacrificing just about anything for work are behind her, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of my Catholic upbringing, I will never be involved with an organised religion. But all of the Buddhist stuff about dealing with the mind just makes damn good sense. The Buddha was big on saying, \u2018See for yourself.\u2019 It\u2019s all about: you need to work out what your experience is. Don\u2019t take anyone\u2019s word for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Meditation will stay, too. She has booked herself in for a 10-day silent retreat over Christmas. Unlike the strict and demanding Vipassana she experienced, on camera, for the 2011 ABC series Judith Lucy\u2019s Spiritual Journey, this one is a bit more relaxed; you get to go on walks.<\/p>\n Over the next few days, she will take it easy. There is a podiatrist appointment and a bit of \u201cpacking and repacking for the glamorous hospital stay\u201d. In between, \u201cwith the help of some prescribed and not prescribed THC oil, I have just been doing a lot of staring at walls. That\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n A friend suggested her sequel to Well Well Well be a chronicle of the next part of her life. Call it The Wellness Years, only this time \u2013 plot twist \u2013 Lucy does get to actually be well.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s a good plan. Might not be a very interesting read, but it would be nice to experience.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Well, Well, Well: My Wellness Odyssey From Psychics to Psychedelics and Beyond by Judith Lucy is published by Scribner ($36.99)<\/p>\n In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue<\/a> on 1300 22 4636 and Lifeline<\/a> on 13 11 14. In the UK, the charity Mind<\/a> is available on 0300 123 3393. In the US, call or text Mental Health America<\/a> at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judith Lucy cannot get a cold. 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