and othersLast year, Amy Dowden felt a lump in her breast the day before her honeymoon. She knew right away. Her body instinctively knows when something’s not right, and it was a moment she couldn’t ignore. “I felt a bit sick,” the Strictly Come Dancing regular, now 34, tells the camera. “So I went to the doctor and he said, ‘Amy, this isn’t good news. We’ve found something.’ I said, ‘Is it cancer?’ and the doctor said, ‘Yes.'”
The new BBC documentary, Strictly Amy: Cancer and Me, tells the professional dancer’s cancer story and was born out of the fact that a film crew was brought in to help raise awareness of the disease shortly after Amy was diagnosed. The footage, shown in real time, is incredibly raw. It’s like you’re on this journey with Amy, not knowing where it’s going. “When I had to tell Strictly, my first thought was, ‘Keep working,'” Amy grimaces, stretching her hands to rub her eyes. “Because that was what scared me the most.” Looking back, Amy later said that her initial fears were naive.
For the next hour, we watch Amy take each difficult step: her early mastectomy, her decision to undergo aggressive chemotherapy despite being told it would double her chances of keeping the cancer from coming back, her visit to the fertility doctor after being told that chemotherapy could affect her remaining eggs.
Despite being broadcast into the living rooms of around 10 million people every year from 2017 to 2022, the Welsh dancer isn’t some unattainable celebrity. She could be your school friend or your child’s primary school teacher. She’s soft-spoken, lives in a normal home and is surprisingly approachable. Watching this film, you’ll almost forget where you first met her. Cancer, the most feared disease of all, can happen to anyone.
The most painful scenes are those featuring her family. Her parents are a pair of sweet-looking people who clearly adore Amy, but tend to put on a brave face in front of their daughter. When Amy tells them the initial lump has nearly doubled in size and is now a Grade 3 cancer, the most aggressive form of cancer, we hear them soothingly on the phone. “Yeah,” they say in unison. “I get it.” Then, “It’s a lot to take in today,” her mother says. “I’m devastated,” Amy says. “And so are you,” her mother replies soothingly. Later, as she rings the doorbell after her final round of chemo, she puts her arms around her parents, who are wearing matching T-shirts. “No one does this alone.” It’s naïve, sure, but it’s necessary in the fight against cancer.
While it may be uncomfortable to watch a documentary on such a sad and frightening subject, this is not a heartbreaking film; it’s uplifting. You can’t help but feel a great sense of hope, as Amy is an incredibly resilient character, and as she should be. Surrounded by friends, colleagues and family, she always has her eyes on the future and rises to the challenge whenever it comes her way.
It’s not easy, and there are plenty of tearful moments when it seems like she’s reached her breaking point, but there’s an unexpected optimism in seeing her get up and move forward – if she can get through this, we can get through anything.
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Still, this is real life, and there are no neat, happy endings to sigh with relief. Recovering from cancer is not easy – mentally, physically, or in everyday life – and there’s often a very real fear that the disease may return. Amy herself says it’s affected her dancing – she’s not as strong or fast as she used to be, and changes to her upper body have meant she’s had to train hard to get back in shape.
But Amy is alive and able to tell her story and the outlook is bright – there are currently no signs of the illness. Next month, Amy will return to Strictly for her seventh year on the show. “It feels liberating,” she says.
