Strictly Amy: Cancer and Me (BBC One) is not the first instance of a celebrity documenting their cancer, and won’t be the last. But it is a useful and singular addition to a crowded genre. At 32, Strictly Come Dancing pro Amy Dowden found a lump in her breast the day before her honeymoon.
Aside from the ordeal of illness, she faced the uncomfortable dilemma reserved for anyone with a high profile. As Lauren Laverne may have also calculated only last week, the public is bound to find out, so why not take control of the narrative It’s still quite a jolt to find Dowden opening the front door to a camera crew less than a week after her diagnosis. But she proves an open-hearted communicator with a curiosity to understand every step of the process and, by sharing it, demystify it.
It must have taken genuine bravery to unbutton her top and show fellow Strictly dancer Dianne Buswell her reconstructed breast, let alone allow the camera to take a peek too. Or, from the least flattering angle, to record the evidence of her hair coming out in handfuls.
Tears are never far from the surface in this story, either for Dowden or her thoroughly wonderful dad Richard or for the viewer. (Her husband, Ben, also a dancer, seems understandably shyer about the whole process.) When she cracks a rare smile – after the harvesting of five eggs for later fertility treatment, or whipping off her wig at the last minute to read out the T&Cs on Strictly – it feels as elemental as sunlight piercing heavy black clouds.
Beyond the cancer itself, and the fear that she may not have children, the darkest hour comes after she posts a dance video with family and friends to unveil her freshly shaved head, prompting a trollish minority to accuse her of narcissism. “You’re not even stage 4,” types one revolting ghoul.
The Wild West of online permits anonymous nastiness to sprout like the most malignant cancer. Yes, she’s a performer, and performers feed off audiences, but anyone still convinced Dowden made this thoughtful, informative film for the attention needs to get that empathy bypass reversed.