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Your body does try to warn you. It just depends whether you can read the warning signs.” Alex Kingston is talking about cancer. More specifically, her own recent, earth-shattering experience of womb cancer. The actor hasn’t spoken publicly about it before, but her 2024 was dominated by a shock diagnosis and subsequent recovery. “I had a major operation,” she says frankly. “I had to have a hysterectomy, I had to go into radiation therapy, and that took up a huge part of my life.” Her treatment only finished towards the end of last year.
It is astounding, really, considering the Doctor Who star is currently competing in the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing. The training schedule is notoriously gruelling, requiring a level of fitness that would be supremely challenging for most 62-year-olds – let alone a 62-year-old who’s just overcome the big C. But more than that, Kingston looks in incredible shape.
Two weeks into the iconic BBC show, she and professional dance partner Johannes Radebe have already delivered a gloriously dramatic Viennese Waltz to “Cry Me a River”, Kingston swoon-worthy in a floor-length red gown with her signature golden curls smoothed into soft, 1940s waves. Last Saturday saw her snap into the Samba swathed in multi-coloured frills to the jaunty strains of “La Bamba”. Though she describes the experience of learning a complex routine in just three days as “intense”, she’s clearly loving every minute. “I feel like Superwoman,” she tells me – and I believe her. There’s an aura of buoyant, unquenchable energy emanating from this woman.
It’s all in stark contrast to this time 18 months ago. “I had assumed that the way I was feeling was old age, and I just sort of accepted it,” Kingston says over Zoom. Clad in a grey sweatshirt, lioness-like corkscrew curls framing her face, she looks the picture of health as we chat during a break between rehearsals. “I thought, ‘OK, this is what it’s like to be in my sixties.’ But a lot of how I was feeling was to do with my illness.”
Kingston had been experiencing bloating and achiness for years. It wasn’t until she noticed blood in her urine that she sought medical help – but even then, “I never went down the cancer road in my head,” she admits. “It was a shock, because I have a very positive outlook on life in general. Even though my body was telling me there was something very seriously wrong, I kept thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got a bad UTI or fibroids.’”
Then, while doing a play at Chichester Festival last summer, her body sent her a message that couldn’t be ignored. “That night on stage, I haemorrhaged,” she says. “That was really shocking.” She was thankfully wearing a big Tudor dress and knee pads at the time; “I just knocked my knees together and prayed that it would soak everything up.” It’s a macabre tale – we both chuckle darkly at the black humour of it all – that perhaps perfectly epitomises the old adage “the show must go on”.
“The wardrobe women were incredible,” she adds. “I ran off stage and said, ‘Grab me some pads!’ We shoved some pads in my pants and I went back on stage and carried on. That was how we finished the show.”
Kingston was advised to wait until the six-week run was over before undergoing further tests and investigations at her local hospital once she’d returned home. Though she was blindsided by the eventual diagnosis, she was “lucky” – the cancer was in her fallopian tubes but hadn’t spread to the ovaries. Moreover, the treatment turned out to be not just lifesaving, but lifechanging. “Despite having gone through all of that – and any cancer is really tough to accept, to steel yourself to go through all of the necessary procedures to get back into health – the minute I had the operation, I suddenly felt like myself again,” she says. Kingston realised she “hadn’t felt like that for years”.
Her main guidance for other women is to not ignore it when they feel out of sorts. “Womb cancer is really tricky because it is so sneaky,” advises Kingston. “What I would say is, the body does know – and that was the body saying to me, ‘Help! There’s something really wrong.’ It’s so important to seek advice and have a check-up.”
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There’s nothing like a health scare to put things into perspective; there’s nothing like coming face to face with one’s own mortality to make seizing the day feel urgent. Though sobering, Kingston’s experience with cancer is the real reason she said yes to Strictly – something she’d dreamed of doing for years. “When they approached me, I thought of that cliché: life is too short,” she says. “Go for whatever it is you secretly long to do, because if you’re not brave and you don’t do it, it won’t happen.” And, really, what’s the worst that could happen? In the case of Strictly, you might get voted off. “So what? You’ve done it. You’ve proved yourself.”
It’s why Kingston isn’t particularly fussed about how far she gets in the competition; determined to “live in the now”, she’s taking it one dance at a time. Though she would, she confesses, like to stay in for Radebe’s sake. “He’s putting so much effort into me – I would like to get as far as we can because I think he deserves it.”
I may not have all those parts that are about fertility and childbearing any more, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still functioning down there!
She’s been inspired, too, by another professional dancer on the show: Amy Dowden. The 35-year-old has undergone her own very public health struggles, having first been diagnosed with Grade III breast cancer in 2023. Following a mastectomy and various setbacks, she was told there was “no sign of the disease” in February 2024 and returned to Strictly this season (though sadly she and celebrity partner Thomas Skinner went out in week one). “The very first time I met her, it was the day that all of the contestants met the dancers,” recalls Kingston. “They walked into the room and looked like gods and goddesses. But I went and found Amy and gave her a hug and said, ‘I’ve been through it.’ I told her how incredible she is, how strong and brave she’s been.”
Kingston is also conscious that she’s repping not just herself, but older women everywhere. The former ER star is here to prove that “age is not a barrier and that we are still fully functional and vibrant”. During a recent appearance on ITV’s This Morning, Kingston put it even more bluntly, telling a slightly bemused Cat Deeley: “We’re not dead below the navel!” The actor bursts out laughing at the very mention of it: “Bizarrely, that came out of my mouth because I had just had my hysterectomy and I no longer have a womb. It was an analogy that nobody else really understood. But I understood – because I may not have all those parts that are about fertility and childbearing any more, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still functioning down there!”
It’s a laudable goal to strive for visibility in an industry notable for its rampant ageism, particularly when it comes to female actors. Kingston famously called out ER after her character, British surgeon Elizabeth Corday, was dropped from the medical drama in 2004 following more than seven seasons. “Apparently, I, according to the producers and the writers, am part of the old fogies who are no longer interesting,” quipped the then-41-year-old. Have things improved since then?
“I think it has got better,” she muses. “I mean, the very fact that I’m still working… I was already older when I got the job on Doctor Who as River Song [Kingston was in her mid-forties when she was first cast]. I’m the age of Matt Smith’s mother! It definitely has changed.”
The pressure to stop visibly ageing, though, has not. At least if half of Hollywood – Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Kris Jenner et al – are anything to go by. But again, Kingston’s recent health journey has made such strivings feel a little, well, frivolous. “My attitude has changed since I’ve had my diagnosis, because there’s part of me that doesn’t care so much about that,” she says. “There are far more important things in life than how am I looking, or can I still be cast as a 40-year-old? Of course you can’t! Get over it.”
She’s breezy, too, when it comes to social media – mainly because she has no truck with it whatsoever. “I could be cancelled and I wouldn’t even be aware of it,” Kingston says blithely with a shrug, when I ask whether we’re too quick to judge each other these days. It’s somewhat ironic, considering she starred in the Steven Moffat-penned ITV drama Douglas is Cancelled last year, which saw Hugh Bonneville’s presenter-of-a-certain-age fall foul of the online mob. “I stay away from it all,” she explains serenely. “I like to keep my own life private. In a sense, you can take the power out of cancel culture if you don’t actually join in. You don’t have to engage. You’ll actually have a much simpler life.”
The only exception to her mistrust of social media is Strictly, during which she’s happily meeting her contractual obligations by using it to connect with fans. But don’t expect to see her popping up on your Insta after that – even if it may feel mandatory in our influencer-obsessed era. “There is pressure; all the actors that get work nowadays are the ones who have huge numbers of followers, and that’s what casting producers often look at,” Kingston says ruefully. “I want to be cast because of my ability, my talent – not because of how many followers I have. I just won’t play that game.”
Working on Douglas is Cancelled had the added benefit of bringing Kingston back into the professional orbit of two fellow Doctor Who alumni: Karen Gillan, the Doctor’s assistant during Matt Smith’s tenure, as well as former showrunner Moffat. Both have been in touch to say they’re rooting for their ex-colleague on Strictly – Gillan has even said she’ll fly over from the US – and they’re not the only ones. “Matt Smith left me an amazing voice message,” says Kingston fondly. “He’s really hard to get a hold of, so for him to suddenly message me, I must be doing something right! Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat… They’re all obsessed. The Doctor Who gang is on the ball.”
All these years later, her former ER castmates are also in her corner. Laura Innes, who played hospital chief of staff Kerry Weaver on the series, is currently in England shooting the third season of Apple TV’s dystopian future drama, Silo. “I’ve already told her she has to come and watch me dance,” Kingston says excitedly. “I said, ‘Laura, I’m going to put you in the front row!’”
And with that, it’s time for Kingston to get back to rehearsing the quickstep – she can’t disappoint her legion of fans, after all. I comment again on how amazing she is to be handling such a physically demanding challenge less than a year after completing cancer treatment. But she’s not having any of it.
“The thing is, it isn’t amazing. We can all do it. It’s just having the belief that you can do it and going for it.”
I nod along politely, but I don’t really believe her. She is a bit amazing, actually.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ returns on Saturday 11 October
Specialised womb cancer organisations:
The Eve Appeal is a national charity that raises awareness and funds research for all five gynecological cancers, including womb cancer. They also offer a support service called Ask Eve. eveappeal.org.uk
Peaches Womb Cancer Trust is a UK charity focused on funding research, raising awareness, and providing support to those affected by womb cancer. peachestrust.org
Womb Cancer Support UK is an organisation established to support and inform women diagnosed with womb cancer and raise awareness of the disease. wombcancersupportuk.weebly.com