From ballrooms to life’s battles
STRICTLY AMY: CROHN’S AND ME BBC1, 7pm
WITH the new series of Strictly just around the corner, this is another chance to see this intimate documentary that first aired in 2020 about one of its most popular professional dancers.
As footage plays of Amy Dowden spinning around the ballroom, she says: “This is how everyone knows me – dancing, smiling, loving life.
“But there’s a side to me no one sees. I suffer from Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition that affects my digestion and causes indescribable pain.”
Amy has had Crohn’s since her childhood and has had to accept that there is no cure.
In this candid film, Amy opens up about her battle with the bowel condition, which she kept a secret for a long time for fear of it overshadowing her success.
But now she shows the brutal reality of living with Crohn’s – sometimes the pain can be so bad she passes out.
At the time of making the film, the 31-year-old Welsh dancing star had been more ill than she had been in a long time.
As she embarks on the busiest professional and personal few months of her life, from the UK Strictly Tour to her debut solo dance show and summer wedding, Amy is hospitalised at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Amy hears about the impact that Crohn’s has had on others, and also discusses the effect it has on her career as a dancer.
She says: “Dancing has pulled me through but it is a battle and I live in fear that what I love the most could be taken away.”