Simply Alex Kingston

In hindsight, Kingston realises she had been experiencing health niggles for a while: “Dietary issues, bloating, things I thought were gluten intolerance or IBS – I just assumed this is what happened when you entered your 60s,” she explains. But nature issued a stark warning when she haemorrhaged on stage at Chichester Festival Theatre during a performance of The Other Boleyn Girl in 2024.

“Luckily, I didn’t have any lines in the scene, which was about the very real risk Mary Boleyn could die in childbirth. And suddenly I’m thinking, ‘What on earth is going on underneath my dress?’ It was like I was giving birth myself. I just knocked my knees together and hoped that I wouldn’t leave a trail of blood as I left the stage. I had three minutes before I had to be back on again, and I shouted, ‘I need pads,’ which we stuffed in my pants. Then I went back on stage.”

She saw her doctor the next day, who sent her for a scan that highlighted an abnormality. She had surgery as soon as the theatre run finished. “It seems that with uterine cancer, the body does warn you, and the moment I had my hysterectomy, and I had come through in recovery, I felt better. My husband [television producer, Jonathan Stamp, whom she married in 2015] looked at me, and said, ‘I can’t believe it, you already seem so much better.’”

A cancer diagnosis affects people in different ways, and Kingston’s decision to join Strictly Come Dancing in 2025, pairing up with Johannes Radebe, was driven by her renewed lease of life. “I’m an optimist, but let’s just say I jumped at the chance of doing Strictly because of having had cancer. Now I literally felt like the person I used to be, so full of energy.”

The series wasn’t without its challenges. Kingston recalls that during one performance, her rib “popped out”, but she continued dancing, being carried along by the endorphins. “Then I got a stomach bug and vomited it back into place!”

Joining Strictly in the wake of bullying allegations, she had an insider’s view and was there when hosts, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, announced they were quitting, a decision which came as a shock even to the professionals. “We were rehearsing, and Johannes is like me, bad at social media – but in the lunch break, his phone was pinging,” she says. “He thought it was a joke, someone starting a false rumour. We were all perplexed – there had been no indication.”

While Strictly has been making headlines again over a cull of pro-dancers, Kingston confesses she has only positive feedback to offer. “When I started out in theatre, it was a place where everybody was there for one another. Now people are nervous, thinking, ‘Will I be cancelled if I hug someone?’ In the world of Strictly, we were like a clutch of puppies – everybody was hugging one another, with people walking around in various states of undress. But we were all in it together, and it was so refreshing. Today I’m desperate for this play to be over so I can go back to [dance] class. I literally could go into the rehearsal room every single day with JoJo [Johannes] for the rest of my life.”

Kingston was born in Epsom, Surrey, the daughter of Margarethe and Anthony, a butcher. There are eight years between her and her youngest sister, Nicola, who also trained as a performer, with their sibling, Susie, in the middle. Susie is physically and mentally disabled, due to being deprived of oxygen at birth, and was cared for at home until Margarethe developed Alzheimer’s aged 82. “Our living arrangements are such that neither my sister nor I could have Susie live with us full-time, so we found a nice [care] home, which is near Nicola.”

A fluent German speaker who spent every school holiday visiting relatives in Europe, Kingston – who made her professional debut in Grange Hill in 1980 – credits early family life for firing her theatrical passion: “My mother’s brother in Germany is an actor. He’s a bit like me, a workaholic, but I was too young to see the plays, so I’d go beforehand to his dressing room and then backstage. It was a child’s fantasy, and that’s what triggered it for me.”

Having met Ralph Fiennes at drama school, and marrying in 1993 after a decade together, the relationship broke down following his affair with Francesca Annis. They divorced in 1997, the year she then moved to the US to work on the hospital drama, ER. When I ask whether this offered her a fresh start following the relationship breakdown, Kingston politely sidesteps the subject, but concedes: “I wasn’t particularly happy [living in America] to begin with. It was a massive change, and I kept thinking I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. I was walking around going, ‘Where’s the culture in Los Angeles? Where are the historical buildings?’ I felt like I was in some sort of giant mall. So it took me a while to adjust and find my sense of humour and get on with it.”

She also suffered a bout of impostor syndrome: “I kept thinking, ‘They’ve made a mistake, and they’ll soon realise it.’ I was convinced that after the first season, I would be told that my contract would be terminated. I was so expecting that to happen. And in fact, it was renewed, and I felt very much embraced by and welcomed into that family. I loved ER, but the workload was intense.”

Kingston left the show in 2004. Despite a suggestion at the time that she felt pushed out, citing “ageism”, she now says: “All the people I had storylines with had gone, and I was aware the writers didn’t know what to do with my character. I was sad that it was coming to an end, but it did need to.”

She remains friends with cast and crew. Laura Innes, who played fellow physician, Kerry Weaver, came to watch her in Strictly, while she says she frequently bumps into Noah Wyle, who is now back in a different ER heading up HBO Max’s The Pitt, in airports: “He can still remember pages of ER dialogue, and not just his own!”

While in the US, she gave birth to her daughter, Salome, in 2001, who was born with the help of IVF during her second marriage to journalist, Florian Haertel, and is now following in her mother’s footsteps at drama school. Kingston and Haertel divorced in 2013, and two years later, she married Stamp after the pair met on a remake of Ben Hur. The decision to return to the UK in 2019 was made for a mixture of reasons, not least to ease her husband’s work restrictions, and to offer her own family more help.

“It was obvious my parents [who have since passed away] needed support”, explains Kingston, “and I didn’t want my sister to be the only one doing that. Also, Salome had gone through her initial education, so she was moving on. I’d been commuting to do Doctor Who, which is such a long journey back and forth. So it made complete sense that we made that shift to the UK.”

Kingston’s association with Doctor Who has continued, through audio productions and writing River Song novels. With the series currently in stasis following the departure of its lead, Ncuti Gatwa, would she consider taking on the role of the Doctor herself? “I don’t think so, although anything’s possible,” she laughs. “I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on with Doctor Who right now. I’m just going to stand back and let it play out. But I’d come back in if they asked me to. I’d hear that clarion call.”

She certainly has a Time Lord’s mentality. “I intend to be here till at least 102,” she tells me. “I’ve always wanted to live life to the full, and I think that is a reaction to my sister’s disability. A twist of fate happened when she was born and completely altered her life. So it’s something that I hold quite close to me – if you’re given that chance, live your best life, don’t waste a second. I’ve always felt like that, way before my cancer diagnosis. Don’t leave it till it’s too late.”