Beeny lets us follow her on the whole ‘rollercoaster’ of cancer treatment, urging us to be fearless – without ever shying away from what she fears the most
You may know Sarah Beeny from her property shows, or her New Life in the Country, and you may see her as a sleeves-rolled-up, can-do, get-on-with-it sort of person. Sarah Beeny vs Cancer cracks open a window into a more personal area of her life. In August 2022, Beeny was diagnosed with breast cancer. At first, she thought she might keep it to herself and not go public with the news, but in this hour-long documentary about her diagnosis and treatment, she explains that she realised making a film about it might help her, and might help anyone else going through it, too.
The film starts three weeks after Beeny’s diagnosis. She has three lumps in her left breast, she explains, which are grade 3, “the most active type”. Beeny’s mother died of breast cancer at 39 and much of this film sees Beeny exploring her own treatment while comparing it with what her mother went through 40 years earlier. “I’ve spent 40 years waiting to be told I have breast cancer,” she says, while still joking with the camera crew that they didn’t know what sort of film they were letting themselves in for.
