Rhod Gilbert opens up about difficult cancer journey ahead of documentary

It was during the first of these, in July 2022, that Gilbert realised he was going to have to let the public know what was going on.

"I’m not a social media person, but I was in hospital and so many people walked past me and pointed, I thought, 'How long can I keep this secret?'" he remembers.

"So that day, I made the announcement that I was having treatment and I’d be disappearing for a while."

This came a few months after his first symptoms – choking, coughing, convulsions, sore throats that wouldn’t go away – had presented themselves, and a defining moment during a fundraising walk for, ironically, the very same Velindre Centre of which he had been a patron for over ten years.

"A tumour popped up on my neck that day," he says. "You could see it, so I got it biopsied, which led to my diagnosis, and then we were off to the races."

Read more:

• Captain Tom: Where did the Money Go? documentary coming to Channel 5
• Rebecca Loos criticises Beckham doc for ‘making her look like a liar’

Those races comprised his initial surgery before three weeks' recovery, providing a sperm sample for ongoing IVF treatment with his wife Sian – "my last chance to knock one out," he grins – then six weeks of chemo- and radiotherapy.

By then, cameras were following him for every session ("except the sperm sample," he adds quickly), Gilbert having teamed up with a documentary crew he’d worked with previously.

"I was lying in bed on the Friday, with my treatment due to start the following Monday. I rang the team I knew – there was no broadcaster on board, it was all on spec – and I asked, 'How would you fancy joining me on this journey?'"

Why did he want to put this experience down on film? Gilbert is refreshingly honest about his motivations.

"It was partly for me. I’d cancelled all my TV work and tours, and I wanted to have something other than 'cancer' in my diary.

"I knew I wouldn’t be well enough to go on stage or TV, but I thought I might be well enough to lie in bed and talk to a documentary team about how ill I was. I thought, 'It will give me something to do.'

"Also, by that point, I’d found out my cancer had been caused by the HPV virus, something we vaccinate kids for. At every turn, I thought, 'I can do something here, which might actually change things.'

"So it was partly for me and partly for others, but I wouldn’t be able to give you the percentages."

The cameras recorded Gilbert’s gruelling treatment that saw him bed-bound between sessions. He starts hesitantly to describe the motion sickness caused by his chemotherapy, the fatigue brought on by radiotherapy, but when I tell him I went through the same experiences at a similar time – diagnosis in July, surgery in August, followed by 16 weeks of treatment – he relaxes and we launch into the shorthand of fellow travellers.

"There’s nothing I need tell you, then," he chuckles, and we share a smile. "It’s all about balancing the meds, isn’t it?"

The documentary also catches frequent glimpses of the humour that has secured his fame and fortune. Was that a defence mechanism, or did Gilbert find certain aspects of the process genuinely darkly funny?

"What do you do?" he shrugs. "It’s in my nature to see jokes, put punchlines on things. And because I had cameras with me, I was probably putting on a bit of a performance. But it’s what humans do. That’s our armour. We try to disarm the whole thing by making ourselves and others laugh.

"Cancer is a lot less scary if your oncologist is laughing with you. It takes the sting out of some of the moments."

Gilbert is saving some of the worst things well-meaning people have said to him for his next tour: "I have a whole section dedicated to that. Generally, people tie themselves up in knots trying not to say the wrong thing, which means inevitably they put their foot in it.

"From the thousands of people I’ve met, though, I think most people prefer to be open. The one thing to remember is that it’s very difficult to say something that would make it worse."

He can pinpoint the best thing more readily. "I was back on the road earlier this year. I got a call to say my latest scan had shown the cancer was in the areas they knew about, but it wasn’t in my lungs or my brain.

"I told my consultant, 'This is the best day of my life.' If you’d told me that three months earlier…" he trails off. "Well, everything becomes relative."

And more good news has followed recently, with Gilbert receiving his first clear scan. "The best thing was that the tumour had gone, and it was once again an ordinary blood vessel."

He has also been buoyed by the love of the people around him throughout the past 18 months.

"I had a remarkable group of friends. They created a rota system to take me to and from hospital, which meant someone taking half a day out of their lives once every six weeks."

At home, he was cared for by his wife, comedian and writer Sian Harries, although viewers of his documentary will only see her in the closing scenes. "She didn’t want to be in the doc, it was too much to look after me and to also be on camera. The caring for me was enough, which I appreciate."

Despite this support, he acknowledges now that those months were not the easiest. "I wasn’t well enough even to read or watch television, there wasn’t any one box set that got me through. A friend texted to remind me, 'One day at a time,' and I thought, 'Are you joking? It’s more like an hour at a time. Or ten minutes.'"

More profoundly, what did get him through was the work of the doctors and nurses "all on the NHS", a team he’s quick to praise.

"This is a challenging time for everyone, politically, socially, environmentally, the general state of the world. But what I’ve seen over the past year and a half is kindness, compassion, the absolute wonder of human beings at their very best. And that has been my comfort blanket."

Now his treatment has segued into the routine of scans and checks familiar to so many cancer patients, Gilbert has made some concessions to getting fitter – "funnily enough, before my diagnosis, one of the things I was discussing [as a Velindre Centre patron] was joining a campaign to encourage patients to do exercise, because it will help them" – but, for the most part, he’s relishing life going back to normal.

"I wish I could say I’ve given up drinking. I go to the gym a bit more, but I’ve broadly returned to the lifestyle I had before, and I’m thrilled about it. I’ve had a big party here this weekend, and I want that to be a message of hope. I never thought I’d be sitting around a campfire, drinking and dancing with my friends, and here we are."

Gilbert’s lifestyle may not have changed, but life has, and he turns reflective. He and his wife are freshly set on having a family (he made a BBC documentary in 2021 about infertility). "It’s been a long process for us, and we are still very open to all the many and varied means of being parents. It’s completely focused the mind."

He pauses. "I’m not sorry I’ve had cancer." For the first time in our long conversation, he loses his composure. "It’s an odd thing to say, and I feel terrible for my wife. But I feel I can help other people, being there for friends, holding other people’s hands. I think this documentary can help a lot of other people, and I like having a sense of purpose.

"I’ve seen for myself how important bringing more to the table is. All I’ve seen is love and care and kindness, and it makes me more hopeful for humanity.

"It’s a cliché, but life now tastes a whole lot sweeter than it did. I don’t feel like life has given me lemons, I feel like it’s given me a lovely trifle." And we share another smile.

Rhod Gilbert: A Pain in the Neck airs at 9pm on Monday 30th October on Channel 4 as part of Stand Up To Cancer programming.

Check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Entertainment hub for the latest news.

Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.