BALLROOM

SHE has been dazzling on the dance floor for the past two months, so it is no wonder that Alex Kingston is hotly tipped to lift the glitterball trophy next month.

- BY MARK JEFFERIES Showbiz Editor

The actress, 62, is a firm favourite with Strictly Come Dancing fans and last weekend her dreamy waltz was described as “pure magic” by the judges.

But even if Alex fails to get her hands on the Strictly crown, she already feels like a winner.

Not only has the show been liberating following her shock cancer journey, she has made a friend for life in her professional partner, Johannes Radebe.

And another silver lining, she reveals, is the impact the show's gruelling training schedule has had on her body.

Speaking ahead of tonight's Blackpool extravaganza, Alex, who married TV producer Jonathan Stamp in 2015, says: "My husband basically has said that my 25-year-old body has come out of the closet! Thank you, Strictly, I will take it!

STRONGER

"I do feel better for it, I do. I'm walking taller and I've found whenever I'm in the kitchen reaching up to a cupboard to get something that I do it with a pointed toe!

"I'm pure ballet around the kitchen now! A sports massage therapist has been helping me out and he said that he can see muscles in my body developing and becoming stronger!"

Alex's glittering career includes the Royal Shakespeare Company and iconic roles in US medical drama ER, Doctor Who and Boudica. But she admits Strictly has been the job of a lifetime.

"Strictly is an utter joy," she says. "It's amazingly liberating learning a dance and then going for it and accomplishing it. And that is a wonderful feeling, no matter how scary it is. I love just expressing myself physically.

"And so having the chance to be in the rehearsal room with JoJo and learning about how I can use my body to express something has just been a real delight."

It is an experience that is worlds away from the heartache that consumed her last year when she was diagnosed with womb cancer.