Enough time has passed now for Matt Forde to offer a candid assessment of the scariest time of his life. 

‘I have to be honest, sometimes, I think, “f*****g hell, I had cancer,”‘ says the comedian, occupying the space somewhere between a joke and genuine disbelief. 

‘It’s not that I’ve fully forgotten, but I’m like, “oh s***, wow, that really happened.”‘

Forde had not long finished one of his usual exercise bike sessions in June 2023 when he began to feel what would later confront him with the thought of his own mortality: a rare spinal tumour affecting just one in 800,000.

For a man whose career has been built on finding humour in politics – he hosts the popular The Matt Forde Focus Group radio show on BBC Radio 4 – the pain was no laughing matter.

‘It was just horrendous,’ the 43-year-old, from Nottingham, recalls. ‘Anyone who’s ever felt their back go, you’ll know the feeling when you can’t move a millimetre. I was in cold sweats with this completely paralysing nerve pain.’ 

Initially, he thought it had stemmed from a ‘tweaked’ hamstring in his left leg. Later, he suspected sciatica – sharp, burning nerve pain that shoots down the back of the leg.

His GP had another explanation, telling him he had likely over-exerted himself and ‘slipped a disc’. And so, he was sent to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival the following month on a prescribed ‘cocktail of codeine and diazepam’.

‘Sometimes, I think, “f*****g hell, I had cancer”,’ comedian Matt Forde tells the Daily Mail

‘It was great fun performing like that,’ he laughs. ‘If you get the chance I recommend it.

‘It felt phenomenal. I think that was the most physically comfortable I was the whole time because just that extra bit of adrenaline was basically a painkiller, so I was slightly wired from the drugs but the adrenaline meant that on stage I was totally fine.

‘It was only when I would come off and the adrenaline would ebb away that the pain would then start to really peak.’

It quickly transpired that Forde and his GP were wrong. This was more than an injury from exercise.

As his pain went from ‘feeling like a pulled muscle to red hot’ agony that stopped him from sleeping and moving, he persisted with medical appointments.

After weeks of investigations, a spinal tumour was discovered and Forde was diagnosed with chordoma – a rare type of bone cancer which affects just eight in a million people in the UK.

According to Chordoma UK, patients can experience different symptoms depending on where their tumour develops. 

Tumours at the base of the skull can trigger headaches, neck pain and blurred vision, while spinal chordomas – like Forde’s – can cause back pain, weakness in the arms or legs, and bowel or bladder problems.

Studies show the cancer is most common in their 50s and 60s, though it can affect younger patients too. 

Experts say that, in most cases, chordoma tumours are not fatal – but can lead to lasting medical problems, such as chronic pain. 

Forde was just 40 when he received the diagnosis, only three months after marrying his wife Laura, who was with him in the room when doctors broke the news.  

Thankfully, however, he got the news that his tumour was slow-growing. Forde’s oncologist believes he may have been living with his for as long as five years. 

That meant it was operable – but only through a gruelling 13-hour operation at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, followed by a lengthy recovery that left him with a colostomy bag, a stoma and lasting nerve pain. 

He says: ‘I just remember thinking, I will do everything I can to live. 

‘It was almost like my body was thinking, not just my brain. It felt like my legs were talking to me, saying, ‘carve us off if you have to live, just live at all costs.

‘It was a real drive to survive, and that was a really powerful feeling. It was almost like this was a conclusion handed down from somewhere else – just total clarity.

‘I’m really grateful for that, and even though the further you get away from it, the more you kind of get back to normal, I think that’s always there.’

Forde, from Nottingham, made the King laugh with a Donald Trump impression in November 2024

Now, three years later, Forde is preparing to return to this year’s Fringe, where he will perform his stand up show Project Holy Moly as well as a live recording of his podcast, The Political Party.

Much of his life has now changed. He now takes painkillers such as gabapentin, a nerve pain drug, every day and can no longer walk on hard floors due to the nerve pain in his legs and feet.

But some symptoms – which he now believes may have been worsening as a result of his chordoma – are gone.

For one, the ‘appalling’ eczema that he had suffered with all his life – which meant he had to bandage his hands to stop getting infections – has now been ‘completely transformed’.

And peculiarly, his hangovers – which had become particularly bad, bringing strange bouts of vomiting even after just a couple of beers – in the years running up to his diagnosis, are now far better.

Furthermore, Forde has been able to lose weight – which he believes is as a result of the anxiety of not wanting to continuously empty his stoma, particularly on stage.

He is generally more health-conscious than ever, because, in his words, he is ‘quite keen not to get cancer again’.

What’s more, Forde takes pleasure in the smaller things in life.

‘I definitely feel like I’ll know how I feel when my final day comes and that’s quite a nice feeling,’ he says. 

‘When I wasn’t sure if the cancer was going to be life-shortening, I really wanted to be ok with however much time I was going to have, and I think having to reckon with your mortality and just think, “right, if I’m off, how do I feel?” 

‘And I didn’t want to go.

‘But I also just thought, “man, what an amazing thing to have lived on this planet at this time”. Life itself is really magical, and I always believed that, but I hadn’t felt it as deeply as I did then.

‘I’ve always been an optimist, but there was just a real appreciation for whatever it is that has given us life – and I obviously don’t know the answer – but it was just grateful for having been around.

‘I began looking at things like trees, birds and grass more appreciatively than I did before and just thought, “oh, what a wonderful experience this has been, and I’m glad I had a go at it, and I’m glad I followed my passions, I’m glad I met the people that I did”.

‘It just reaffirmed everything that I already thought.’

Forde is also championing the British Standards Institution (BSI) – the body which ensures quality and safety at every stage of patient care – on their 125th anniversary.

‘All the things that had helped me: the MRI machine, even the way blood’s taken – they were all adhering to standards developed by the BSI, which I just think is miraculous.

‘When you’re a patient I think you have to believe that you’re in the very best hands, and a lot of that is believing that the surgeon and the hospital are excellent, and have your best interests at heart.

‘But you also realise that there’s been a whole load of work done by other people elsewhere that ensures that things are done to a particular standard.

‘I think it’s amazing that people have dedicated their lives to ensuring that things work well and work properly, and they’ve shared that intelligence and that expertise across the country.’