By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Published: | Updated:
The ex-England rugby player takes us inside his struggle with motor neurone disease
Year: 2026
Certificate: 15
In 2025, the former international rugby union player Lewis Moody was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND). For this moving, one-off documentary, Moody takes us inside what that moment was like for him, his wife Annie, his mother and his children, all of whom contribute to this heartfelt film.
Moody’s Leicester Tigers teammates have something to say too and, although their language is often more robust (Martin Johnson in particular), you can feel the force of feeling there for the unfairness of the disease.
The film includes the sobering statistic that, every day, six people in the UK are diagnosed with MND, a terminal disease in which people slowly become trapped in their own bodies. You can feel the weight of that diagnosis for both Moody and his family while watching the documentary, even though, at the time of filming, he seems strong and healthy.
Lots of nice and moving moments are captured here, along with tales of rugger derring-do – even one from when Lewis was five years old. His mum recalls how, during what was only his second or third game, the enthusiastic young Moody had one of his front teeth knocked out while playing. She remembers ‘scrambling around to try and find it so they could stick it back on again’. It’s moments like this that leaven the sadness of the film, along with chinks of light about the disease itself – for a small subset of sufferers, it seems, there is now hope of treatment. For the rest, surely, more hope cannot come soon enough. Films such as this may help. (60 minutes)
