STAGE TUBE: Kerry Ellis, Nick Hynter, et al. Support It Gets Better

West End stars, including Denise Van Outen and Kerry Ellis, have joined forces to promote the message that "It Gets Better" to youngsters who may be struggling with their sexuality. Check out what they have to say below!

The It Gets Better Project is an online video website founded by Dan Savage in September 2010, in response to the suicide of a number of US teenagers who were bullied because they were gay or because their peers suspected that they were gay. Its goal is to prevent suicides of LGBT youngsters by having adults convey the message that these teens' lives will improve. To date the project has seen videos made by word famous figures Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ellen, Anne Hathaway, Jake Shears and Neil Patrick Harris.

In November 2010, the Broadway community contributed a video to the campaign, following which the first West End video was released in January 2011. It has since had over 20,000 hits. Stephen Fry lent his support to the endeavour and tweeted about it on its first day online, helping it go viral: "Wonderful - made me sob and smile and cheer." The second West End video was released in middle of February and has had nearly 7,000 hits.

Denise Van Outen, who stars in the second video, says: "I think this is a fantastic campaign and if you are at home and you feel that you have nobody to talk to, nobody to turn to, then you must know that it does get better." The third and finAl West End video is released today.

Producer of the It Gets Better Project West End videos Andrew Pepper explains his motivation:
"Towards the end of last year it seemed that a day didn't go by without a new It Gets Better Project video popping up on my laptop, courtesy of Facebook or YouTube. I thought that they were wonderful. Rather than trying to cure homophobia, or to reason with its perpetrators, they seek to give something to its „victims? and that thing is hope. It's the simplest and most beautiful gift we can give each other in life and these videos do just that. Inspired by the Broadway community's response, I felt it was time the West End did the same."

The West End artists and creatives featured in the video are Jamie Anderson, Julie Atherton, John Brannoch, Vivien Carter, Jordan Cluroe, Cecilia Colby, Nick Crossley, Tom Eddden, Kerry Ellis, Hugo Harold Harrison, Graham Hubbard, Nicholas Hytner, Murray Lane, Stephen Mear, Ben Moir, Chris New, James Nowell, Denise Van Outen, William Peaco Junior, Andrew Pepper, Verity Quade, Nigel Roche, Malcolm Sinclair (actor and President of Equity), Martin Sherman, Paul Spicer, Ruthie Stephens, Giles Terera, Robbie Towns, Russell Whitehead, Steven Webb, Stuart Winter and Danny Lee Wynter.

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