TV stammering representation

Our campaign to improve stammering visibility in the media and change the narrative is seeing results!

On International Stammering Awareness Day in 2021, we launched our major campaign pushing for greater representation of people who stammer on TV and radio. Here's what's been happening:

2026 update:

In 2025/6 alone, we've seen more people who stammer on our screens, including:

Jimmy McGovern's 'Time'

A major 2026 drama series by acclaimed co-screenwriter Jimmy McGovern features a main character who stammers. In the gritty three-part series set in a young offender's institution, the stammering representation is more positive and scenes where the character is given space to stammer is a welcome sight. Jimmy McGovern stammers himself, so he's no doubt bringing his experiences to the screen.

Jessie on The Traitors

Jessie was open about her stammer from the very start of her appearance on just about the biggest TV show on the BBC right now, smashing stereotypes, stealing viewers' hearts while proving herself an excellent Traitor-hunter in the process.

Read our blog about it, and read the effects Jessie's appearance had on our supporters Hayley and Leys.

Nataliia on The Great British Bake Off 

Nataliia was a stand-out contestant on the popular Channel 4 show in 2025, wowing judges with her culinary creations, including one honouring her homeland of Ukraine, while openly stammering.

Lewis on Call the Bailiffs

Lewis showed viewers that you can work and succeed in a public-facing job, have confidence and stammer, in this Channel 5 documentary series. Read all about it Lewis's article for Your Voice.

Scroobius Pip in Young Sherlock

The STAMMA patron and actor landed a part in this hit Amazon series, having been cast in the Star Wars series The Acolyte in 2024.

Ed Balls on Good Morning Britain 

Ed, another of our patrons, continues to speak out about stammering as co-host of the ITV1 morning show.

2022: Love letter to the TV & film industry

On Valentine's Day 2022, STAMMA joined forces with organisations around the world to send out a love letter to the TV and film industry promoting petitions calling for better representation on TV and film. 

Organisations in the USA, Canada, Australia, Chile, Peru, Columbia, Ghana, India, Israel and Finland all set up petitions which link to our No Diversity Without Disfluency petition, calling on the media to include those who stammer.

1 million signatures

We hope to collectively reach a million signatures on these petitions by 22nd October and asked the community to help us get there. It isn't just us in the UK pushing this message, it's people and organisations around the world too.

The letter

The letter started: "We love you. We love how your films and shows make us laugh, cry, and how they have the power to educate and inspire. But we don't see us on screen, people who stammer…". Read our love letter in full below.

This was an extension of our No Diversity Without Disfluency campaign, launched on October 22nd 2021, International Stammering Awareness Day. 

We asked our supporters to join us in urging broadcasters like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and the BBC to include people who stammer in front of and behind the camera. So that stammering is normalised and fluent speakers learn how to respond.

Getting people involved

On Valentine's Day, 14th February 2022, we asked people to send a message of love on social media to the TV, streaming and film industry asking them to include stammering and promote the petition. The template was:

'Dear @BBC (eg), I love you. I binge-watched Line Of Duty. But I don't see people who stammer on your shows. People like me. I love you. Love us too.'

Here's a selection of people's posts. Scroll to the bottom to see more in the social media feed.

Impact

On Valentine's Day, engagements on our Twitter feed went up 900% and a whopping 1,967 on Instagram! Traffic to our website was up 30% on the previous year too.

Our hashtag #LoveULoveUsToo reached 379.8K people and was shared 1.8K times.

Feedback

"Absolutely amazing to see @stammer Valentine’s Day campaign! 🙏🏽" (Tayo, Twitter)

"As someone who wants to work within the TV industry, it's important to me as a fellowstutter/ stammer that we are featured on TV shows/ Behind The Scenes which sadly is rare.I hope by sharing this, people will reach out to us and ask how they can achieve this we'll see change" (Kellie, Twitter)

Our love letter