The cast of hit Netflix show Heartstopper kept spirits high at Saturday’s Pride in London parade by giving anti-LGBTQ+ protesters the finger and drowning out their hate by singing and dancing to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody.’
In the video, Joe Locke, who plays protagonist Charlie Spring, and co-star Sebastian Croft raised their middle fingers at the protestors while cast members Kit Connor, Kizzy Edgell, Corinna Brown, and Tobie Donovan wore pride flags and sung and danced around them.
Their musical interlude appears to have interrupted a small altercation between a protester and a march participant.
Locke later posted the video on social media. “Had to do my job properly,” he said.
Actor Kit Connor praised his co-stars for their “powerful” response to anti-gay protesters.
“Please give them the credit for doing something so powerful,” Connor tweeted, revealing he filmed the footage.
Heartstopper debuted on Netflix earlier this year to widespread acclaim. According to Variety’s Trending TV chart, it has received 1.05 million engagements on Twitter, and earned 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. It also has an avid following among young audiences.
The show is based on Alice Oseman’s webcomic series of the same name. It follows teenagers Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (Kit Conner) as their friendship grows into something more.
It features a diverse cast of young LGBTQ+ actors and explores their relationships and stories through a hopeful lens.
The series’ author said she wanted the show to, “inspire young people – especially LGBTQ+ young people – to be whoever they want to be, and to believe that they can find happiness and find love and find friendship, because it is a joyful story… everyone can get something out of it.”
Heartstopper is extremely popular across all age demographics, though older viewers who have watched the show have felt their joy plagued by an undercurrent of grief after watching the show.
One Twitter user said: “So happy for the younger generations to have this representation, but also forever sad for my adolescent self knowing what I went through and still living with the repercussions of it.”
Heartstopper has been renewed for another two seasons, and more issues of its webcomic are on the way, although Oseman is currently on hiatus.
For a daily dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.
Iconic TV and movie kisses that were completely unscripted
Discussion about this post