More young men in the UK (aged 15-35) die from suicide than any other single cause. More than from road accidents or from drug abuse. The Campaign Against Living Miserably - C.a.l.m - was set up by the Department of Health in 1997. By working with people from the music, sport and comedy scenes. CALM encouraged young men to 'open up' and sort out their problems. CALM has been taking their calls for nearly 10 years; over 45,000 of them. As of the 6th March 2007, CALM's helpline and online web-chat was temporarily suspended due to insufficient funds.

CALM needed to generate new revenue streams, and so a Comedy night was organised. Revenue raised would be minimal; the real goal being to get journalists and public figures to attend and start a public debate. A press pack was designed and sent to journalists, politicians and other prominent figures to not only invite them to the 'Stand Up To Stop Suicide' comedy night, but to highlight the unacceptable levels of young male suicide with bite size facts and figures about the issue. For example in 2005, 11 young men died from firearms, 41 from knives and 987 from suicide.

To date, the Campaign has received a grant from the Department Of Health as well as raising enough to restart its on-line web-chat counselling service.An awareness/fundraising campaign was started by the Metro free sheet newspaper which has a circulation of 1.3 million, 70% of whose readers are aged 18 - 44.Articles about the issue were also written in the Guardian and Independent newspaper.ITV is interested in televising next year's 'Stand Up To Stop Suicide' comedy night.