Terence Stamp: English is a foreign language in London

The Oscar-nominated actor Terence Stamp has queried the multicultural identity of London and complained that no one speaks English in the capital city.

The 76-year-old star of Superman 2, Billy Budd and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert told the Daily Mail he now struggled to buy his beloved mangoes from a favourite East End stall because of a language barrier.

Columnist Sebastian Shakespeare said that Stamp had told him, at a Mayfair party, that “it’s very sad how few English people there are in London now”. “When I grew up in East London everyone seemed to speak English, and now you can barely get by speaking our own language.”

“I don’t live in the East any more, but I absolutely love mangoes and so occasionally I go back there to buy these wonderful Alphonso mangoes from the market on Green Street,” added Stamp. “I’m lucky if I can buy one now at all because no one speaks English. It’s changed so much in such a short space of time, that God knows what London will be like in another decade or so.”

Stamp is considered an icon of the “swinging sixties” having shared a flat with Michael Caine and romanced Julie Christie: the line about “Terry and Julie” in the Kinks’ classic song Waterloo Sunset is thought to be a reference to the one-time couple. However, the actor said he no longer recognised the capital.

“You see these mums wandering around with their prams and four out of five of them have these scarves wrapped around their heads,” said Stamp. “I do think a multicultural society can be a good thing, but when it’s at the cost of your own culture and history, then it’s gone too far and it would be very sad if London stopped being predominantly English.”

Stamp, whose most recent high-profile role was as art critic John Canaday in Tim Burton’s 2014-15 awards season contender Big Eyes, will next appear in Burton’s 2016 fantasy Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, based on the bestselling Ransom Riggs fantasy novel.