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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
National

Danny Dyer delights the internet after calling Oswald Mosley a 'melt'

Danny Dyer (Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Danny Dyer has delighted the internet with a clip of him calling 1930s British fascist leader Oswald Mosley a "melt".

The video, shared widely online on Sunday, was part of a documentary that the actor presented on playwright Harold Pinter's childhood in east London in the 1930s.

Broadcast on Sky Arts, the programme included a section on the Battle of Cable Street, a confrontation in Shadwell in 1936 between Mosley's blackshirt thugs, anti-fascist Londoners and the police.

Mr Pinter, who was Jewish, lived in nearby Hackney and his surroundings inspired him to become an anti-fascist campaigner who regularly joined marches and demonstrations.

Dyer, who grew up in the nearby area of Silvertown, contrasted his childhood with the environment that Mr Pinter had to put up with as a boy.

“My East End was full of love, but it sounds like young Harold lived with hate,” he said.

"Everyone down here knows about the Cable Street riot in 1936, when Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts – not a boyband, but a bunch of fascist slags – came goosestepping down the street,” he added.

Mr Dyer went on to show viewers a photo of Mosley, calling him a “melt”.

Harold Pinter (Getty Images)

He added: “Us East Enders, we won’t stand for terrorism. Everybody came together and they gave the Nazis a good kicking."

The clip was shared widely on social media and was trending on Twitter for some time.

One person said: “Petition for someone to commission a documentary about working-class histories presented by Danny Dyer."

“Danny Dyer calling Oswald Mosley a melt is what I didn't know I had always wanted to see,” another added.

Many consider Harold Pinter, who died in 2008, one of the greatest British playwrights of the 20th century. Some of his best-known works are The Birthday Party, No Man's Land and Betrayal.

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