Callow: Gaby's has been the stage for love lost and found for my love affairs

Simon Callow has told why he has joined the campaign to save a West End delicatessen facing closure after nearly half a century.

The veteran actor, who last night became the latest star to highlight the plight of Gaby's Deli with a "falafel related performance", said he had been a customer since it opened in 1965.

He said: "So much of my life has taken place around the tables here. Close friends I used to meet here have died. I've had love affairs that started here, and love affairs that ended here."

Gaby's is facing closure on May 1 after Westminster council gave permission for it to be replaced by a chain restaurant. But the plans have met what Callow called "a tsunami of resistance" from thousands of supporters, including Vanessa Redgrave, musician Alex James and Mayor Boris Johnson.

Last night Callow read from the play The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, one of a series of events entitled Cabaret Falafel at the Leicester Square deli.

Last month, Callow's friend Henry Goodman sang for the customers at the Deli, which is famed for its salt beef sandwiches and falafel pittas.

He said Gaby's was a "beacon" in the Sixties, when actors in the West End were "stuck with dreadful sandwich shops". And he hit out at chain restaurants that aren't "human" like Gaby's. Asked what he would do if the deli closed, Callow joked: "I'll go mad. I'll leave the country."

The owner of the deli Gaby Elyahou said it was "very nice" of Callow to remember Gaby's. He said: "Until this campaign began, I didn't now I had so many loyal customers. They are all important to me."