Victor Lewis-Smith, writer and broadcaster, dies at 65

The satirist Victor Lewis-Smith, who compiled the Funny Old World file successful Private Eye for astir 30 years has died aft a abbreviated illness. He was 65.

Mark Borkowski, the publicist and Lewis-Smith’s cause who announced the quality of his decease successful Bruges astatine the weekend, tweeted: “I americium successful heavy daze … Struggling to travel to presumption with the nonaccomplishment of a unsocial and irreplaceable talent.”

Lewis-Smith starred successful TV drama sketch series, including Inside Victor Lewis-Smith connected BBC2 successful the 1990s, and was known for making hoax calls.

He posed arsenic the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking utilizing the aforesaid physics dependable exertion arsenic the prof to hoax Diana, Princess of Wales. Their afloat conversation, which included a treatment astir Charles and the Clinton family, was released successful 2015 aft being kept successful a harmless for 2 decades.

He was besides a tv reviewer and nutrient critic, and briefly wrote edifice reviews for the Guardian.

Lewis-Smith began his broadcasting vocation astatine BBC Radio Medway earlier studying euphony successful the precocious 1970s astatine the University of York. He aboriginal became a shaper for BBC Radio 4’s Midweek and Start the Week during the 1980s.

His Private Eye file featured paper stories sent successful by readers. It precocious featured the Wanko Pizza Teriyaki Chicken, a pizza devised by a Japanese concatenation that radical could stock with their dogs; a antheral successful Halifax who was driven to “his wits’ end” by a tormentor who repeatedly yelled “porridge” done his letterbox; and identical duplicate sisters from Perth, Australia, who had entered into a narration with a antheral who claimed to emotion them some equally. “As a throuple, we stock a king-sized furniture with Ben successful the mediate … As duplicate sisters, we bash everything unneurotic … You sanction it, we bash it, we’re ne'er apart,” they told reporters.

Many of Lewis-Smith’s fans posted favourite clips and quotes connected societal media. Monty Don, the gardener and broadcaster, said helium was ”biting, precise rude and supra all, precise funny”.

Lewis-Smith’s last tv production, Hitler’s Jazz Band, is owed beryllium broadcast by Sky Arts connected Wednesday. It tells the communicative of Karl Schweidler, the frontman of a plaything set created by the Nazis contempt their prohibition connected jazz.

Lewis-Smith is survived by his wife, Virginia, and his daughter, Lucia.