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

The satirist Victor Lewis-Smith, who compiled the Funny Old World column in Private Eye for almost 30 years has died after a short illness. He was 65.

Mark Borkowski, the publicist and Lewis-Smith’s agent who announced the news of his death in Bruges at the weekend, tweeted: “I am in deep shock … Struggling to come to terms with the loss of a unique and irreplaceable talent.”

Lewis-Smith starred in TV comedy sketch series, including Inside Victor Lewis-Smith on BBC2 in the 1990s, and was known for making hoax calls.

He posed as the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking using the same electronic voice technology as the professor to hoax Diana, Princess of Wales. Their full conversation, which included a discussion about Charles and the Clinton family, was released in 2015 after being kept in a safe for two decades.

He was also a television reviewer and food critic, and briefly wrote restaurant reviews for the Guardian.

Lewis-Smith began his broadcasting career at BBC Radio Medway before studying music in the late 1970s at the University of York. He later became a producer for BBC Radio 4’s Midweek and Start the Week during the 1980s.

His Private Eye column featured newspaper stories sent in by readers. It recently featured the Wanko Pizza Teriyaki Chicken, a pizza devised by a Japanese chain that people could share with their dogs; a man in Halifax who was driven to “his wits’ end” by a tormentor who repeatedly yelled “porridge” through his letterbox; and identical twin sisters from Perth, Australia, who had entered into a relationship with a man who claimed to love them both equally. “As a throuple, we share a king-sized bed with Ben in the middle … As twin sisters, we do everything together … You name it, we do it, we’re never apart,” they told reporters.

Many of Lewis-Smith’s fans posted favourite clips and quotes on social media, with some pointing out that his jokes and sketches may have been offensive and perhaps would not be broadcast or printed today.

Piers Morgan, who edited the Mirror when Lewis-Smith wrote a column in the paper, said he was “Britain’s rudest, funniest & most dangerous writer. I once caught him recycling old jokes in his Mirror column & he retorted indignantly: ‘When Sinatra sang My Way, did people ask for their money back because they’d heard him sing it before?’ Loved him.”

The writer Sarfraz Manzoor said his televsion reviews for the Evening Standard were “comedic masterpieces”. Monty Don, the gardener and broadcaster, said he was “biting, very rude and above all, very funny”.

Lewis-Smith’s final television production, Hitler’s Jazz Band, is due to be broadcast by Sky Arts on Wednesday. It tells the story of Karl Schweidler, the frontman of a swing band created by the Nazis despite their ban on jazz.

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