Victor Lewis-Smith

The cleansing of comedy must be resisted

In 2023, comedians have got to fight for their right to be offensive, rude and wrong, writes Simon Evans.

Victor Lewis-Smith obituary

The writer, broadcaster and satirist Victor Lewis-Smith, who has died aged 65 after a short illness, once climbed the scaffolding outside York Minster in the early hours of the morning. At the top, he stood on a ledge singing Qur'anic invitations to prayer, before being arrested for causing a public disturbance.

'Nobody was safe': the shocking, dangerous brilliance of Victor Lewis-Smith

He was an acerbic satirist with a maverick streak - and he would happily target everything from Captain Pugwash to Jimmy Savile. His legacy is enormous.

Victor Lewis-Smith dead: Broadcaster, writer and satirist dies, aged 65

Throughout his career, Lewis-Smith worked as a film, TV and radio producer, predominantly through his production company Associated Rediffusion Productions Limited. He was also a restaurant critic and columnist, having been a regular contributor to Private Eye since 1993.

The Office: Remembering first scathing review

Writing in the Evening Standard, Victor Lewis-Smith hated the show saying: "How this dross ever got beyond the pilot stage is a mystery".

Top 10 books about comedy

Biographies, autobiographies, episode guides, script anthologies, tie-in books - my thirst for writing about comedy takes in the lot, so I've chosen not to differentiate between them. They're all of a piece, adding to our understanding and appreciation of the art.

Just when you thought that every cobwebbed vault had been scoured for unseen footage of one of our greatest comedians, along comes Victor Lewis-Smith with an ingeniously assembled programme. Rare newsreel abounds but many of the best finds are cleverly animated audio recordings, with the show employing lip-readers to match silent home-movie footage of Goon Show rehearsals. Continues Wednesday with Kenneth Williams, then Thursday with Tony Hancock.

Jesters For Putin: The comics breaking through on RT

For Victor Lewis-Smith, the comedian, producer, and regular contributor to Private Eye, putting his new show on RT, the channel formerly known as Russia Today was simple: "In recent years, mainstream broadcasters seem to have given up on investing in edgy and boundary-pushing satire."

Comics complain of comedy industry's failings

The Fringe wouldn't be the Fringe without comedians complaining about the state of the industry. Now several of them have lined up to slam the comedy world for being too politically correct.

Has comedy become too PC?

They say that much of the right-wing backlash being observed in the political mainstream across the world stems from how overly PC society has become. And if that's true, comedy may have a lot to answer for.