Victor Lewis-Smith
Encyclopedia : V : VI : VIC : Victor Lewis-Smith
Victor Lewis-Smith (born 1961) is a British comic broadcaster, producer, critic and prankster. He was educated at the University of York. He is known for his sarcasm and biting criticism (often in questionable taste).
Radio and recordings
His media career began in the early 1980s with employment as a contract radio producer for the BBC, which was terminated in controversial circumstances. In 1985 he appeared as a regular on BBC Radio 4's Colour Supplement, and from 1986 became a contributor on Loose Ends.
He also broadcast two comedy series on BBC Radio 1, and made several surreal radio commercials.
In 1991, he released a CD and cassette entitled Tested on Humans for Irritancy, which was drawn from his broadcasts on Loose Ends and Radio 1. A second cassette Nuisance Calls was released by Lewis-Smith's own company, Associated Rediffusion and was chiefly comprised of extended and unused phone calls from the Radio 1 series (a couple of musical numbers also appeared). Some of these calls later appeared in TV Offal.
Radiohaha, the online encyclopaedia of contemporary British radio comedy [link] says this about him: Victor Lewis Smith is a talented comedian from the ‘dangerous’ end of the spectrum whose career has, alas, been almost entirely eclipsed by the rise of Chris Morris, who tends to occupy similar ground … On The Hour had introduced the world to the talents of Chris Morris, and Lewis Smith clearly felt his position was in jeopardy: he made an allegation of double standards following an On The Hour stunt involving a faked recording of a drunken Neil Kinnock which, he claimed, he would not have been permitted to use, even though On The Hour went out on the traditionally more conservative Radio 4. He has since engaged in a lengthy public dispute with Morris, whom he accuses of stealing his ideas.
Victor contributed an introduction the composition Towers of Dub by The Orb, it was released on 1992's U.F.Orb.
Hoax phone calls
Lewis-Smith prank phone calls include:
- Calling the office of That's Life! pretending to be a trombonist in a wheelchair, who then collapses while trying to play the Sailor's Hornpipe at extreme speed down the phone. (Lewis-Smith appears to have a particular loathing for Esther Rantzen.)
- Telephoning the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and asking them why there was only one such organisation.
- Phoning Harrods department store and asking if he had got through to the H.A. Rods shop, before enquiring about returning an allegedly faulty vacuum cleaner which he claimed (in a halting voice) to have bought 'to suck dust off sausages'. As the conversation progressed it became increasingly clear to the call staff and the listener that the caller had bought the appliance for purposes of simulated oral sex and had injured his penis while attempting this act.
- Phoning a hotel in New York and asking the receptionist to announce over the tannoy to ask 'General Pinochet' if he could hold fire until reasonable discussions with NATO, which she unsuspectingly did.
- Ringing the White House, and using the synthesized speech system of a computer to impersonate Stephen Hawking and demanding to speak to the President.
- Phoning BBC Radio and applying to be a continuity announcer, while pretending to have Tourette syndrome and reminding them of their equal opportunities policy.
- Phoning ITN claiming to work for the Royal Mail and having knowledge of the whereabouts of Salman Rushdie. After a failed attempt to extract payment for the information he claims that Salman Rushdie is 'in Communicado', a small island in the Aegean.
Television
Lewis-Smith has made several shows for British television:
- Buygones and Up Your Arts (compiled from his contributions to the ill-fated arts show Club X)
- Inside Victor Lewis-Smith (1993) (in which he is a virtually unseen character)
- 'TV Offal'' (1997)
- Ads Infinitum (1998–1999)
Lewis-Smith's company Associated-Rediffusion (previously a long-defunct TV station) has also made numerous one-off documentaries. These include Scandal in the Bins, about Benjamin Pell, a man who dishes the dirt on public figures by literally raking through their garbage to find incriminating documents.
Lewis-Smith is the credited executive producer of a series of short TV programmes called 21st Century Bach. Each one features one of Johann Sebastian Bach's organ works, filmed in performance with some odd visual tricks, such as mirrors along the organist's hands. The series started on BBC2 in June 2003, and is expected to last for three years.
Writing
For many years Lewis-Smith has written for the Evening Standard, contributing daily television reviews and occasional restaurant reviews. He frequently uses his TV reviews to criticise the British Royal Family, the importance of social class in the United Kingdom, the Iraq War and other foreign policies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, British cuisine, and organic farming. He is a strong supporter of Britain's involvement in Europe (often condemning his own country as "America Junior") and a critic of what he calls "Little Englanders". He was a vociferous critic of Director-General Greg Dyke and BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey, who he blamed for "dumbing down" the BBC's output.
He also appears to have a particular loathing of "Mockneys" such as Ben Elton and Jo Brand; for somewhat related reasons, he also frequently ridicules Tim Westwood. His other pet hates include Endemol, Peter Bazalgette and Big Brother, and the general direction of Channel 4 since the 1990s. As part of his long-term dispute with Chris Morris, he claimed that the controversial 2001 Brass Eye special, which attacked the media's coverage of paedophilia, should not have been broadcast.
He also edits the "Funny Old World" column of bizarre news stories in Private Eye, and he wrote a weekly page for the Daily Mirror for some years until 2003. From autumn 2004 to April 2005 he was the resident restaurant critic of The Guardian's Saturday magazine supplement, until he fell out with them. The column featured his usual subversive nature, most notably reviewing a Little Chef restaurant.
His books include Inside the Magic Rectangle, a collection of his early Evening Standard TV reviews.
One of Victor's funniest contributions appeared in the Independent newspaper on Oct 31, 2005: In an analysis of television critics it was suggested that some of Victor Lewis-Smith's reviews may be motivated by settling old scores with commissioning editors who have rejected his ideas. We accept that Mr Lewis- Smith's television criticism is not motivated by such a consideration and we apologise unreservedly to him.
Collaborators
Much of Lewis-Smith's work is co-credited to Paul Sparks — he has a co-writing credit on Inside the Magic Rectangle and the BBC Radio 1 series as well as a co-producing credit on much of the TV work. Musician Dave Stewart provided a (straight) musical number for the second Radio 1 series, and later provided music for Lewis-Smith's TV projects. The originally cited producer for his programmes, one Anton Piller is yet another joke, the name belonging to a real but unconnected person who gave his name to a particularly Draconian kind of court order. Another regular collaborator is John Warburton, who is the main producer for most of VLS' TV shows.
Quote
"Good evening. My name is Victor, I am a TV critic and I live inside your televis-i-on set."
Legal
In June 2006, Gordon Ramsay together with his production company and his producer, accepted £75,000 in libel damages, plus legal costs, against Victor Lewis-Smith and Associated Newspapers, after their barrister admitted that an article written by Lewis-Smith and which had appeared in the London Evening Standard was false. The report had alleged that Ramsay had faked scenes, installed an incompetent chef, and more.
On 10 July 2006,it was reported that hypnotist Paul McKenna is to sue The Daily Mirror for libel over articles written by Lewis-Smith from 1997[link].
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.