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Victor Lewis-Smith, the TV critic and satirist has died in Bruges. I am not too certain how old he was - the ages and years of birth seem to conflict each other in news reports as some quote him being born in 1959 while others said he was 65 - I thought he was born around 1961. He was slightly controversial and lot of people would have found his work tasteless and offensive but he did break ground in British broadcasting. His distinctive dreadlocks made him such a unique personality for those who saw him and not just heard him in this commentaries.
The main things Lewis-Smith was associated with are his newspaper columns as a TV critic that had run from 1993 - primarily he wrote for the London Evening Standard but his columns were syndicated to other local newspapers. The Nottingham Evening Post was also one of them when the column appeared between 1993 and 1995 - he finally retired from the Evening Standard in 2007. He also had a regular column Funny Old World in Private Eye magazine. The Daily Mirror also gave him a Saturday page for a few years where some Buygones material surfaced on there such as wanting to look at old John England catalogues from the 1960s so that he could see whether a Harris tweed jacket had cost £1 back then.
From a broadcasting perspective, he had programmes on BBC Radio 4, usually in the "Start the Week" slot and also on BBC Radio York when he was at university there. One of his first television appearances was in 1983 - on a typical 1983 Friday night's television, while most ITV regions had post-News at Ten films and American sitcoms on, he appeared on talk show Friday Live for Tyne Tees Television, referred to by him as "the titan of the ITV network". His gambit begins by him saying: "I like to think of myself as a serious broadcaster..." Here, an incognito Lewis-Smith in fancy dress as Batman climbed down a flagpole into the studio to be greeted by fellow broadcasting critic Gillian Reynolds. Introducing his "bat-erector", inflating what could have been a balloon or whoopee cushion gone wrong; it soon burst covering him with what one assumes was shaving foam. "I just hope that your franchise will be renewed", said Laurie Taylor who was in the audience. It was, thankfully.
Associated-Rediffusion was the name of the first Independent Television company on the air in 1955, and Victor Lewis-Smith purchased the rights to the name when he realised that many years after the company's ceasing to exist that the name and logo was dormant - he used them for his production company name in the 1990s and 2000s for programmes like Buygones for Danny Baker. At a time when TV executives like Bruce Gyngell was trying to keep tastelessness and sexual content (as well as trade unions) from ITV schedules, Victor Lewis-Smith was doing the opposite for Channel 4.
He was involved in the TV Hell themed night - 1992 which a transposition of Frank Muir's TV Heaven from earlier on that year. TV Offal was when viewers outside the Tyne Tees region saw the Friday Live clip for the first time, ironically on a Friday night in 1997 - here we also see "The Pilots That Crashed" i.e. TV station Christmas tape clips rarely seen outside It'll be Alright on the Night territory such as the Rainbow Christmas tape sketch (Zippy playing with his twangers, and Roger Walker quietly using the F-word, anyone?), and that was followed by a dress-rehearsal clip from Thames also involving Jim Davidson and Tommy Boyd "the (something) Garden of Eden". Also getting the treatment, Jim Bowen being profane in a string vest on a "special" edition of Bullseye. There was Kamikaze Karaoke (a direct translation of: divine wind and empty orchestra). "This is what they sound like to me", Lewis-Smith exclaimed before introducing doctored clips of Boyzone singing the former Osmonds' song Love Me for a Reason and The Last Night of the Proms, while sounding via an editing suite as if acts supped a pint of Carling Black Label too many. Oh, and he had the Gay Daleks as well.
And he was the Henry Root of telephone calls - he made hoax calls to Mary Whitehouse; Michael Winner; Derek Nimmo and others. The Whitehouse call got him into hot water and was upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Commission, one of Ofcom's many predecessors of broadcasting regulation. And of course, the "it's nice being..." song, made to sound like a 1980s radio jingle gone wrong where celebrities such as Dale Winton and Esther Rantzen had received that treatment. A series was granted in 1998 after the pilot, and we were introduced to the cancer awareness animation of Tubby the Tumour, and that was followed by some Prime Cuts - i.e. the "best" of, in the autumn of 1999.
Later on in 1998 Lewis-Smith went ahead with a series of Ad Infinitum after a pilot episode in 1995, looking at old Christmas adverts. Here, he looked at obscure commercials and public information films from the past, ironically on the BBC. Here we got the "Gungadoon Cider" joke from an oriental woman originating from a Thames Christmas tape; and more tastelessness from advertising and Lewis-Smith's choice words. "I've left my car darks on", he said in the Public Information Films edition, made just before the Charley Says videos were published in the "end of the 20th century" nostalgia. The final episode of the series had their Ads Infinitum Awards, where we saw clips of adverts such as the legendry Mike's Carpets from the Yorkshire TV region; the scientist Professor Neil Butler in the 1980s Vortex advert "you mean which bleach kills germs longest in the lavatory?" And of course Robert Dougal promoting in front a typical 1970s brown studio background the 1976 Readers' Digest competition, having to improvise a still image for around a minute as there was no freeze frame ability on the recording equipment. A second series of Infinitum was made in 2000.
I suppose that he had comparisons with Kenny Everett due his broadcasting skills, and Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmonds due his practical jokes, although unlike Beadle and Edmonds, he did push the boundaries out a bit more further than most mainstream broadcasters would. He reached a peak very quickly and I think that he did have a limited shelf life when it come to his work and what he could in order to get on the correct side of the broadcasting regulators.
A man who eccentric as they came, now that Buygones has now become bye-gone.
The main things Lewis-Smith was associated with are his newspaper columns as a TV critic that had run from 1993 - primarily he wrote for the London Evening Standard but his columns were syndicated to other local newspapers. The Nottingham Evening Post was also one of them when the column appeared between 1993 and 1995 - he finally retired from the Evening Standard in 2007. He also had a regular column Funny Old World in Private Eye magazine. The Daily Mirror also gave him a Saturday page for a few years where some Buygones material surfaced on there such as wanting to look at old John England catalogues from the 1960s so that he could see whether a Harris tweed jacket had cost £1 back then.
From a broadcasting perspective, he had programmes on BBC Radio 4, usually in the "Start the Week" slot and also on BBC Radio York when he was at university there. One of his first television appearances was in 1983 - on a typical 1983 Friday night's television, while most ITV regions had post-News at Ten films and American sitcoms on, he appeared on talk show Friday Live for Tyne Tees Television, referred to by him as "the titan of the ITV network". His gambit begins by him saying: "I like to think of myself as a serious broadcaster..." Here, an incognito Lewis-Smith in fancy dress as Batman climbed down a flagpole into the studio to be greeted by fellow broadcasting critic Gillian Reynolds. Introducing his "bat-erector", inflating what could have been a balloon or whoopee cushion gone wrong; it soon burst covering him with what one assumes was shaving foam. "I just hope that your franchise will be renewed", said Laurie Taylor who was in the audience. It was, thankfully.
Associated-Rediffusion was the name of the first Independent Television company on the air in 1955, and Victor Lewis-Smith purchased the rights to the name when he realised that many years after the company's ceasing to exist that the name and logo was dormant - he used them for his production company name in the 1990s and 2000s for programmes like Buygones for Danny Baker. At a time when TV executives like Bruce Gyngell was trying to keep tastelessness and sexual content (as well as trade unions) from ITV schedules, Victor Lewis-Smith was doing the opposite for Channel 4.
He was involved in the TV Hell themed night - 1992 which a transposition of Frank Muir's TV Heaven from earlier on that year. TV Offal was when viewers outside the Tyne Tees region saw the Friday Live clip for the first time, ironically on a Friday night in 1997 - here we also see "The Pilots That Crashed" i.e. TV station Christmas tape clips rarely seen outside It'll be Alright on the Night territory such as the Rainbow Christmas tape sketch (Zippy playing with his twangers, and Roger Walker quietly using the F-word, anyone?), and that was followed by a dress-rehearsal clip from Thames also involving Jim Davidson and Tommy Boyd "the (something) Garden of Eden". Also getting the treatment, Jim Bowen being profane in a string vest on a "special" edition of Bullseye. There was Kamikaze Karaoke (a direct translation of: divine wind and empty orchestra). "This is what they sound like to me", Lewis-Smith exclaimed before introducing doctored clips of Boyzone singing the former Osmonds' song Love Me for a Reason and The Last Night of the Proms, while sounding via an editing suite as if acts supped a pint of Carling Black Label too many. Oh, and he had the Gay Daleks as well.
And he was the Henry Root of telephone calls - he made hoax calls to Mary Whitehouse; Michael Winner; Derek Nimmo and others. The Whitehouse call got him into hot water and was upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Commission, one of Ofcom's many predecessors of broadcasting regulation. And of course, the "it's nice being..." song, made to sound like a 1980s radio jingle gone wrong where celebrities such as Dale Winton and Esther Rantzen had received that treatment. A series was granted in 1998 after the pilot, and we were introduced to the cancer awareness animation of Tubby the Tumour, and that was followed by some Prime Cuts - i.e. the "best" of, in the autumn of 1999.
Later on in 1998 Lewis-Smith went ahead with a series of Ad Infinitum after a pilot episode in 1995, looking at old Christmas adverts. Here, he looked at obscure commercials and public information films from the past, ironically on the BBC. Here we got the "Gungadoon Cider" joke from an oriental woman originating from a Thames Christmas tape; and more tastelessness from advertising and Lewis-Smith's choice words. "I've left my car darks on", he said in the Public Information Films edition, made just before the Charley Says videos were published in the "end of the 20th century" nostalgia. The final episode of the series had their Ads Infinitum Awards, where we saw clips of adverts such as the legendry Mike's Carpets from the Yorkshire TV region; the scientist Professor Neil Butler in the 1980s Vortex advert "you mean which bleach kills germs longest in the lavatory?" And of course Robert Dougal promoting in front a typical 1970s brown studio background the 1976 Readers' Digest competition, having to improvise a still image for around a minute as there was no freeze frame ability on the recording equipment. A second series of Infinitum was made in 2000.
I suppose that he had comparisons with Kenny Everett due his broadcasting skills, and Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmonds due his practical jokes, although unlike Beadle and Edmonds, he did push the boundaries out a bit more further than most mainstream broadcasters would. He reached a peak very quickly and I think that he did have a limited shelf life when it come to his work and what he could in order to get on the correct side of the broadcasting regulators.
A man who eccentric as they came, now that Buygones has now become bye-gone.
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