Radio by Valerie Grove

Only a month ago we were mourning the sudden death of Andrew Nickolds. He was co-creator of Ed Reardon’s Week, the best satire on a freelance writer’s life since – well, since George Gissing’s New Grub Street, on whose character Edwin Reardon the modern Ed was based. Now, even before Andrew’s ashes have finished smouldering in a Cambridge crematorium, we hear of the death, in Bruges, of Victor Lewis-Smith at 65. There is a species of humour that flourishes at the BBC despite its exploitation of the corporation's pomposities and absurdities. The late Ned Sherrin, Clive Anderson, Russell Davies and Ian Hislop all practised this: as did the late lamented Humph, Spike Milligan, Willie Rushton - and indeed the whole I'm Sorry I Haven’t a Clue team. To satirise without belittling, mock without deflating – and cut down boundless narcissism wherever it appears. The genius of Lewis-Smith, who wore his...

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