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A compilation of prank calls peaked at No. 1 on the iTunes comedy chart on 27 July 2006.

At the time of their first broadcast, they attracted some controversy: in The Sunday Times ( 15 April 1990 ) Paul Donovan opined that Lewis-Smith's hoaxes were " repugnant " and claimed that Lewis-Smith's company broke a " written undertaking that permission to broadcast would be obtained from all the people who had received the hoax calls " and that subsequently the BBC made illegal broadcasts in breach of their producers ' guidelines.

The Guardian's Lucy Mangan described some of the recordings as being " touched with genius ".

Writing about Lewis-Smith's hoax phone calls in The Times Higher Education, Sally Feldman observed that " He chooses his victims carefully, pricking the pompous and the powerful in the very best traditions of satire.

His favourite target is the media, his pranks intended to expose their smugness, their laziness and their gullibility.