Jeremy Beadle MBE, who died on 30 January, 2008, aged 59, was a television presenter, famous, and indeed infamous, in the 1980s and ’90s for playing elaborate pranks on the British public.

In the hit series Game for a Laugh and Beadle's About, he re-popularised the hidden camera format first used on Candid Camera in the 1950s, helping ITV win the Saturday night ratings war for the first time but turning himself into a caricatured villain in the process.

He went on to be the first host of long-running home video clips show You've Been Framed! and was later a quiz master. In 2001 he was given an MBE for his work with the charity Children With Leukaemia, being diagnosed with the condition himself five years later.

Jeremy James Anthony Gibson Beadle was born on 12 April, 1948, in Hackney, London. He was born with Poland Syndrome, a rare condition that affects muscle development on one side of the body which resulted in his right hand being noticeably smaller than his left and partially deformed.

He was an adventurous young man, travelling across Europe after leaving school. He then worked as a taxi driver, tour guide and a promoter of the Bickershaw Music Festival (a notoriously chaotic event) in 1972.

He entered the media with an editorial job at Time Out magazine. He also began contributing quiz questions to game shows like Celebrity Squares in the late 1970s and this led to his first radio presenting job on BBC Radio 4’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

He developed a cult following with a late-night show on a London radio station, LBC, and then hosted a music show called Beadle’s Odditarium on Capital Radio. It was on these radio shows that he carried out his first pranks.

His first television presenting jobs were on documentary series recounting conmen and inventors throughout history. In 1981 he became one of the four original presenters of Game for a Laugh, a prime-time show consisting of pre-recorded and studio-based pranks.

As well as co-hosting Game for a Laugh with Matthew Kelly, Henry Kelly and Sarah Kennedy, Mr Beadle was instrumental in shaping the show’s concept. When the other three presenters left after the first few series, Mr Beadle remained to work with three new presenters, and then started his own show with an identical format, Beadle’s About, in 1987, which ran until 1996.His pranks would see people’s day-to-day activities disrupted by elaborately engineering sabotage, such as faking the destruction of someone’s property (such as their car) or causing a catastrophe at their work place. Victims were nominated by their friends and family. On one occasion he faked an alien landing in Dorset.

Beadle would generally disguise himself and take part in the set-ups though his infamy became so great that he would occasionally be recognised before the ‘reveal’. On more than one occasion his victim reacted angrily to being the butt of a joke, not being "game for a laugh" as his one-time catchphrase put it.

In later years he became a ‘general knowledge’ expert, guesting on shows like GMTV and Countdown, and he put together several books of lists and facts. This led to him hosting his own quiz show on Channel Five, Win Beadle's Money, in which he would pit his knowledge against contestants’, losing only 8 times in 52 editions.

He also used his general knowledge skills to host charity quiz events to raise money for the charities the Philip Green Memorial Trust and Reach, both of which he was a patron. In 2002 he self-deprecatingly sent up his reputation by taking part in a reality TV segment of Ant & Dec’s prime time show to see if members of the public could survive being ‘Banged Up With Beadle’.

He underwent a successful operation to remove a tumour from his kidney in 2004 but the following year he was diagnosed with leukaemia after a routine blood test. The cancer had been caught early and treatment was successful, but his general health was put into decline.

In January 2008 he was put into intensive care by a severe bout of pneumonia and died after a week in hospital. He was survived by his wife, Sue, daughters Cassie and Bonnie and two stepchildren, Leo and Claire.