Vic Reeves: Brain tumour leaves comic deaf in one ear

The comedian and artist said the tumour was benign but inoperable and the deafness in one ear was permanent

Comedian Vic Reeves has revealed he has a benign brain tumour which has left him "100% deaf" in one ear.

The TV star, 62, whose real name is Jim Moir, said the growth is inoperable and has curtailed his hobbies such as listening to music and bird watching.

He told The Adam Buxton Podcast he had a benign inoperable tumour known as a vestibular schwannoma.

"I've gone 100% deaf in the left ear, and it will never come back," he added.

Reeves, who found fame in the 1990s with his comedy collaborator Bob Mortimer, said: "It's like the size of a grape so they just have to keep an eye on it.

"It's benign. They can't remove it - they can shrink it or they can just leave it and keep an eye on it, and that's what they're doing."

Asked if this has distressed him, the Shooting Stars co-host said: "No, not really, I would rather hear than not but this happened so you just get on with it, don't you?

"I've got used to it, I like going out bird watching and I never know where the birds are. I can hear them but I don't know what direction they are in.

"I had to throw away all my stereo LPs."

Vestibular schwannomas, also called acoustic neuromas, start in the nerve that connects the brain to the ear, according to Cancer Research UK.

'A life without stereo'

The charity said the tumours are rare, do not spread to other parts of the body and because they grow slowly over years, symptoms do not appear for some time.

Among the symptoms are hearing loss, ringing and buzzing sounds, difficulty working out where sounds are coming from and numbness of the face, which usually only happens in advanced tumours.

Asked if he can hear anything at all in that ear, Reeves, who grew up in Darlington and now lives in Charing in Kent, said: "It's dead, absolutely, completely gone.

"I'm living with deafness. Can you imagine a life without stereo records? All I've got left is Frank Ifield on mono!"