Letters: Michael Kustow’s thinking was bold, his ambition high
Jeremy Isaacs, Tony Gordon, Bernard Regan and Mike Westbrook
theguardian.com, Sunday 7 September 2014 16.17 BST
Highbrow argument: Michael Kustow in 1968, as director of the ICA.
Photograph: Chris Morris/Rex
Jeremy Isaacs writes: Channel 4 was charged, by Act of Parliament, with
providing a “distinctive” service; as its commissioning editor for the
arts, Michael Kustow did much to make that promise good. His thinking was
bold, his ambition high. Peter Brook’s Hindu saga, The Mahabharata; Peter
Hall’s masked Oresteia; Pina Bausch’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Tony
Harrison’s V, directed by Richard Eyre, tumbled on to the screen one after
the other. BBC2 commissioned an opera from Harrison Birtwistle, Yan Tan
Tethera, but declined to broadcast it. Kustow snapped it up for Channel 4;
the television version we made was simulcast with the BBC’s Radio 3. He
brought together the artist Tom Phillips and the film-maker Peter Greenaway
to attempt A TV Dante: eight episodes of The Inferno resulted. Kustow
behaved as a patron of the arts in a grand manner.
Himself an unreconstructed egghead, Kustow also offered highbrow argument.
The programme Voices began with Al Alvarez chairing a debate, with George
Steiner, Mary McCarthy and Joseph Brodsky, on the effect on artists of
dictatorship. Six series of Voices were screened at 11pm. And there were
programmes such as Psychoanalysis Today (Michael Ignatieff) and Philosophy
Today (John Searle). Thoughtful viewers in those days owed much to Michael
Kustow. He deserves to be remembered for it.
Tony Gordon writes: In the 1970s, Michael Kustow generously answered an
optimistic plea from Colin Jellicoe and myself (who both owned small
galleries) to visit us in Manchester to discuss a possible exhibition of
northern based artists at the National Theatre. He was the NT exhibitions
director at the time.
Where to go for lunch? He suggested Armenian, as part of his family had
originated from Armenia and he loved the food. At the time, Colin and I
were both struggling financially and couldn’t really afford the restaurant,
but luckily Arto der Haroutunian, the restaurant owner, happened to be one
of our artists. Michael proved great company, very entertaining and most
gracious.
In due course, the exhibition was organised and filled the foyers of the
NT. Looking back, it was not the greatest of exhibitions and was rightly
slated by Time Out. However, the knock-on effect was my contemporary
jewellery exhibition Dazzle which stayed for 32 years at the NT, until it
moved along the South Bank last year to the Oxo building.
Bernard Regan writes: In the last 10 years Michael Kustow and I worked
together on a number of projects. One was Another Israel, a meeting at the
NUT headquarters in Euston Road, London, which gave a platform to speakers
from Israel opposed to the policies of the Israeli government. Michael
organised the filming of the event, which was packed. He was supportive of
all those who wanted to open the debate within the Jewish community about
what was happening to the Palestinian people and of those within Israel who
sought to question their government’s actions.
Michael visited Israel and the West Bank and took a close interest in
theFreedom theatre in Jenin. I think he made a political journey, too –
always questioning and challenging, but engaged and never negative. He
brought his wide interest in the arts to bear on how he thought about the
issues and how he sought to engage people in a dialogue and discussion
about them.
Mike Westbrook writes: One of Mike Kustow’s projects was an English version
of Roger Planchon’s surrealist opera about Al Capone, Mama Chicago. The
original music and the songs had got lost, so Mike wrote new lyrics and
asked me to write the music. The piece had been commissioned by the
Crucible theatre, Sheffield. I duly wrote the score, and my group the Brass
Band was booked to play for the show, on-stage. At the last minute the
theatre’s director got cold feet about the possible impact of this
avant-garde production on the provincial audience and pulled the plug.
The Mama Chicago songs stayed on the shelf until Kate Westbrook and I had
the idea of using them as the basis for a jazz cabaret, a form of
music-theatre, incorporating improvisation, that we had been developing
with the band. The show was first staged at Charles Marowitz’s Open Space
theatre, a disused post office by Warren Street tube. We invited Michael to
the premiere, having told him nothing of our plans. To our great relief, he
loved the show, and did not seem to mind a bit that we had reworked some of
his lyrics as stand-alone songs rather than parts of an operatic scenario.
At the Edinburgh festival in 1978, Mama Chicago won the Fringe award. Over
the succeeding years, Kate, Phil Minton and I, with a succession of bands,
gave frequent London performances, and toured the jazz cabaret throughout
France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Scandinavia, and once to Australia.
It was filmed for BBC TV, broadcast on radio, and recorded as a double
album. In fact, Mama Chicago was one of our most successful projects.
It pleased Michael that the piece he had sparked off reached such a wide
audience. His text for Song of the Rain, featured in the show by Phil
Minton, is a work of genius – poignant, witty, and soulful. One of the last
times we met was at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden for the launch of
his Peter Brook biography. At Mike’s request, Kate sang Song of the Rain.
He described that lyric as “God given”. He has left us a great theatre song
to remember him by.
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/07/letters-michael-kustow-obituary