‘Management and mischief’: Matthew Evans remembered

Robert McCrum, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ted Hughes’ widow Carol Hughes, Melvyn Bragg and Andrew Lloyd Webber were among those paying tribute to Matthew Evans, for decades m.d. of Faber & Faber, and later its chairman, at a memorial service held at the Royal Court Theatre on Wednesday (5th July).  

Evans died nearly a year ago to the day, aged 74.

McCrum, whom in a “reckless gamble” Evans appointed to the role of Faber editor-in-chief in 1980 when he was just 25, remembered “an enfant terrible – intuitive, visceral and instinctive”, a “die-hard contrarian” with “DNA coded with a double helix of management and mischief.” Calling him “my friend, my ally, my mentor, and sometimes my tormentor”, he recalled a publisher whose deep friendships with poets Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney were emblematic of an affinity with great writers.  

Ted Hughes’ widow Carol Hughes spoke of the long friendship between Evans and the poet, despite a “blistering letter full of Faber rage” that arrived one day in the 1990s when Hughes went rogue in making his own deals, despite Faber being appointed as his agent. Meanwhile Seamus Heaney’s daughter Catherine Heaney spoke of the “deep and devoted” 50-year friendship commenced when Evans acquired Heaney’s collection Death of a Naturalist for £25 in 1965.

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro remembered coming to Faber as a 26-year-old in 1981 when “my sense of self as a writer was fragile”, and being given “a sense of sanctuary” by Evans: “He made it clear authors like me were central to Faber’s future.”  

“In an era of cynicism, Matthew continued to believe that organisations and institutions could be properly human, for those within them and those they served”, he said, and he worked “with passion and daring” to make that the case with Faber. Ishiguro called Evans “a visionary man…and a warm, modest, wise, massively dependable friend.”

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber said his life – as well as the lives of producer Cameron Mackintosh and director Trevor Nunn - had been changed by the musical version of “Cats", which came about “entirely [due to] Matthew’s strange faith in this idea [of setting T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats to music]”. He recalled being taken by Evans to an introductory meeting with Eliot’s widow Valerie, at which Evans stood behind Valerie’s chair mouthing encouragement as a young Lloyd Webber attempted to convince her of his plan. “The support he gave me made ‘Cats’ possible,” he said.      

Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg spoke of Evans’ later years of public service, whether as chair of the Library Commission, a governor of the British Film Institute, or chair of the Royal Court Theatre. (“He could be a testy chair, as showed when he tried to have the [Royal Court] artistic director removed,” he noted). Later Evans served in the House of Lords, as spokesperson for constitutional affairs, work and pensions, the treasury and in other roles. “He was relaxed and mischievous in the House, as if at a dinner party,” Bragg said. “He hated garrulity, showing-off, cant, or being bored. He was not universally liked but that did not bother him. He was absolutely terrific and I miss him very much.”    

Current Faber m.d. Stephen Page described Evans as having “a vivid, brilliant life and one that leaves a great mark on the world. He was one of the great post-war publishers. In recreating Faber he did something important and difficult, through his cleverness, boldness and curiosity, and his liking for the odd bust-up…He had such decisiveness and ambition, and carried all the difficulty of the job with such apparent ease.”

Page remembered how, when he was a bookseller in the late 1980s, the “boldness” of Faber’s lists, and the “scintillating roster” of its writer “made me the reader I am, and so much of the force of that came from his publishing vision, his sheer chutzpah.” Even after leaving the company, Evans continued to offer support and encouragement to Page over regular lunch at the Wolseley. “I thank him on my behalf and on the behalf of all Faber’s staff past and present; he built a thrilling publishing house while standing on the daunting shoulders of Geoffrey Faber, T S Eliot and Charles Monteith, and he made it new,” he said. “He also taught us to enjoy a life in publishing.”

Readings included Ted Hughes’ 1996 recording of his own poem “Wodwo”, Robert McCrum reading Shakespeare’s sonnet “Fear no more the heat o' the sun”, and Tom Evans, one of Evans' children with literary agent Caroline Michel, reading Kahlil Gibran’s “On Joy and Sorrow”.