0:00:00 > 0:00:00crime, it's reported the letter was addressed to Prince Harry
0:00:01 > 0:00:02and Meghan Markle.
0:00:02 > 0:00:02Now its time for Meet the Author.
0:00:04 > 0:00:05Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:05 > 0:00:08This week on Meet the Author, Jim Naughtie talks with the arts
0:00:08 > 0:00:11administrator, journalist and author John Tusa about his new book
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Making A Noise - Getting it Right, Getting it Wrong, In Life,
0:00:13 > 0:00:14the Arts and Broadcasting.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17John Tusa has been broadcast, BBC executive, a tsar in
0:00:17 > 0:00:19performance and in academia, but now he's brought it all together
0:00:20 > 0:00:21in a memoir called Making A Noise.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23From his own experience, getting it right
0:00:23 > 0:00:25and getting it wrong, as he puts it.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27And from the people he has worked with.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29It's more than a personal portrait, it's a picture, drawn from
0:00:29 > 0:00:32an intriguing angle of what kind of country we live in today.
0:00:32 > 0:00:42Welcome.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47It is a story of modern Britain, isn't it, seen through some of our
0:00:48 > 0:00:49institutions in the arts?
0:00:49 > 0:00:59And of course, here in the BBC.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03Yes, I think it is, and I think that what
0:01:03 > 0:01:05it is is trying to understand what makes major organisations work.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07This tussle over the last 20, 30 years as
0:01:07 > 0:01:09to how efficient organisations have to be.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12The answer is, yes, of course, everybody has learned about
0:01:12 > 0:01:14how to run an organisation properly, but the interesting question...
0:01:14 > 0:01:18And I hope it comes out in the book.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21..is how do you combine being efficient with being true to what
0:01:21 > 0:01:23the organisation is about?
0:01:23 > 0:01:25The values.
0:01:25 > 0:01:30And we always believed, and I think the BBC used to, it
0:01:30 > 0:01:33certainly did, the World Service did, that values and efficiency can
0:01:33 > 0:01:35go hand in hand and I think that organisations...
0:01:35 > 0:01:41And I'm not talking about the BBC now.
0:01:41 > 0:01:42..but organisations which lose touch with their values
0:01:42 > 0:01:44do get stuck.
0:01:44 > 0:01:51And I think this is a continuing tussle in Britain today.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56Let's just take your story through to remind people.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59You were a journalist for the BBC for a very long time, and
0:01:59 > 0:02:02you were there particularly on the screen, as many people will
0:02:02 > 0:02:04remember, at the very beginning of Newsnight, which was a
0:02:04 > 0:02:06difficult birth, which you described in great detail there.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09And then of course you got the job you really
0:02:09 > 0:02:12wanted and didn't expect to get, which was running BBC World Service.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15Now, where do you think it sits in the panoply of, you know,
0:02:15 > 0:02:16broadcasting in the modern era?
0:02:16 > 0:02:20Well, there is absolutely no question that the
0:02:20 > 0:02:23trust that audiences had for the BBC World Service was higher than for
0:02:23 > 0:02:26anybody else, and the voice of America and all that would tend to
0:02:26 > 0:02:29get larger audiences and that was probably
0:02:29 > 0:02:32because they were more propagandistic, and people
0:02:32 > 0:02:34liked that.
0:02:34 > 0:02:42That was fine, but audiences knew what they were doing.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44But the trust level of the BBC World Service
0:02:44 > 0:02:47was greater than for any other broadcaster, and when communism
0:02:47 > 0:02:49fell, almost all the world's broadcasters, certainly the ones in
0:02:49 > 0:02:59the Communist block, just collapsed.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03And even the Voice of America and Liberty and Radio Free Europe lost
0:03:03 > 0:03:06their purpose because there was no longer a propaganda war to fight.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08But BBC World Service continued, because what we always
0:03:08 > 0:03:11said was, "We are giving information to audiences," and that was
0:03:11 > 0:03:16true then and I think it is true now.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19There's an interesting other side of the coin that you pointed in
0:03:19 > 0:03:22your story that when Government ministers said, "Well, why can't all
0:03:22 > 0:03:24the BBC be like the World Service?"
0:03:24 > 0:03:27The source code for the fact that they didn't like the BBC, because it
0:03:27 > 0:03:32was saying things about Government that they didn't approve of.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34This was mortifying, and also a lot of
0:03:34 > 0:03:36Government ministers, BBC governors, when they were giving the board of
0:03:36 > 0:03:38management at the BBC a particularly hard
0:03:38 > 0:03:40time, and then saying, "But of
0:03:40 > 0:03:42course, the World Service is marvellous," and I hated that.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44The World Service being held up as some
0:03:44 > 0:03:47sort of goody-goody bit of the BBC when frankly a lot of the governors
0:03:47 > 0:03:57were attacking the BBC quite, quite unfairly and unreasonably.
0:03:59 > 0:04:00Well, this is something...
0:04:00 > 0:04:02You look into this in excruciating detail, but
0:04:02 > 0:04:05there are passages in the book where you talk about the extent which
0:04:05 > 0:04:08there was in your view a great lack of affection,
0:04:08 > 0:04:10almost hatred in some cases, for the institution
0:04:10 > 0:04:12which they were supposed to be guardians of as
0:04:12 > 0:04:13governors of the BBC.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Time and again, governors of the nonexecutive
0:04:15 > 0:04:18body would say things like, "Well, of course the BBC won't exist in six
0:04:18 > 0:04:19or seven years' time."
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Now, as and informed comment or a judgment, you
0:04:21 > 0:04:23say, "Well, maybe yes, maybe no."
0:04:23 > 0:04:24It has been proven very, very wrong.
0:04:24 > 0:04:34They would say that.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40But then the other times, when the remarks they
0:04:40 > 0:04:43would make really indicated they were completely out of sympathy
0:04:43 > 0:04:44with what the BBC stood for.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46And to have people in the nonexecutive body, the
0:04:46 > 0:04:48Board of Governors, who really disliked
0:04:48 > 0:04:49what the BBC stood for, and
0:04:49 > 0:04:52this is one of the reasons why the relationships between the Board
0:04:52 > 0:04:55of Governors and the executive board fell apart in those years, 1992,
0:04:55 > 0:04:561993 under the chairman.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58You know, you've got to respect an organisation
0:04:58 > 0:04:59if you are responsible for it.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02Your subsequent career, of course, took you into the arts.
0:05:02 > 0:05:11You ran the Barbican Centre.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13You had a great commitment to the arts.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17You then worked in academia in the same
0:05:17 > 0:05:19university of the arts.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21When you moved from the BBC with all its
0:05:21 > 0:05:23difficulties and always bureaucratic problems, trying to deal with
0:05:23 > 0:05:26artists and artist management, and produce a programme that he plays
0:05:26 > 0:05:28like the Barbican with all its different aspects, what was the
0:05:28 > 0:05:38difference?
0:05:39 > 0:05:41I always thought there was a lot in common, because both
0:05:42 > 0:05:43artists in their totality...
0:05:43 > 0:05:44A lot of hysterical people.
0:05:44 > 0:05:54And journalists in their totality.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01We all do things which they believe in.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04They are on the whole not very well paid, and they
0:06:04 > 0:06:07are acutely aware of the need to relate to the audience, to the
0:06:07 > 0:06:08public.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11So from that point of view, I felt completely at home with
0:06:11 > 0:06:12artists as with journalists.
0:06:12 > 0:06:13Putting together the artistic programme was
0:06:13 > 0:06:14something that I didn't do.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16I tried to create the atmosphere within
0:06:16 > 0:06:19which an organisation could exist, and then the artistic field under
0:06:19 > 0:06:23Graham Sheffield did that, but you did need both.
0:06:23 > 0:06:24Your own story is a fascinating one.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Born in Czechoslovakia.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28Although you save one of your regrets in the book is
0:06:28 > 0:06:30that you never learned to speak Czech.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32You might have been delivered by Tom Stoppard's father.
0:06:32 > 0:06:33You may have been.
0:06:33 > 0:06:34Yes.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36There were two doctors on duty that night and one
0:06:36 > 0:06:38of them was his father.
0:06:38 > 0:06:39That's right.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Did you find when you came and of course were educated wholly
0:06:42 > 0:06:45in this country and so on that you still had the perspective of an
0:06:45 > 0:06:47outsider simply by the accident of birth?
0:06:47 > 0:06:48I think I always have done.
0:06:48 > 0:06:49I mean, I am British.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50I'm not English.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52I can't be English.
0:06:52 > 0:06:53I think British intellect is a wonderful, inclusive
0:06:53 > 0:06:54identity.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57Part of that Britishness, which I think many people will feel,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00is the ability to use your origin - in my case, Czechoslovakia -
0:07:00 > 0:07:03as a way of looking at life in a slightly,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06slightly different way.
0:07:06 > 0:07:13And, you know, bits of Czechness crop up, appear here and there.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16I feel a huge identity with, for example, the great national
0:07:16 > 0:07:18hero, the good soldier, Svejk.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20Svejk survives dictatorship and autocracy by
0:07:20 > 0:07:22pretending to be an idiot, and saying, "I am an idiot."
0:07:22 > 0:07:24And there's something about that defensive
0:07:24 > 0:07:31strategy which I find very, very attractive.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33You say you're British, do you feel European?
0:07:33 > 0:07:34I feel intensely European.
0:07:34 > 0:07:42One of the reasons that I'm now applying for my Czech
0:07:42 > 0:07:45passport, which of course I never have, but I never abandoned Czech
0:07:45 > 0:07:48citizenship, Is that I do not want to be cut
0:07:48 > 0:07:50out from Europe if, I
0:07:50 > 0:07:52would say, the worst comes to the worst,
0:07:52 > 0:07:57and Britain leaves the EU.
0:07:57 > 0:08:02I am intensely European.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04I travel there a great deal.
0:08:04 > 0:08:05European culture in all its aspects...
0:08:05 > 0:08:06And it's not just my culture.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08It's Britain's culture, for heaven's sake.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10You know, Britain is part of Europe.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13And I don't want to be cut off from that in any way at all.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15It's a glory and a privilege.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17And yet, the picture of the country that
0:08:17 > 0:08:18you portray here is, for all its difficulties,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21for example here at the BBC or in funding for the arts,
0:08:21 > 0:08:24which you are intensely passionate about, it's nonetheless a rich,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26diverse and culturally alive place, isn't it, which you continue to
0:08:26 > 0:08:27celebrate?
0:08:27 > 0:08:29You are not someone who is depressed.
0:08:29 > 0:08:37No, I refuse to be depressed.
0:08:37 > 0:08:38And I don't think...
0:08:38 > 0:08:42I think there are many reasons for not
0:08:42 > 0:08:46being depressed, and the sheer intense variety of the culture of
0:08:46 > 0:08:48this country.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50The diversity of this country.
0:08:50 > 0:08:52I mean, the way that London has just accommodated people,
0:08:52 > 0:08:56nations, whole wodges of other nations'
0:08:56 > 0:09:01and London is the rich.
0:09:01 > 0:09:08You know, in history, all the evidence is that city
0:09:08 > 0:09:10nations which take in outsiders, strangers, they
0:09:10 > 0:09:15are the ones that flourish.
0:09:15 > 0:09:16They flourish economically, creatively
0:09:16 > 0:09:17and intellectually.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19There is a lesson there for us.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21John Tusa, author of Making A Noise, thank you
0:09:21 > 0:09:22very much.
0:09:22 > 0:09:32Thank you, Jim.