Obituary - Stuart Olesker

It is with sadness and regret that we announce the recent death of Actor, Director and Bibliophile Stuart Olesker. Stuart was an erudite, intensely (and widely) well read and thoroughly charming man. I first formally met Stuart some years ago when we engaged him to do some voice-overs for a film used in a Ports Fest (Portsmouth Festivities) event. We met in the café at Portsmouth Guildhall (Stuart was especially fond of their Brownies) to discuss the project. A meeting that should have lasted no more than 20 minutes comfortably spun into over an hour as we ranged across a variety of arts and literary topics for no reason other than a shared love and the entertaining range of experiences Stuart could, and regularly did, recall. I soon learned that such gentle meandering through a well-lived lifetime of memories was commonplace whenever you met up with him and all of us were only too happy for the generosity of them. During the course of that first meeting we talked of our favourite poets and Stuart told me of how he had rambled around Europe as a youth and found himself (for no particular reason) on the island of Majorca where he met a friend of the poet Robert Graves and was invited to spend the evening dining with Graves and his entourage.  'Perhaps', he said tentatively, 'I should write and account of it!' I was more than ready to publish it. Publication never happened but a few years later as we were coming out of lockdown we decided to produce a podcast about Graves. Myself and three actors recited a selection of Graves' poems chosen by Stuart and Liz Weston talked with him about that evening in the poet's house at Deià on Majorca. At some point Stuart and I spent a delightful time talking about Robert Graves' poetry in order ot select those to include in the podcast and Stuart insisted that we include his personal favourite 'Flying Crooked' a short poem about the haphazard flight of the Cabbage White butterfly. Literary analysis insists the poem is a satire of those who lack direction or purpose but that was not Stuart's interpretation and, thanks to him, neither is it mine. The butterfly is a metaphor for the value of relishing life's apparently haphazard fluttering and not focussing needlessly on yet unachieved horizons. 

Stuarts funeral took place in Havant Crematorium, a gentle ceremony led by a female rabbi featuring music and poems he had chosen. Flying Crooked was its centrepiece. True to Stuart's joyfully gentle and humorous approach to life the funeral ended with a song by the Marx Brothers and, as the mourners filed out, Tom Lehrer's 'We Will All Go Together When We Go'. It was a delight and an honour to have known and worked with him.

                                                         Josh Brown

The Away With Words podcast'Remembering Robert Graves' can be heard on Spotify, Apple Play and Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is a free to access podcast host.