Spaces of Freedom: Reflections on the 25th Edition of Fotofestiwal, Łódź (18-28 June, 2026)

"Łódź is a city of contrasts, of four cultures, a promised land. The Polish Manchester. A city of women. A city of Lodzermensch types. A city of transformation and its consequences... It carries a whole range of associations and emotions." (Katarzyna Kończal, curator of the exhibition School of Seeing: The City, Herbst Palace Museum, Łódź, 18 June - 31 December 2026) 

The artistic and cinematic history of the Polish city of Łódź - with it famed film school, and strong links to the avant garde in painting - continues to intersect with its post-industrial present in vibrant ways, including in the many cultural events that take place in the city's revitalised spaces. After almost two decades of encounters with the city, I still find myself surprised by it, discovering new facets to a prismatic and often still underrated place. 

One such event is Fotofestiwal, which celebrated its quarter century this June with a spectacularly packed programme across 10 days. While its primary focus remains photography, the festival also ranges across arts and culture in their widest expressions - film, music, sculpture, performance - dissolving boundaries to create an event that's as inclusive and interdisciplinary as it is international. 

Vive la résistance, Marta Bogdańska

When it was founded in 2001, by students from several different academic disciplines, a decade after the post-communist closure of the city's textile factories had left Łódź at an economic low point, Fotofestiwal was very much an underground endeavour, with films shown from VHS tape and displays created from magazine cut-outs.

Vitamin, Augustin Rebetez

Though much changed, expanded and polished since then, the festival still retains something of that raw, punkish energy today. For all the engagement with contemporary political and social ills in the art displayed, a defiant playfulness is also evident - both in the exhibits chosen by director/co-founder Krzysztof Candrowicz and his team of programmers/curators, and also in the city-wide locations in which the work is placed. 

 Better 'Magua' Than Pain, Helena Majewska

Take, for instance, Vitamin, by Augustin Rebetez, a deliriously anarchic combo of kitsch, cats and politics presented in the loft of the Biedermann Palace. Or Helena Majewska's Better 'Magua' Than Pain, a funky but also meditative reflection on Berlin and Warsaw club culture that took over the Machine Room of Fuzja, a historic former power plant, now a mixed-use site of cultural events, restaurants, and residences. 

Eclipse, Adrian Chmielewski

Majewska's immersive exhibition was nicely complemented across the city, in the swish Brama Miasta surroundings of PKO Bank Polski's Galeria Koncept, by the display Przesilenie / Eclipse. Presided over by charismatic music manager, events organiser and concierge Eryk Czyżewski, this display of Adrian Chmielewski's exciting series of photographs taken at music festivals captured moments of artists' performances and revellers' communion with cinematic verve and even some fiery Sirât (2025)-style vibes. 

Meanwhile, the former YMCA swimming pool on Moniuszki Street was startlingly repurposed as a cinema for Kino UTOPIA, an uncanny evocation of past picture palaces as centres of imagination and ideas. Here short films by Taiwanese talents Ying-Ju Chen, Kuang-Yu Tsui, Jui-Chung Yao, and Zi-Fu Chen were screened in the pool, in a concept designed by Paweł Giza, with retro film posters adorning the walls of the upper level. 

Kino UTOPIA 

More orthodox but still highly rewarding was the School of Seeing: The City display at the Herbst Palace Museum. This is an expansive reflection on 19th and 20th century urban experience and flânerie that transports the viewer from the Polish Manchester of the exhibition's location to Paris, London and other metropolises through carefully curated images and quotes. 

American Cycles, Philip Montgomery 

In contrast, American Cycles, the exhibition of Philip Montgomery's photography at the City Art Gallery in Sienkiewicz Park, brought audiences right up to date with its focus on recent and ongoing US traumas, from the opioid crisis to BLM protests. The first time that the work of Montgomery, a regular contributor to publications including New York Times, has been presented in Poland, the black-and-white images also brought intimacy to celebrated subjects, from amusingly startled Supreme Court Justices to Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, gently head to head. 

American Cycles, Philip Montgomery 

A street over, at Re:Medium Gallery on Piotrkowska, Izabela Łapińska's American Beauty collated the Polish photographer and filmmaker's portraits of individuals whom Łapińska had encountered on New York streets. With special attention to the subjects' lips, the exhibit offered a warm, affirmative display of US diversity. 

Pig, Feng Li

Alongside the aforementioned Biedermann Palace, the festival's other central hub was at Art_Inkubator, the former complex of textile warehouses close to Fuzja, where the main programme was presented. Here the festival's central theme of relations between human and animals was most prominently in evidence. 

Startling highlights included Pig, Feng Li's subversive take on domestication: a photographic document of family life with an ever-growing porker and other adopted animals in a Chengdu apartment that suggested a Chinese counterpart to Malcom Mowbray's A Private Function (1984). The photos in Vive la résistance, by Marta Bogdańska, hilariously and pointedly gave the gaze back to various animal subjects. Nikita Teryoshin's Backyard Diaries, meanwhile, was a moving, gritty display of photos of street cats from across the world: a sometimes painful but also vital antidote to Instagramable cuteness. 

 I'll Bet the Devil My Head, Carlos Alba

Also asking tough questions about human/animal relations in an urban context, this time through a fable-like form, was Carlos Alba's I'll Bet the Devil My Head. Here photos of urban foxes prowling the London borough of Tower Hamlets were juxtaposed with images of city brokers to evoke the capital's wealth disparities.

Flipping the Bird,
Jaap Scheeren/Rik van den Bos 

Jaap Scheeren and Rik van den Bos contributed Flipping the Bird, a brilliant 15 minute short film, or "photo novel," based around a walk across the Dutch dunes. As the journey progresses, pastoral rapture gives way to a subversive rebuttal from nature's perspective. By turns reflective, irreverent, sexy, meditative, confrontational, laugh-out-loud funny and profound, this was among my favourite exhibits of the festival. Do yourself a favour and watch it here. 

Luke Stephenson, An Incomplete History of Show Birds

A sometime collaborator of Scheeren's, Luke Stephenson brought his delightful An Incomplete History of Show Birds, an example of the photographer's heartening attention to the more eccentric, arcane and undersung elements of British culture. The pictures  looked at once sweetly enticing and quite imposing in their outdoor display at Schiller's Passage on Piotrkowska Street, where the city's own birds could be counted among the exhibit's charmed spectators. 

The festival's biggest coup was surely its opening event, again held at Fuzja, and this time based around an unexpected collaboration. John Akomfrah's Listening All Night to the Rain was the celebrated artist-filmmaker's commissioned contribution to the 2024 Venice Biennale's British Pavilion. 

A further development of Akomfrah's series of collectively devised multi-screen film installations, Listening All Night to the Rain has been seen in a couple of iterations since its Venice premiere: at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and, currently, at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. 

The Fotofestiwal presentation of the piece was entirely unique, however, in boasting new music composed to the images by Hania Rani (a recent winner at the European Film Awards for her soundtrack to Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value [2025]). This was performed live by Rani on piano and cymbals at Fuzja. 

Listening All Night to the Rain 

This surprising audiovisual synthesis proved highly effective and quite emotional. Since his breakthrough film, Handsworth Songs (1986), Akomfrah's tender and radical works, combining freshly filmed images with others drawn from archives, have always boasted extremely intricate soundscapes of their own; they may not seem to require further sonic intervention. Here, though, some of the original sounds could be heard faintly beneath Rani's live playing, creating another layer, a kind of audio palimpsest, that added to the richness and surprise of the images. 

Listening All Night to the Rain

The presentation of the piece as a 30 minute work on 8 screens meant that its original scope (which included around 30 hours of footage across 60 screens in 8 rooms in Venice) was considerably reduced. But Akomfrah's fluid, associative, haptic imagery - of drowned clocks and dancing bodies, ticking metronomes and James Baldwin on the telephone, political protests and pre-Raphaelite paintings - still offered plenty to absorb, with Rani's playing a by turns rapturous, delicate and discordant addition. 

Listening All Night to the Rain

Akomfrah's "bricolage" filmmaking has always sought connections between apparently disparate aspects of the world. And with the screens fading in and out on the faces of different human subjects, suggesting a relay of experiences both deeply private and collective, this iteration of Listening All Night to the Rain wonderfully evoked the idea of each individual as a living archive of memory and incident. For all the histories of oppression and crises they gesture towards, Akomfrah's recent works have a deeply cleansing, spiritual impact, and the new music accentuated that effect. "We might do it again," said Rani, of the performance. Let's hope so. 

American Beauty, Izabela Łapińska

Akomfrah - whose first visit to Łódź this was but who, in his brief introduction to the performance, called the city a "mecca" for students of his generation - has described an important aspect of his work as "creating spaces of freedom" for audiences. In its remarkable range and its democratic showcasing of work by global artists - both those long established and those newly emerging - this year's anniversary edition of Fotofestiwal offered many such liberating, challenging and inspiring spaces for its attendees. The above remarks cover only a fraction of the festival's abundance of riches - its at times overwhelming array of events and exhibits, concerts, parties and talks. This unique and exhilarating festival continues to grow and evolve, and showcases Łódź at its best and most inclusive. Here's to the next 25 years.

Fotofestiwal took place in Łódź between 18-28 June 2026. However, some of the exhibits, including several mentioned above, continue to be displayed throughout the year. Further details here. 

Article on Polish Representation in British Fiction (culture.pl)

 

At culture.pl, I wrote about how post-2004 Polish / CEE male migrant characters to the UK are portrayed in some recent British fiction. You can read the piece here.

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Article on the British Reception of Andrzej Wajda's Work (culture.pl)

 

At culture.pl, I wrote about the British reception of Andrzej Wajda's films over the years. You can read the piece here.

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Theatre Review: Archduke (Royal Court)

 

Three directionless youths come under the influence of a charismatic figure with women issues who manipulates them into a deadly action... In outline, the plot of Rajiv Joseph's play has a torn-from-the-headlines topicality connected to current "manosphere" obsessions. In fact, the setting is Serbia, 1914, and what our heroes are being coerced into is nothing less than the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, catalyst for WWI.

‎Already a hit OFF Broadway, Joseph's play receives its European premiere in a solid production by Lindsey Turner at the Royal Court that benefits from a fine, atmospheric design by Es Devlin - ushering us from tunnel to train compartment - and from great performances from its five-strong cast. 

‎As the assassins, initially motivated, as much as anything, by the promise of food, Chris Walley, Abraham Popoola and Stanley Morgan spark off each other with aplomb. Funny and chilling as the Captain who grooms them, Marc Wootton brings gleaming-eyed gusto to the production, including to some heavy, context-setting exposition. And, reunited with Wootton from last year's fragrant When We Are Married at the Donmar, Janice Connolly does another sly, eccentric gem of a supporting turn as the Captain's cook.

‎Despite the world-shaking events it heralds, the play is intimate not epic, and Joseph finds a convincing idiom, his dialogue neither period fusty nor irritatingly anachronistic. Those expecting a  sweeping Coast of Utopia deep dive into the complexities of revolutionary politics might feel short-changed but the production delivers the play effectively up to a poignant 'What If?' coda. A worthwhile evening.

‎Archduke is booking at the Royal Court until 25 July. 

Theatre Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (National Theatre, Lyttelton)

 

‎[Review with mild spoilers.]

‎Though it soon played in bigger theatres after its hugely successful RSC debut at The Other Place in 1985, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Christopher Hampton's theatrical version of Pierre Choderlos des Laclos' scandal-provoking 1782 epistolary novel, is still usually regarded as a chamber drama best suited to small spaces.

‎With her new production in the Lyttelton, Marianne Elliott sets out to blow that idea out of the water. Boasting a monochrome mirrored set by Rosanna Vize, around which shadowy suited males prowl as the audience take their seats, and making dance a central component (choreography is by Tom Jackson Greaves), Elliott's take on the play is big, broad-strokes, balletic.

‎Indeed, following her quite colourless film debut The Salt Path, Elliott seems to have decided to go all-out in terms of theatricality here, with the characters' savage social/sexual warfare and interior struggles conveyed through movement as much as dialogue. The approach feels much more integrated than in Matthew Warchus' dance-heavy Oedipus at the Old Vic last year, though given the mix of cheers and grumblings in the audience reaction following the fourth preview, the expressionist result looks likely to be just as divisive. For me, though, this proved, overall, a highly entertaining evening, though not one without some flaws. 

‎The production's tone of glittering camp is set from the first appearance of Lesley Manville's Marquise de Merteuil as a masked figure in scarlet striding into the ballroom, and marking out her latest prey: the convent-reared 15-year-old Cecile, whose premature seduction Merteuil is determined to bring about as a way of getting back at a lover who has jilted her. Central to Merteuil's plot is another previous lover, the Vicomte de Valmont, who is planning another seduction: that of the virtuous, married Madame de Tourvel.

‎Can the exploitative erotic power games of two nasty pre-Revolution French aristos have much to say to audiences today? Well, according to the programme what resonated in the 80s as a proto-portrait of "the 'me' generation" now works just as well as an exploration of the abuses undertaken by the powerful. Accordingly, costumes (by Natalie Roar, in a distinctive theatrical design debut) in Elliott's production mix periods - dress suits for the men and a series of sparkling red outfits (plus red-soled Louboutins!) for Manville; and the odd fetish flourish.

‎Actually, it's not necessary to force contemporary parallels to find the machinations of Merteuil and Valmont compelling, and Hampton's arch, epigrammatic dialogue still sounds quite good. But it's certainly notable that Elliott, as often, brings the female characters to the fore, whether Gabrielle Drake as Valmont's elderly aunt or Hannah van der Westhuysen's Cecile (tall and rangy like Uma Thurman in the Stephen Frears film of the play), even though the "feminism" of the piece still ends up seeming highly equivocal.

‎Maybe that focus accounts for the deficiencies of Aidan Turner as Valmont. If Alan Rickman was often described as "born to play the role", the same can't yet be said for Turner. Actually, the actor looks the part but seems to have been directed to frequently play for crowd-pleasing laughs, an approach that inevitably lowers the dramatic stakes.

‎Given his Poldark and Rivals form, it's no surprise that Turner gets a shirtless moment - though that's nothing compared to Manville's jaw-dropping display at the opening of the second half, an intimate scene designed to reveal Merteuil's private fears and vulnerabilities in a production which enhances the protagonists' age gap.

‎There's something so fascinatingly honed, immaculate and precise about Manville's stage acting: she achieves her effects without grandstanding of any kind. The economy, control, perceptiveness and wit she brings to the calculating Merteuil, along with her history with the play (she was Cecile in the original production and appeared in the 2022 TV version), makes all of her scenes highlights. Later, she brilliantly shows this self-described "virtuoso of deceit" being confronted by the limits of her power and the realisation that "life can be... frighteningly unpredictable."

‎The biggest surprise in the cast, though, is Monica Barbaro, who makes a superb stage debut as the ill-fated Madame de Tourvel. Barbaro did a a passable impression of folk's madonna Joan Baez in the very dull Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. She retains a madonna quality here too but her work is on another level of delicacy and intensity. 

Tourvel's initial resistance to, gradual deep love for and then rejection by Valmont makes her the tragic heroine of the piece, and Barbaro pulls us into the character's conflicting emotions with subtlety and skill. Trained in dance, Barbaro is the protagonist of one of the show's most effective stylised, choreographed sequences, as Tourvel is seduced away from prayer by her thoughts of Valmont, externalised by the ministrations of the grasping dancers surrounding her.

‎With its masque and movement elements, and emphasis on exploitative schemes and treacheries, the Elliott production I was most reminded of here was her 2010 take on Women Beware Women - a title that would equally suit this play. Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes strained, this Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a similarly mixed bag in which subtle touches merge with scenes that default to obviousness. ‎It's a shame the staging overdoes Tourvel's final moments, with an attempted operatic fever dream quality that isn't achieved - at least not yet.

‎But for me the production pulls off a bold, totally altered ending in which the mantle of manipulation and cruelty gets picked up by a member of the next generation - one who has, like Catherine Sloper in The Heiress, been "taught by masters." 

The dance goes on...

‎Les Liaisons Dangereuses is booking at the National Theatre until 6 June, and will be filmed for NT Live. Further information here.

‎10 Great British Films of 1976 (BFI online)

‎I wrote about 10 British films turning 50 this year. You can read the piece at BFI online here.

Songs That Say I Love You: Remembering Ian Foster (1979-2026)

"The evening went a long way to show just how strong a songwriter Kate was and how loved a person she was. The intimacy of her work, the domestic settings, the familiar feelings, combined with a lyrical incisiveness and absolute honesty meaning the sheer simplicity and strength shone through with a bright light through the varied interpretations and demonstrated what a huge contribution she made to the folk music tradition. The grace under pressure shown by sister Anna, an integral part of so many of the numbers, and the courage shown by the other participants, especially her family members, in sharing this moment with us is something I will be forever grateful for and I hope they found some kind of catharsis in the experience." (Ian Foster, There Ought to Be Clowns)

The above quote is from one of the first pieces - maybe the very first - that I read by Ian Foster, published on his blog There Ought to Be Clowns. It's from his review of the "A Celebration of Kate McGarrigle" concert held at the Royal Festival Hall on 12 June 2010 as part of that summer's Richard Thompson-curated Meltdown Festival. Kate had died that January, and a version of the show would go on to be performed in NYC the following year, as captured in Lian Lunson's documentary Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You. 

Ian, I'd later learn, had been lucky enough to win tickets to the concert's soon sold-out RFH debut, and his beautiful review captivated me with its heartfelt, emotional tone and tributes to many performers I loved myself.

We got in touch, and met up for the first time in September 2010. And I soon found that I loved Ian every bit as much as his writing. Adored him, in fact.

Ian, 2011

Maybe most losses are at some level a shock. But the news of Ian's death on 25th February this year, at just 46 years of age, has blindsided and wrenched me as deeply as any I've ever experienced. I don't really know what to do to get through it, to be honest. So I'm going to write something here, on the platform that first connected us, to try to pay tribute to a wonderful, hilarious, talented, kind, resourceful and complicated person who impacted and enriched my life, and those of so many others, in ways I'm still realising 16 years on. 

2010. It was what's now referred to as "the time of the blogs." I'd set this one up a couple of years before, after being coerced into teaching some undergraduate Media Studies courses and deciding that I really needed some practical experience of what I was talking about. It then became a place to put reviews and share links and other writing. 

Ian had started his blog as a project following a break-up, and to keep a record of his theatre-going in London, where he'd moved a while before (he'd grown up in a village near Wigan, and went to university in Scotland). His theatre-going was becoming - to put it mildly - more and more frequent. Funnily enough, we both chose song lyrics for our blog names - he from Stephen Sondheim, me from Tori Amos. 

Ian later encouraged me to join Twitter, and while my experience there was always very mixed, and he came to dislike it as well, there's no doubt it was a better time for the site. There was certainly a sense of theatre community and support before the whole thing gradually degenerated into a toxic cesspool. As the Timothée Chalamet ballet/opera controversy and Jessie Buckley anti-cat backlash battles currently rage online, I can hear Ian saying, in his inimitable, wry way: "Oh God, what are we meant to be outraged about this morning?"

        Ian's favourite McGarrigles' song, "I Eat Dinner" 

Ian was much more dedicated, focused and ambitious as a blogger than I was. But I think it's important that we knew each other through our writing first, and remained each other's faithful, appreciative readers, always. Looking back now, I think we inspired each other a bit - he to write more frequently about films, me to write more often about theatre. 

For sure, my theatre-going, which had been quite intense in the early 2000s but had tailed off by the end of the decade, soared again after meeting Ian. He was always wonderfully generous in offering invitations and 'Plus 1s,' and his appetite for taking in new productions was voracious. 

"I'm out seeing things most nights," he told me when we first met. Two-show days were common for him, and he'd travel widely across town, and quite often across the country, to see stuff. Later on, as the reputation of his blog grew, and he became a fan of Toneelgroep Amsterdam's work, he'd be invited to review shows there, as well as to Paris, plus a trip to New York in late 2014. He really went global! That he did this, and turned out detailed, funny, insightful reviews while also holding down a full-time job, is a marvel. 

Ian meets Kieran Bew in Bath, summer 2014

The first show we saw together was totally, wonderfully unhip - a touring production of The Rivals at Richmond Theatre, at which we chuckled in surprise at the entrance-applause for Penelope Keith (and then joined in with it ourselves). We started travelling to see shows together quite early in our acquaintance - Ed Hall's Shakespeare company Propeller in Guildford and Sheffield; the brilliant Terence Rattigan season at Chichester in 2011; Therese Raquin in Bath in 2014. Seeking out Wetherspoon pubs for drinks and lunches, and charity shops to find some obscure CDs, became a tradition in every place we visited. Wonderful times. 

Bath, again

We didn't always have the same tastes. He liked classic musicals more than me, and was much more of a fan of that set of British male writers (Nick Payne, Jack Thorne, Mike Bartlett, James Graham) that I've never quite been able to distinguish from each other. I could no more convince him to love Ibsen than he could get me to consistently enjoy the work of one of his favourite directors, Ivo van Hove. 

None of that mattered. And when we did connect over something it was deep and intense and bonding. "Being able to talk about movies with someone... is enough for a friendship," wrote Pauline Kael. That was true for Ian and me across all the arts. Ian didn't believe in guilty pleasures; if he responded to something it was wholeheartedly and unabashedly - and he saw no distinctions between so-called high and low culture. I loved how open he was to it all. 

Sharing things we loved was crucial to our relationship from the start. He introduced me to one of his favourite musicals, the brilliant Avenue Q, and I introduced him to Propeller's productions. I went to Stratford for the first time ever with him (for a disappointing Merry Wives of Windsor); to the Globe for the first time for a magical Much Ado About Nothing ... and I fainted next to him on the second visit there on a blistering hot day in July 2011 watching Dr. Faustus. 

I tried to make a list of the shows we saw together and it's way in the hundreds. We just went to so much: bad touring Ayckbourns, transcendent Russian Shakespeares, indifferent revivals (Peter Hall's hyped but dull Twelfth Night at the NT) and exquisite ones (Anna Christie at the Donmar and A Delicate Balance at the Almeida, which we stood for at the end, even though noone else did). All these memories are so vivid. 

There were big West End musicals (I saw Wicked for the first time with him) and tiny Union Theatre ones, and two touring Steel Magnolias (in 2012 and 2023). There was Priscilla Presley being endearingly befuddled in panto (many years later we'd still chuckle over her delivery of the punchlines "Olly Murs" and "Nandos"). There was day-seating of The Children's Hour, and Audience Club tickets for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and there was Bette and Joan at the Arts. Hamlet: The Musical twice in one week ("where else? Elsinore!!").

Salt, Root and Roe
(Photo: Bronwen Sharp)

There were theatre quizzes, blogger meet-ups, and there was even Strictly Come Dancing in 3D. The Maids on my birthday in 2016. And there were beautiful new plays, like Tim Price's Salt, Root and Roe in the tiny Trafalgar Studio 2, with Anna Carteret and Anna Calder-Marshall playing sisters, which probably few people remember now, but which are engraved on my heart, in part, through the experience of seeing them, and loving them, with Ian. There are few theatres - in London and beyond - that I don't associate with him. 

A huge shared love was Tori Amos and Samuel Adamson's magnificent musical The Light Princess in 2013 and 2014. "I've already cried three times," he texted me from the interval of the second preview. "A triumph, an absolute triumph." "Althea" and "Coronation" were his favourite pieces from the show. Later on in 2014, I surprised him by becoming a fellow fan of another needs-to-be-revived new British musical, Made in Dagenham. "I do love it when you love things," I remember him saying, eyes twinkling. 

I loved it when he texted me in intervals, unable to contain his excitement about what he was seeing. The last time he did that, I think, was at Beth Steel's family drama Till the Stars Come Down at the NT in early 2024, another show we both embraced wholeheartedly. His messages read: "I'm in the sex corner!" and "Aunty Carol in all the plays please." (Well, if you know, you know.) I remember, too, how proud he was to get on the NT's press list back in 2016 and to start seeing his first official-invite shows there. 

About actors we almost always agreed. New casting announcements were eagerly shared, and talking about performers together was always delightful. A partial list of favourites: Helen McCrory, Cate Blanchett, Kieran Bew, Sheridan Smith, Dominic Tighe, Ruth Wilson, Lesley Manville, Ben Daniels, Rachael Stirling, Anthony Calf, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noma Dumezweni, Lucy Cohu, Nigel Lindsay, Sinéad Matthews, Jonathan Groff. 

We saw films together too, an odd mix of super-mainstream and art-house stuff: Hanna, first, on his 32nd birthday, and later Walking on Sunshine (much better than Mamma Mia!, IMO), In Secret, Bright Days Ahead, Stranger by the Lake, The Duke of Burgundy, Into the Woods, Théo and Hugo, the Whitney Houston biopic, L'Immensita, and, most poignantly of all I think now, All of Us Strangers. The last one, about a year ago at BFI, was The Last Showgirl, which neither of us much liked, but which still occasioned a beautiful meeting. 

Being more or less the same age as someone is no guarantee of fellowship, but for Ian and I it was. As we got to know each other more, I think we were both surprised and delighted by how many of our 80s-childhood reference points matched up, whether it was being terrified by Return to Oz or delighted by An American Tail as kids or buying Tiffany and Debbie Gibson records. 

I never met any members of his family, but I felt like I knew them from his warm remarks about them: his Mum and Dad, his sisters, his niece and nephew, and his Aunty Jean, who accompanied him on theatre trips when visiting and was often mentioned on the blog. He'd tell me about their large-group family holidays and big Bonfire Night celebrations. He met my Mum once, before a Light Princess matinee, and greeted her with a classic Ian comment: "so, what will happen if you don't like this show?" (Luckily, she did.) 

There were boozy nights, so much fun, gossip and shared stories. CDs exchanged (Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Sinéad O'Connor). Outside of theatre, there was XXL several times, and, once, a Kew Gardens visit when I met him with his work colleagues. There was one time when we didn't see the scheduled show at all, but just went to the pub and talked and talked instead ("You know, we should skip stuff more often," he said).  

Bloggers united in booze: John Gray (Going Gently), Ian and me

Few friends have made me laugh more than Ian. The last time I saw him, on 30th December, along with Jason Roush (of popsublime) - only just over two months ago, my God - he said something that made me stop in the street, doubled over with laughter. His humour was quick, irreverent and often razor-sharp. In the early days it could lead to some misunderstandings or hurt feelings. That he could be so caring and then so caustic could be confusing. To be honest, I don't think he liked me, at first, as much as I liked him. But this all got ironed out as the years passed, as we saw more of each other, changed, travelled together, shared more, and grew closer. He included me in his "10 Questions for 10 Years of Theatre Blogging" feature in 2019 and what he wrote about our friendship there touched me a lot. 

When I told him, on the night of that skipped show in 2016, more about my plans to move to Poland, I realised he was surprised and perhaps a bit disappointed, even as he encouraged me to make the needed change. In turn, I encouraged him to visit, but he didn't - and that became one of our running jokes ("Next year then?" "For sure.") A big regret. 

But usually when I was back in  London we'd meet, and those times continued to mean so much. In 2021, still  lockdownish, I met him by the Thames, and took along Michael Grandage's huge book about his time running the Donmar. We sat there flicking through it, happily reminiscing about things we'd seen. In 2022, a summer of separate traumas for us both, we sat together on the grass on a hot day on Richmond Green; I can't speak for him but I know I came away from that meeting feeling restored to life.

Summer 2022

We did a nostalgic two-show day in February 2024 - seeing The Human Body at the Donmar and the West End transfer of Standing at the Sky's Edge.  I remember how proud and pleased he seemed that I'd written the programme essay for the Donmar show, and how happy his pride made me feel.  

We said an awful lot over the years but now I wish we'd said so much more. 

Southbank, 2024

Since hearing the news of his passing, just trying to survive the days, I've seen three films - Winter of the Crow, The Bride!, and Plainclothes - and cried at each one because each had some association with him (when Winter of the Crow was being made two years ago in Warsaw, I messaged him: "Lesley Manville's making a film here!"). And I've come out of each one thinking: "Oh, I want to talk to Ian about this."

I've tried writing this calmly. But what I really want to do - the actual honest thing I want to do - is run outside and scream and cry because he's gone - because one of the best friends I've ever had in the world is gone. 

My deepest condolences go to his family at this time, and to anyone who loved him, and is feeling the pain and shock of his loss.

One of Ian's blogging awards

If you weren't fortunate enough to know Ian, there's his website. Please check it out. It's an amazing, unique record of almost 20 years of dedicated theatre-going, and of film and TV and music, and much more besides. It's a treasure trove, a really vital, generous body of work, and should be archived and preserved. 

Start anywhere, and you'll find something to cherish. I love his more personal reviews most: for instance, his take on Nina Raine's Tribes, where he addressed his deafness, a daily challenge which he scarcely mentioned; his joy at Björk in concert in Manchester; or his review of Hello Dolly. I cried reading that one when he published it, and right now I couldn't bring myself to read it again. But I will. 

When I heard the news that Jonathan Groff was coming over to do the RSC's As You Like It later this year, one of the people I first thought to tell was Ian, of course. I think of all the shows coming up he'd love to see, all those we won't now hear his thoughts about, and it's heart-breaking. 

February 2025

Ian was a unique and original person. He was talented in so many ways, and he certainly changed my life and made me braver. To refer to him in the past tense still seems unfathomable to me, and utterly obscene. His death is tragic. I know a day won't pass when I don't think about him. The pain is raw, and any healing seems a long way off. The only comfort I can take - and I know so many others will feel the same - is that of having known him, spent time with him, and loved him. To use his own words, it's "something I will be forever grateful for." 

Thank you, Ian. Rest in Peace, dear friend. We will never forget you. 🌹

Duke of York's Theatre, 2025

A song.