For Liam McArdle
It doesn’t feel fair to have to write this. To lose a director, a colleague, a father so young is simply heartbreaking. The news of Liam McArdle passing so suddenly before New Year’s Eve has been a devastating blow for all of us at Rogan Productions. The last time I saw Liam was in October, we were joking about all the absurdities of directing at some BBC drinks. His eyes were twinkling, his humility and humour bouncing off each other. The project we worked on, which had been hard hard hard had turned out to be a great success and we had all the drinking camaraderie of filmmakers returned from the brink.
I had the privilege of working with Liam when he directed Body on the Beach for the newly established Rogan Scotland. There were lots of unknowns. Rogan Scotland was new. It wasn’t exactly clear what would work for BBC3 in the factual space, let alone ‘true crime’. The story itself was a mystery shrouded in uncertainty. In these situations, the character of the director matters. Problem after problem, challenge after challenge is lobbed their way and it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Liam was always patient and always creative. A natural stoic in the best sense, the work was always the challenge, not the team. It’s hard to understate the joy of working with a director who sees kindness as an operational tool in the work place. His compassion was evident in his leadership of his team (he never lost an opportunity to praise the work of his colleagues) and, importantly, in his engagement with the bereaved family and friends of Annie, the young woman at the heart of the series who lost her life in suspicious circumstances. Nothing was ever too much. And there was a lot.
My memories of that process seemed quite normal at the time, but now I will have to accept that they are my last memories of him. Liam kept poring over the detail and the contradictions of the story, finding new answers. His journalism was top-notch. It was always exciting talking to him, to find the next twist in his own journey with the facts. I fondly remember drinking whisky (Balvenie, I think) with him, when the edit was at a low point, and him reflecting with that mixture of wit and humility on the support he was receiving from his exec, Mark. It’s a small detail. But lots of directors when they are under the cosh like to lay a little trail of blame breadcrumbs to someone else’s door. Liam was the opposite, he was confident in the material and in himself that rigour and discipline and the efforts of everyone, production team, execs and commissioners, would get us there. And they did.
Directing documentary can feel absurd sometimes: Managing reality into a narrative form with all the contradictions that ensue. An old friend used to describe the process as trying to get an octopus into a box. I didn’t know Liam well as we only worked together once. But I recognise a big heart when I see one and somebody who could take the worst life could throw at him and endure. I don’t know why life had to throw such hardships at him and his death seems so particularly fast and so particularly unfair, especially in light of the cruel loss of his wife too.
My last exchange with Liam at the BBC drinks was about a shot within the Body on the Beach series. Had Annie walked into the sea and drowned or had something else happened? Liam conceived a sequence in which a lifeguard attempted to walk into the sea and after half a mile was still only waste deep in water. Then a drone flew back from the lifeguard to shore visually capturing the vast expanse of water between him and the shore. It was a single shot that summed up the essence and the humanity of the mystery. A lone figure way out to sea – possible or impossible? In other words, it was a perfect piece of direction. I told him it was my favourite shot of the year. A piece of craft that still gives me pride to think of in a Rogan Scotland film. Liam was as talented as he was unassuming. I am glad, deeply glad, that our last words were about what he did so well: create moments that help us understand the painful absurdity of life and that so often things that happen just don’t make sense.
The documentary world has lost a great talent and a wonderful human being. If there is any consolation, and I am not sure there is, it is that I think, I hope, Liam knew how much his talent and kindness were appreciated. At Rogan Productions, our hearts are broken and our deepest sympathies are with his children and his loved ones.
James Rogan
