Taking Ingmar Bergman’s Monika across Roger McGough’s Mersey

Fifty years ago a poster of Bergman’s film Summer with Monika inspired McGough to write a sequence of love poems, now illustrated by Chris Riddell

Dear Monika,

I know it’s unlikely, but did you hear that Summer with Monika has recently been republished? If I had an address I would send you a copy, as I’m sure you would love the new illustrations. Can it really be more than 50 years since I last saw you?

Five decades later, I hold a little book of poems and I think about you and wonder whether you will ever read it