FOREIGN RELATIONS
British officers confront political and personal unrest in ‘Last Post’
If you're looking for some anti-holiday programming, Amazon Prime's “The Last Post” will put the Grinch back into Christmas. The six-part BBC drama opens in late December 1965, at a British Royal Military
Police outpost in the port city of Aden in
South Arabia.
Newlyweds Joe
(Jeremy Neumark Jones) and Honor (Jessie Buckley, “Taboo”) Martin await their transportation to the base. She's giddy, defying the sweltering heat, excited about the prospect of adventure. He's a young captain, more circumspect, perhaps too inexperienced to be stationed here at such a pivotal moment. Maj. Harry Markham (Ben Miles, “The Crown”) and wife Mary (Amanda Drew, “Broadchurch”) are expecting their second child and seem to be beacons of stability to the other men and women on the base. The couple employ a local, Yusra Saaed (Ouidad Elma), as help around their apartment. Yusra seems to have an uncanny ability to pop up when least expected.
Lt. Ed Laithwaite (Stephen Campbell Moore) and his wife, Alison (Jessica Raine, “Wolf Hall”), seem to be engaged in a one-sided war and yet both are losing. Alison drinks to excess and has had a rather scandalous affair practically in front of Ed. The more she acts out, the more he defends her.
A local dissident, Kadir Hakim (Aymen Hamdouchi), nicknamed “Starfish” by the British, is becoming increasingly bold in his strikes at British forces.
As those on the base become threatened, the men will be forced to drastic actions and the women will often find themselves bewildered and shut out.
Series creator and writer Peter Moffat (“The Night Of”) reportedly based the series on his childhood memories of his father's service and the hardships his mother endured.
“The Last Post” seems to be one-third military thriller and two-thirds soap opera. Some sequences are harrowing. Others strain plausibility. One character seems to recover from a catastrophic medical crisis in minutes and manages to look positively radiant to boot.
The second episode introduces perhaps the series' least convincing character, a maverick American journalist named Martha Franklin (Essie Davis). Martha teases the men, and after she gathers some incendiary photos, she plays a coy game that seems to sabotage her assignment.
Davis, a popular Australian actress who has appeared on HBO's “Game of Thrones,” struggles to nail the sound of an authentic American. At times it's as if she's reading from a “Hooked on Phonics” cue card.
The series was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, and the producers found some stunning locations that suggest the beauty and the desolation of the Middle East terrain.
“The Last Post” captures a moment, the last gasp of British colonial rule. If you need a cure for a case of holiday cheer, this is your poison.