Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Alexander Dreymon, Ian Hart, David Dawson, Adrian Bower, Brian Vernal, Eliza Butterworth, Emily Cox, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Harry McEntire, Tobias Santlemann, Simon Kunz, Amy Wren, Matthew Macfadyen, Rune Temte, Henning Valin Jakobsen, Charlie Murphy, Sean Gilder, Lorcan Cranitch, Alec Newman.
To love history, to love the chronicles of English Literature that delve further back than even that of the great works of art beloved by Geoffrey Chaucer or the stunning Beowulf, one must then surely admire just how the kingdom of England was forged in the fire of heat and war, to the point where even a committed pacifist could take up a sword to defend a hillside or see the Somerset Levels not as a housing estate but as a naturally occurring set of defences.
Bernard Cornwall’s highly successful The Last Kingdom is that heady mixture of dedicated and dogmatic research thrust between the shoulder blades of family saga and the breastbone of imagination and the potency is one that is framed succinctly with care and attention in its television equivalent.
The story of a young Saxon child captured by Danish raiders, of betrayal and of honour might not seem the appropriate television in today’s climate of suspicion and wearily made war on yet another middle Eastern nation but as with all well researched works of fiction, the truth is there to guide and account for our actions, not only in the past but in the full circle of memoirs to undoubtedly come.
In the lead role, Alexander Dreymon excels as Uhtred of Bebbanberg. A character so bereft of stability, not only in spirit but also in name, his true worth in his deeds and it is an action of dramatic acting that fills the screen as Mr. Dreymon captures the spirit of the times perfectly. He is cast alongside the likes of the brilliant Ian Hart, David Dawson, W. Gabrielsson and Harry McEntire to such tremendous heights that makes The Last Kingdom such a historical joy to watch. Whilst films such as The Lord of the Rings touch upon the same thematic stories, it is a reminder of where we come from as a nation that touches upon the heart of the viewer, the basic fact that as an island race we are all the sons and daughters, the products of raiding parties, unlikely alliances and doomed love affairs. It is the very soil we stand upon that has been won deep in our history and is now one that we share with hope.
The adaptors of Bernard Cornwall’s excellent books must be congratulated whole-heartedly for not shying away from certain themes, the more particular gruesome aspects of the way the nation was forged out of bloody battles and the ways of before. In many ways they showed, perhaps with great ease, that whist as a species we have moved on from having to settle disputes or guard against such dangers in our lives and that the people of King Alfred’s time were more honourable, more adept at truly living than we can ever hope to be.
A truly inspiring series, one that can only be hoped will return and not be consigned to a one-season wonder, relegated in favour of some of the dire mess that makes up modern television.
Ian D. Hall