The Last Overland is the story behind the four-part documentary
series on All 4 - the extraordinary journey of filmmaker Alex
Bescoby and his team across 13,000 miles to recreate the legendary
overlanding expedition of 1956. In 1955, a young TV producer named
David Attenborough was approached by six recent graduates from
Oxford and Cambridge universities determined to drive the entire
length of Eurasia, as it was then known, from London to Singapore.
It was the 'unclimbed Everest of motoring' - many had tried, none
had succeeded. Sensing this time might be different, Attenborough
gave The Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition enough film
reel to cover their attempt. The 19,000-mile journey completed by
Tim Slessor and the team was told in Attenborough's Travellers'
Tales, and captivated a nation emerging from postwar austerity.
Tim's book, The First Overland, was published shortly after and
soon became the Bible of the overlanding religion. Inspired by
Attenborough's comment fifty years on that it was a journey 'that I
don't think could be made again today', Alex made contact with now
eighty-six-year-old Tim and together they planned an epic
recreation of the original trip, this time from Singapore to
London. With their improbable team and the prospect of getting the
original 'Oxford' - arguably the world's most famous Land Rover -
home to London, their goal was to complete the heroic journey
started more than sixty years earlier. In awe of the unstoppable
Tim, and haunted by his own grandfather's deterioration due to
tragedy and then dementia, Alex soon finds himself on the defining
trip of his lifetime and discovers how the world has changed for
better, and for worse, since the First Overland.
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