A new, action-packed live-action sci-fi TV series that was partly filmed in Brean and Cheddar debuts on Netflix this week.
Several scenes for the ten episodes of The Last Bus were filmed at Brean Leisure Park in November 2020, as we reported here at the time.
The series features Robert Sheehan (who starred in Umbrella Academy and Misfits), Tom Basden (After Life, Plebs) and an ensemble cast of young actors. It will be released onto the leading subscription streaming service this Friday (1st April).
In the words of Robert Sheehan, The Last Bus is “funny, dramatic, suspenseful, visually delightful, incredibly watchable and above all, huge hearted,” featuring an “insanely charismatic young cast.”
It follows a group of mismatched students on a school trip who become unlikely heroes when a robot apocalypse zaps away the rest of humanity.
The series was filmed at Bottle Yard Studios and at locations across the South West including the Eden Project in Cornwall, Redcliffe Caves and The Downs in Bristol, and Cheddar Gorge and Brean.
Fair rides at Brean Leisure Park can be seen in the background of several scenes and also are included in the storyline.
Produced by Wildseed Studios, the ‘eco-fable’ is designed for the whole family to watch together.
The young cast in The Last Bus features now rapidly-rising stars Lauryn Ajufo (Boiling Point) and Moosa Mostafa (Nativity Rocks, Tim Burton’s Wednesday), complete newcomers Marlie Morrelle and Phoebe De Silva, who were discovered from a school search of thousands of young people for their first acting role.
There is also more experienced talent including Carys John (School of Rock, Love Me, Parch), Nathanael Saleh (Mary Poppins Returns, The Letter for the King), Daniel Frogson (His Dark Materials), Lara McDonnell (Belfast, Artemis Fowl) and Curtis Kantsa (Blue Story).
The Last Bus has been created and written by Paul Neafcy, who was spotted by Wildseed making mobile phone films on YouTube from his bedroom. This is the third series Wildseed has worked on with Paul, following the success of Philip Human and PrankMe.
The series opens with the students travelling to the launch of the ‘genie orbs’, a new class of robot designed to clean up the environment.
When the artificial intelligence-powered orbs are introduced by tech billionaire Dalton Monkhouse (Robert Sheehan), they appear to vaporise everyone in the audience and thousands of identical events all over the world.
The students just manage to make it back through the carnage to their rackety old school bus and head home in search of answers, only to be met by a mysteriously empty world.
Realising they are going to have to fight back, the students embark on a road trip to find Dalton Monkhouse and get some answers to what has happened to their families. Along the way, they are confronted with a succession of increasingly intense challenges – from towering junk monsters to a damaged orb with a seemingly-personal vendetta – and the characters overcome their personal differences and private demons to become an improvised family.
Wildseed’s Creative Director and Co-Founder Jesse Cleverly says: “Although at the top level The Last Bus is a shamelessly entertaining sci-fi romp that will entertain the whole family, at another level it is a powerful eco-fable about how the younger generation must be empowered to make very different choices from the generation that preceded it when it comes to the two big challenges of the age – environmental breakdown and hugely sophisticated artificial intelligence.”
Wildseed Studios follows a unique approach to nurturing exciting new talent by identifying promising creatives, working intensively with them in development, piloting their ideas and pitching the resulting work into premium platforms including Netflix, Disney+, Sky Kids, BBC3, CBBC and others.
