Annette Sharp goes behind the scenes of John Ibrahim’s Last King of the Cross

Kings Cross in its heyday has been re-created in an enormous carpark in Western Sydney to shoot John Ibrahim’s TV series Last King of the Cross. Annette Sharp was given a sneak peek.

The scene looks eerily familiar. On one side of Kings Cross’ famous strip, under the pink neon Porky’s sign, two drunk men stagger from one shop to the next, considering their late-night options.

They might attempt to talk their way into the next strip joint on Darlinghurst Road, or the one after that … or they could just collapse here, among the grime and vomit on the concrete footpath and sleep off the effects of a hard day’s ­drinking.

A moment later a police paddy wagon pulls up and two police officers emerge to assist with the decision. Into the wagon, boys.

The paddy wagon door slams shut with a weighty and satisfying thunk before the vehicle, a rumbling Ford F100, pulls away into a procession of slow-moving cars – a shabby red Ford Falcon, a battered Mitsubishi Sigma and Volkswagen Type 3 Fastback.

In the foreground, a familiar figure snakes towards a group of filmmakers huddled around a pair of monitors capturing one of 10 scenes shot on day 69 of the 90-day shoot.

Lincoln Younes chats to the production crew on set. Pictures: Jonathan Ng

Porky’s returns on the set which depicts the Kings Cross Strip in the late ’80s. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Actor Lincoln Younes, the handsome star of the forthcoming TV drama series Last King Of The Cross, has a quick word with director Ian Watson before introducing himself to The Sunday Telegraph and proffering a custard tart.

That’s something one can’t imagine Kings Cross ­impresario John Ibrahim — the man Younes will play in the 10-hour made-for-television series — doing for anyone bar his own mother in the 1980s.

One of the extras on the set of Last King Of The Cross. Picture: Jonathan Ng

John Ibrahim outside the Tunnel Nightclub in 1992.

Last King Of The Cross, based on the life of Ibrahim and his older brother Sam, a career criminal, is filming in a Western Sydney carpark that has been transformed into the gritty Kings Cross of Ibrahim’s heyday, the late 1980s.

On a 100m stretch of bitumen some 35km from the actual Cross, the Golden Mile’s most familiar landmarks, re-created convincingly in chipboard, are lit by the mauve glow of a setting sun.

There’s the Cosmopolitan Cafe, where Sydney’s crime bosses once gathered to discuss business, Pinocchios, where each had his own table, and The Tunnel, the epicentre of Ibrahim’s world.

Working girls parade outside strip joints, spruikers tout for business, revellers amass outside nightclubs, taxis prowl and police officers attempt to blend in.

The Kings Cross Strip has been brought to life in an enormous Western Sydney carpark. Picture: Josh McDowell.

The only thing not in evidence on this vast lot — flanked by modern hi-tech production trucks, enormous catering and Covid testing marquees, and megawatt lighting towers – is the ubiquitous red and white neon beverage sign. Some sort of digital rendering, says production designer Sam Hobbs, is in the works.

Younes (Barons, Tangle, Home And Away) is one of three actors who will bring the enigmatic Ibrahim to life in the Paramount+/Cineflix series that focuses on the formative decades of the Ibrahim brothers’ lives, from their childhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, to their arrival in Australia and eventual domination of Sydney’s seediest strip.

Also starring in the limited series is acclaimed British actor Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs), and Australian actors Callan Mulvey, Tess Haubrich, Matt Nable and Claude Jabbour, who will play Sam Ibrahim.

The series is inspired by John Ibrahim’s 2017 book and the nightclub boss has an executive producer credit on the production.

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