Wondery Sets New True Crime Series ‘The Price of Paradise’ About Average British Family Who Bought a Private Island (EXCLUSIVE)
Wondery and Forest Sounds are set to launch U.K. original limited series “The Price of Paradise.”
Hosted by Alice Levine (“British Scandal”), it tells the true story of two women battling over an island on the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. One is a sun-seeking Brit; the other a local human rights lawyer.
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“One woman is swapping rural England for a sun-drenched utopia,” reads the logline. “The other is fighting for indigenous rights. But it’s a battle that will end in kidnap, corruption and murder.”
The story kicks off in 2000 when Hampshire-based mother-of-three Jayne Gaskin stumbles across a website selling private islands. Gaskin doesn’t hesitate to trade her village home for a tropical paradise and brings a production company along for the ride. The result is one of TV’s earliest reality shows called “No Going Back,” which aired on U.K. network Channel 4.
Perhaps unsurprisingly when Gaskin arrives she realizes all is not as it seems and the piece of paradise she purchased on “tropicalislands.com” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, partly because it’s at the centre of a centuries-old land dispute. Maria Acosta, a local human rights lawyer, soon launches a legal battle to reclaim the island for Nicaragua’s indigenous population but the story soon evolves into more than just a courtroom drama – ending in kidnap and murder.
“‘The Price of Paradise’ is the tale of two women whose dreams collide, in a clash over aspiration and culture, with both resonance and lessons for today,” said Jessica Radburn, head of international podcast content at Wondery.
The series, which launches April 22 on all major podcast platforms, is the latest in Wondery’s U.K. original content slate, including “Ghost Story,” “The Spy Who” and “Hooked on Freddie.”
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