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Welcome to Paradise

// September 12th, 2007 // Work

Featuring Hema’s Pacific Centered Political World map in the opening sequence – Welcome to Paradise.

Produced by the award-winning Gibson Group, WELCOME TO PARADISE is PRIME’s hot new sitcom about six 20-somethings who work at the Paradise Backpackers’ Hostel.

The series centres around Paradise’s charming receptionist Zac (Ryan O’Kane) and his most recent romantic conquest, Irish tourist Lucy (Holly Shanahan). She’s the latest pin on Zac’s world map, which means he can tick off “Republic of Ireland” from his list of women of the world. But to Zac’s horror, Lucy gets a job at the hostel’s bar. What do you do when a one-night stand becomes a workmate?

Watching this romantic train-wreck are their workmates: John (Josh Thomson) the moody night shift guy, Sasha (Sally Martin) the extreme activities expert, Alex (Vaughan Slinn) the boss who can’t make a decision and Barry (David Hoskins) the Ashburton farm boy working in his first city job. They’re a motley crew with little in common who become team-mates, friends, family.

Alongside the “will they get together?” storyline of Zac and Lucy, the workmates have to deal with each other, the decrepit, idiosyncratic building they work in, and a bizarre array of international guests within the global village that is Paradise Backpackers. From hobbit hole tours to bungy jumps, sheep shearing ‘encounters’ to mud pool hopping, no Kiwi tourism icon is left untouched in WELCOME TO PARADISE.

The show is based on real-life stories told by a serial backpacker employee to his mates about the goings-on in the hostels and backpackers he was working at. Grant Drummond is a Kiwi who has worked in backpackers’ hostels around the world. He grew up in Papakura, gained a BA in English then headed off on his OE because he wasn’t yet ready to join “the real world”. After tripping around Europe, Grant ran out of money and ended up working the night shift at a London backpackers’ hostel. “I lasted about eight months there, then did another couple of months at another place. That was a real shithole,” Grant laughs. He also did time as a tour guide around Europe. “Yeah, then that company went bankrupt. They had problems from the get-go. But aside from the money hassles it was great. You’d do 17 cities in 21 days with two days off, then you’d go back around.”

Back home, he worked for two years at a now-defunct backpackers’ hostel in central Auckland, and was the night manager of a Queenstown backpackers’ hostel (so that he could snowboard by day). “On any given night at the Auckland hostel, there’d be 400 guests comprising 20-30 nationalities. Thursday night drinks were an institution in the 7th floor bar of the hostel. I always had an amusing tale to report. There’d be 15 people drunk every night, you’d never get any sleep. Fortunately I wasn’t living there. I was living in an apartment two blocks away, but they were two very important blocks!”
WELCOME TO PARADISE, begins Monday 17th September at 9.30pm on Prime in New Zealand.