5’s fact ent format Trading Places drops participants into radically different lives

Trading-Places episode one is set in an off-grid hippy commune

Paramount-owned UK terrestrial 5 has commissioned a new factual entertainment format called Trading Places.

The series is being produced by Orchard Studios, the UK indie launched by Dan Grabiner, former head of UK and Northern Europe at Amazon Studios, in 2023.

The four-part fish-out-of-water format follows groups of three young people per episode as they are taken away from their lives and plunged into an immersive, week-long, 24/7 experience inside one of four worlds with clear expectations of behaviour, exacting standards and a way of life radically different from their own.

In the first episode, three image-obsessed, brand-loving shopaholics step back in time to a 1960s-inspired, off-grid hippy commune that rejects all forms of consumerism and puts the planet first.

In episode two, a group of 18-year-olds who have turned their backs on education find themselves immersed in the disciplined environment of one of the UK’s most elite and traditional private boarding schools.

Further episodes see a group a party animals placed in an ancient religious brotherhood and a collection of pampered Brits go to live on a Wild West ranch.

Guy Davies, consultant editor for commissioning at 5, said: “Trading Places plunges our contributors into these alien, opposite worlds and it’s great to see how transformative this experience can be. Like our other top-rating and warm-hearted formats such as Rich House Poor House, we hope the viewers love it too.”