New Sophie Toscan Du Plantier podcast is planned

THE makers of the hit podcast West Cork, which profiles the murder investigation of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier in Schull in 1996, are looking at developing further episodes surrounding the high profile case.

Londoners Jennifer Forde and Sam Bungey are the minds behind the podcast that has been named one of the 50 best podcasts to listen to by Time magazine.

The pair, who are also speaking at the West Cork Literary Festival in July, said they were exploring the idea of further episodes of West Cork.

Speaking to the Evening Echo, Ms Forde explained how the podcast came about and how long it took to put together.

“We read about the story in the Observer newspaper one Sunday afternoon in London.

“It was around the start of Ian Bailey’s actions against the State in the High Court in Dublin.

“We happened to be going to Dublin to see family so stopped into the trial and from seeing the press coverage around it, and speaking to friends and family, we realised that the story was much more complicated than we’d first thought.”

Describing the process of putting the podcast together, Ms Forde said:

“There’s so much material to go through, 20 years of case history — there was a lot of reading to do — but that’s also what makes the story so rich. The challenge wasn’t just getting through it all, but then putting it all together in a way that a listener coming to the story wouldn’t just understand but would be intrigued enough by to keep listening.

“Finding that balance between cramming in as much detail and information as possible whilst keeping up the pace of the storytelling.”

Jennifer also said the duo had three sets of lawyers, from the US, UK and Ireland, to review the scripts before it aired.

“There are different libel laws in each country and so we had to make sure that we were complying with them,” she added.

The podcast, which has been lauded by documentary maker Louis Theroux, took the pair the bones of three years to put together. “We first came to the story at Ian Bailey’s action in the High Court in late 2014, and we spent that first year reading up about the case and speaking to people in West Cork alongside doing other things. Then we spent just over two years full time on it. ”

Jennifer Forde and Sam Bungey will read at the West Cork Literary Festival in June.

westcorkmusic.ie/literaryfestival.