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9 hours ago
4
Jack Thorne writes the kind of meaningful, worthwhile dramas that you definitely – no, honestly – do plan to watch … but just maybe not tonight. Best Interests from 2023, about a distraught mother battling the NHS doctors who decide to allow her severely ill teenage daughter to die, was warm, miraculously funny, and as gripping as a thriller. It was also so traumatising that it could make the viewer feel as if they were in actual physical pain. Before that, there was The Accident, whose matter-of-fact title only hinted at the harrowing subject matter: the series covered the aftermath of a construction site explosion in Wales that killed eight children.
Toxic Town (Thursday 27 February, Netflix) – Thorne’s new four-part series – could be considered a companion piece to The Accident: it also deals with a deadly construction site and negligent moneymen. The difference is that this one genuinely happened. You may have never heard of the 2009 Corby toxic waste case, but it was a legal landmark – the first time a link between toxic waste and birth defects was properly established anywhere in the world.
But before we get into the shattering premise, a brief history of Corby’s industrial heritage is required. Until the late 1970s, the town was a steelmaking centre; after the steelworks shut, residents were promised redevelopment, and the site was gradually cleared. When Toxic Town begins in 1995, the so-called cleanup process is in full swing, with construction workers being incentivised to remove dusty red “muck” as fast as possible in uncovered trucks that spill the noxious substance practically everywhere.
By the time we discover our two main characters are pregnant, it’s clear that the atmosphere is filled with poisonous particles. First we meet the raucous, obnoxious, Corby-raised Susan (Jodie Whittaker), who speaks with a thick Glaswegian accent (another small, quite baffling local detail is that large numbers of Scots moved to the East Midlands town to work in the steel industry, and their descendants retained the accents and culture). Whittaker brilliantly channels the kind of abrasive personality that loves making others uncomfortable, such as our second protagonist, sweet young Tracey (a characteristically wide-eyed Aimee Lou Wood), who is unkindly informed by Susan that she’s been farting loudly all night on the antenatal ward. But really it’s all a front: for all her tinderbox scrappiness, we quickly realise Susan has a heart of gold.
That heart is about to get a battering. Susan is shocked to discover her newborn son has a limb difference and is destined for a childhood full of pain and surgery. Meanwhile, Tracey’s daughter is born with severe health issues after an almost fatal labour. The former’s numb bewilderment and the latter’s elemental distress are played flawlessly by both actors.
That this all happens in the opening episode makes for a very early emotional climax. The ensuing legal battle is tense, yet its technicalities aren’t exactly enthralling, while the infighting at the council is tricky to follow and also rather dull. Whittaker reliably lights up the screen, but it sometimes feels like her visceral, nuanced performance is marooned in a cardboard cutout of a social justice drama. Scenes often seem jarringly functional – crucial expository conversations that take place on context-less walks, for example – while others are riddled with schmaltz or cliche: one labour that kicks off with a woman’s waters suddenly breaking on the kitchen floor (unlikely in reality, ubiquitous in film and TV) I could forgive; two just feels lazy.
I must admit that spotting all these spell-breaking dramatic stereotypes while scratching my head over the curious lack of accent assimilation in the Corby youth was a helpful distraction from the heartbreaking true story behind the show. If – like me – you’re rarely in the mood to be emotionally shattered by one of Thorne’s punishingly devastating dramas, then this series’ lack of believability and tendency towards tedium actually lets you off the hook. Toxic Town transforms a painfully sad tale of infuriating injustice into something that’s just about bearable to watch.
