Between the late 1980s and the mid 1990s, a statistically significant number of babies were born with upper-limb deformities in the Midlands town of Corby. During that same period, a major redevelopment project on the site of the town’s old steelworks saw vast amounts of toxic industrial waste being dug up and transported through Corby on a regular basis. It would take more than a decade for a link to be established.
In 2009, a court ruled in favour of 19 families of children born with disabilities in a lawsuit brought against the borough council after it was found that the local government’s negligence had led to dangerous chemicals being released into the atmosphere. Billed in the press as the “British Erin Brockovich” — in reference to the American environmental activist — the case has now similarly been turned into a stirring screen drama with the arrival of Netflix’s Toxic Town, which recounts a group of mothers’ crusade for the truth.
At the heart of Jack Thorne’s four-part mini-series is the story of the campaign’s leader Susan McIntyre. Played with compassion and conviction by Jodie Whittaker, Susan seems on first impression more likely to start a petty argument than a battle for justice. But belying her blunt persona is a warm heart and iron will. So when her son is born with a deformed hand and her partner Peter (Michael Socha) abandons them, she channels her pugnacious spirit into fighting for her child.
Over the years Susan meets other mothers whose children have been similarly affected and a campaign takes shape. Among those involved is Tracey, movingly played by The White Lotus’s Aimee Lou Wood, a young woman grieving the loss of a baby born with severe complications.
While the series is partly a tribute to the campaigners — and their dedicated lawyer Des Collins (Rory Kinnear) — it’s also an enraging study of corruption and cowardice in a governing body that put its own interests ahead of the public’s. Concerns about the adequacy of safety reports are repeatedly raised by eventual whistleblower Sam Hagen (Robert Carlyle) but continually dismissed by council leaders.
Thorne writes with a sense of righteous indignation, while director Minkie Spiro builds a slow-burning air of foreboding with shots of russet puddles and noxious dust. But the show is also a little over-scripted and schematically executed as it hits all the emotional notes we’ve come to expect from a courtroom-cum-social justice drama. Still, if some moments towards the end can feel sentimental, it’s hard to say that the feeling is unearned.
★★★☆☆
On Netflix now