After the success of ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Netflix is now entering into the same territory with its new show Toxic Town.
It poses the question “How far would you go to fight for your children?” and reveals the lengths one group of determined parents went to get justice for theirs.
Written by Jack Thorne, the man behind The Swimmers and His Dark Materials, it turns the spotlight on an environmental scandal that rocked the former steel town of Corby in Northamptonshire in the 1980s and 90s.
Thorne said: “I didn’t know the story. I’d never heard of the people involved, and I’d never heard of the case until it was brought to me.”
But once he knew more, he found it compelling: “It had within it a lot of drama, whether it’s the story of the trial itself, or whether it’s the way that these women got together and battled together.”
Toxic Town is a dramatisation of the true story of the Corby poisonings, which began in the 1980s.
It focuses on a group of mothers whose children had developed birth defects and confronted the town’s leadership about its alleged mismanagement of toxic waste materials.
They took on a David-and-Goliath legal battle and fought for years for the truth to emerge.
Corby is at the heart of the court case, which was branded “the British Erin Brockovich,”
Writer Jack Thorne said: “I’ve done legal dramas before, but this one… being taken through the actual truth of it and seeing the journey that they had to go on in order to prove this, I found very surprising and shocking.”
But he added they were able to “collectively join together and work to actually empower not just themselves and their children, living or dead, but a whole community.”
Jodie Whittaker leads the cast as Susan McIntyre, one of the mothers who fought for justice.
Whittaker, 42, will be well known to television audiences as the 13th incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who. She also starred as Beth Latimer in the crime thriller Broadchurch and appeared in the medical drama Trust Me.
On film, she has appeared in the 2011 film version of One Day and the 2014 comedy Get Santa.
Aimee Lou Wood appears as Tracey Taylor, a fellow mother embroiled in the legal battle. The 31-year-old, starred as Aimee Gibbs in Sex Education, for which she won a Bafta Award.
The British actress also appeared in the 2021 film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain and played Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre London in 2023.
Robert Carlyle stars as Sam Hagen, a former council worker and then councillor who turned whistleblower.
The Scottish actor, 63, is famed for his role as sociopath Begbie in Trainspotting and won a Bafta Award for his portrayal of Gary Schofield in The Full Monty.
His television roles include Hamish Macbeth in the eponymously named series, Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold/Weaver in the US show Once Upon A Time, and Robert Sutherland in Cobra.
Brendan Coyle appears as Roy Thomas, a council officer representing an amalgamation of people and views from the council at that time.
Coyle, 62, was born in Corby, Northamptonshire and has both British and Irish citizenship.
He is famed for playing valet Mr Bates in films and television series Downton Abbey. He starred as Robert Timmins in Larkrise to Candleford and Stephen Kendrick in Requiem.
The cast of Toxic Town also includes:
Although Toxic Town is based on Corby, filming took place mainly in the north-west of England in the summer of 2023. Shooting took place around Bolton, and in particular the district of Breightmet.
Local pub the Mosley Arms was rebranded the Rockingham Arms for the show. Stockport and Manchester city centre also provided some of the backdrop.
The West Yorkshire town of Holmfirth was used for rural scenes. And Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter – locations such as Falkner Square Gardens, Huskisson Street and Bedford Street, were in some scenes.
Toxic Town launches on Netflix on Thursday 27 February as a four-part series. All four episodes will be available to watch from 8am. Viewers will need a subscription to Netflix to stream the show, which costs from £5.99 per month.
Comments
Leave a Comment