Toxic Town, starring Jodie Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood, is the latest hit show out of Netflix, receiving an impressive 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But how much of it is based on a true story? Here's everything you need to know…
The new show, penned by His Dark Materials and Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne, looks at the true story of the Corby poisonings, which started in the 1980s, and saw a group of mothers and their children affected after their children were born with difficult health issues due to the town's mismanagement of toxic waste materials.
The incident, which has been compared to the US-based contamination incident in Hinckley, California, which was the basis for the Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich, was an environmental scandal, as the group of mothers joined together to force the local council to take accountability for their wrongdoing in the High Court.
The local steelworks' production was shut down in 1980, leaving tonnes of toxic waste, which caused the presence of chemicals, including arsenic and calcium, in the area. A large clean-up operation was undertaken, which saw the chemicals taken to the outskirts of Corby. However, these trucks weren't correctly covered, and the toxic matter leaked out into the town over the eight-year clean-up operation, affecting pregnant women.
© Ben Blackall/NetflixThe court case
The women accused the council of failing to safely clean toxic waste at a local steelworks, which caused their children to be born with limb differences. Nineteen babies were born with limb differences between 1989 and 1998. They won their legal battle in 2009 after the ruling found the council liable for public nuisance, negligence, and a breach of statutory duty. The council planned to appeal the decision but dropped plans in 2010 and instead came to out-of-court settlements with the families involved. The total amount was around £14.6 million.
The chief executive of the council has since stated that it "recognises that it made mistakes in its clean-up of the former British Steel site years ago and extends its deepest sympathy to the children and their families".
© Ben Blackall/NetflixSpeaking about their win, Jack said: "There’s just so much internalised blame that these women obviously had [to deal with]. [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."
© Ben Blackall/Netflix"It’s not just this simple hero’s journey of women banding together and fighting the man and getting this court victory. There’s nothing simple about it at all. You see where their power comes from, which is really just in the most basic level of humanity that they show for each other."
Are all of the characters real?
Tracey, Maggie, and Susan, three of the mothers in the show, are all based on real people, with the actors even meeting their real-life counterparts while making the series. However, other characters were created to represent certain individuals, including Brendan Coyle's role of Roy Thomas, who was "based on a number of men, none of whom lived to see their plans for Corby fully realised". The council leaders, Pat Miller and Bill Martin, are also works of fiction.
© Ben Blackall/NetflixWho is the show dedicated to?
The show is dedicated to Sam Hagen, who helped bring the issue to light. The former local councillor, who sadly passed away in 2022, previously opened up about his part in helping the women realise what the council had done. Speaking on a BBC Horizon documentary, he said: "The council officer that blew the whistle and that told me the practice that was going on, [was that] the safety regulations were not being observed.
"They were playing fast and loose with it, in order to do the job quicker and make money. And he decided that there [was] nothing he could do internally, he had to tell somebody. 'Cause this lad knew that if he was known as the whistleblower, he'd lose his job. So he told me instead."
