Toxic Town: Jodie Whittaker is absolutely flawless as she battles real-life injustice

The hasty regeneration of Corby’s old steelworks poisoned a generation. Now the story of how it came to court is told in a harrowing, if slightly melodramatic, new Netflix series

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.