Most critics respond warmly to Toxic Town, praising its account of the Corby toxic waste scandal for keeping the mothers and their fight for justice at the centre. Praise clusters around the cast, particularly Jodie Whittaker’s combination of fierceness and vulnerability, with Aimee Lou Wood also frequently singled out. The reviews value the attention paid to personal tragedy and working-class lives, finding the drama involving even when its approach feels familiar.
The reservations concern how neatly that struggle is packaged. Several critics find touches of sentimentality, gloss or over-explanation, though these rarely outweigh the performances. The Telegraph finds the courtroom scenes duller than the personal stories. The Evening Standard offers the strongest reservations, arguing that soapy conventions and overly villainous characters restrict the emotional depth. The spread is largely positive rather than sharply divided: most critics accept the conventional storytelling, while the dissent questions how much feeling it allows.