EXCLUSIVE: Bridgerton star Claudia Jessie has joined the cast of Jack Thorne’s Netflix series Toxic Town alongside Michael Socha (The Gallows Pole) and Joe Dempsie (Game of Thrones).
The trio, whose roles are so far unconfirmed, round out cast for the upcoming show about one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals, the Corby poisonings. They join the likes of Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood, departing Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker and Robert Carlyle.
Jessie plays rebel Bridgerton child Eloise in Shonda Rhimes’ Netflix smash. The English actress also led Bali 2002, Stan and Nine Network’s series about the Bali bombings.
Socha most recently led Shane Meadows’ BBC drama The Gallows Pole and has previously appeared in Meadows’ This is England movie and series. Dempsie is best known for his roles playing Gendry Baratheon in Game of Thrones and Chris in E4 teen comedy Skins.
Toxic Town director Minkie Spiro said the cast collectively “represents some of the very best talent we have across the UK, and with the exciting recent additions of Claudia Jessie, Joe Dempsie and Michael Socha coming on board, I’m incredibly proud to be working with such a brilliant cast and crew in bringing this important and timely story to Netflix audiences.”
The four-part series comes from Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ Netflix-backed Black Mirror producer Broke & Bones, with Jones set to EP alongside Help scribe Thorne and Spiro.
Toxic Town follows the tragic toxic waste case in the East Midlands and three mothers’ “David and Goliath fight for justice.” Following the closure of one of the largest steelworks in Europe in the mid-1980s, the council demolished the site as part of a program of urban regeneration, which involved transporting waste through populated areas via open lorries. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, the rates of upper limb defects in babies born in Corby were subsequently found to be three times higher than those of children born in the surrounding area, and 18 families filed a lawsuit that eventually ended up victorious in the UK’s High Court in 2009. A settlement was reached a year later.
