Dirty Business — dirty business review: if this doesn’t incite righteous anger over our filthy water then nothing will
dirty business dramatizes a true story of amateur sleuths who are appalled at the dumping of sewage in rivers, and the series stars David Thewlis. The drama-documentary, directed by Joseph Bullman, is presented as a blast of controlled fury and asks whether television can shift official attitudes the way Mr Bates vs the Post Office once did.
Dirty Business on UK screens
The work is explicitly positioned as a drama-documentary about the great English and Welsh water pollution shame, with storylines based on real-life events. One line in the coverage reads: "If this doesn’t do it, perhaps nothing will: this is a fist in the face, a blast of controlled fury that mounts an unanswerable case for the prosecution. " The piece also suggests Dirty Business could become the next Mr Bates vs the Post Office, and it invokes the example of ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office to argue that television drama can intensify public disgust at a scandal and force official attitudes to change.
Cotswolds discovery in 2016
In the Cotswolds in 2016 two neighbours, recently retired and hungry for a project, notice brown murk in the previously beautiful River Windrush. One neighbour, Ashley Smith, is played by David Thewlis and was by profession a real-life "Line of Duty" cop who investigated corrupt cops. The other, Peter Hammond, is played by Jason Watkins and is an Oxford maths professor. Together they look into a curious dumping of sewage and, when the explanation given by the privatised local water company does not add up, they dig in.
Preen family timeline 1999
A second timeline begins in 1999 with Mark and Julie Preen, played by Tom McKay and Posy Sterling, who take their two daughters on holiday to Dawlish in Devon because Julie has chosen it for its Blue Flag status, indicating a clean beach. They find what seems to be effluent pumping out of a pipe on the shore. Eight-year-old Heather steps in the dirty water, and within two weeks she has died from E coli O157 poisoning. Ultimately the cause of the outbreak was not identified and a jury returned a verdict of misadventure. The coroner's recommendations included the tertiary treatment of all sewage in the area to make it pathogen-free, and a summertime ban on dogs on the beach. The dramatisation renders the Preens' true story with devastating starkness and shows a further tragedy for the family.
Regulator strand in 2008
When Ash and Peter realise that the problem is as much with the regulator, the Environment Agency, as it is with the water companies, a third story strand begins in EA offices in 2008 and the dark absurdity intensifies. Bullman navigates what could have been an awkward tonal clash: scenes set in 2016 often capture lovely faux-mocking banter between garrulous Ash and nervy Peter and can be as funny as they are disquieting, while the events beginning in 1999 are depicted as pure horror for the Preens. Corporate statements that Ash and Peter receive are staged as supercilious evasions and are read direct to camera by the actors playing the executives. A change is announced towards the end of the Labour administration, and the coverage notes that the effects are to be greatly worsened by David Cameron’s drive to cut spending and slash regulation in the 2010s; the phrase "operational self-monitoring" moves the burden of identifying potential breaches of environmental law from the EA — unclear in the provided context.
Campaigners and 38 Degrees details
Real footage shot by campaigners to show the extent of the damage is woven into the drama. The contextual material also includes a campaign call headlined "End the sewage pollution scandal" promoted by 38 Degrees. The campaign material gives the promoter as 38 Degrees, 10 Queen Street Place, First Floor, EC4R 1BE, London and includes the line: TM 38 Degrees | 2022 Limited by Guarantee Registered Company No. 06642193 in England and Wales Registered office: 10 Queen Street Place, First Floor, EC4R 1BE, London, UK. The promoter line appears repeated in the original contextual copy.
Critical reaction and closing
One headline in the contextual set describes the drama as "brutal and brilliant. " The narrative in Dirty Business threads three timelines — 1999, 2008 and 2016 — and lays out a sequence from discovery to investigation, regulatory strand and coroner recommendations while interweaving comedic devices and campaign footage. The result, as presented in the contextual material, is a program that stages a sustained and angry case about decades of underinvestment, thousands of instances of rivers and seas tainted by untreated sewage, and institutional failure.
Dirty Business leaves its viewers with a blunt argument: a local sighting of brown murk in the River Windrush in 2016 leads two retired neighbours to uncover evidence tied to three decades of underinvestment and widespread contamination, while a separate 1999 seaside outbreak in Dawlish ends in the death of an eight-year-old and coroner recommendations for tertiary sewage treatment and a summertime ban on dogs on the beach.
