Welsh actor Michael Sheen investigates allegations of toxic chemical waste leaching into local water supplies in the two-part BBC2 documentary series Buried.
The investigation centers on concerns that banned chemical waste dumped in disused quarries across Wales poses a major environmental hazard, threatening communities in Wales and over the border into Cheshire.
Sheen launched his inquiry after discovering the story a decade ago while living in Los Angeles. Explaining how his involvement began, Sheen said: "About ten years ago, I just had a lot of time on my hands and I found myself scrolling through a few things and stumbled across this story of a man who claimed that the people of Wales were being poisoned."
The claim originated from National Farmers' Union environmentalist Douglas Gowan. In 2018, Sheen contacted Gowan and spent a weekend recording a seven-hour interview about his research. Gowan was gravely ill at the time and died a few weeks later.
Investigation of Toxic Chemical Dumps
The documentary tracks Sheen as he visits blighted communities in Wales and Cheshire before flying to the United States to examine parallel stories of toxic contamination.
During the series, Sheen works out of a wooden cabin in the Neath Valleys in South Wales. The pine-plank walls of the cabin are plastered with maps, documents, and Post-it notes, in the style of how oddball sleuths track serial killers. Sheen is shown rewatching video footage of his 2018 meeting with Gowan on an old-fashioned projector with a pull-down screen, echoing the way families used to watch cine film of their holidays.
The inquiry focuses on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), known as "the Godfather of Forever Chemicals" because they never dissipate. The evidence presented in the show suggests that banned PCB waste dumped in old Welsh quarries could pose a larger hazard than any mass murderer.
The program highlights alarming health reports, including children suffering scabs on their legs after paddling in contaminated water and dogs dying from waves of tumours after being exercised near the dump sites.
In one case, a local farmer died from blood cancer. While proving with certainty that the chemicals were to blame remains impossible, soil tests conducted on the late farmer's land registered PCB levels 2,000 times greater than average.
Critical Review and Television Comparisons
Television critic Christopher Stevens awarded Buried two stars out of five in his review for The Fashion Vibes. Stevens noted that while Sheen's sincerity seemed beyond doubt, how he became involved remained a mystery, and it was hard to understand why he took so long to follow up on his initial interview with Gowan.
Stevens described Sheen as looking like the scruffiest detective ever seen on television, wearing a checked shirt alongside a salt-and-pepper beard that appeared to moult and regrow from one shot to the next. He remarked that Sheen was more disreputable than Columbo in his raincoat and more dishevelled than Inspector Morse in his beer-stained suit.
In particular, Stevens suggested Sheen was modelling himself on Eddie Shoestring, the long-haired, unshaven private eye portrayed by Trevor Eve with a tie looped round his neck like a noose. Shoestring featured in a popular but short-lived 1979 detective drama co-written by Bergerac creator Robert Banks Stewart. Stevens guessed that Sheen, who would have been about ten years old at the time, was a fan of the show.
Concluding his review, Stevens wrote that while the news regarding PCB pollution deserves to be much more widely known, Sheen's involvement acts more as a distraction than a publicity boost.
Martin Kemp Paranormal Experience
In the same column, Stevens reviewed Irish Road Trip on Channel 4, which features former Spandau Ballet musician and actor Martin Kemp traveling with his son Roman Kemp.
While staying in a haunted castle in Ireland, Martin Kemp failed to see or hear a ghost, but claimed he could smell one, stating that it gave off an intense, sickly odour. Quipping about the incident, Stevens dubbed the experience "Sixth Scents."
