Kingston Road in Stockton-on-Tees is a short, low-rise, nowhere-to-hide kind of street. It's part of an estate of squat, tidy newbuilds, arranged around optimistic circles of grass. There's a wary atmosphere — people stand at their windows, wondering what your business is. Two young men, one with a mower, one with a broom, stared at me with open hostility. I guess because I obviously didn't have anything to mow.
Someone threw an egg at the photographer. Even the eggs aren't legitimate. This is Benefits Street, 2. Nobody appearing on the show wants to talk about the filming, though a lot of people will tell you why they don't want to talk about it, for quite a long time.
Her friend was walking on ahead, going: "Don't talk to them. I'm not staying if you're going to talk to them. It feels as though everybody would love to talk, but they don't want what they say to be mediated through someone they have no reason to trust. Who would? Another woman, standing outside the house where the production crew was filming , said: "I can't see why the media's torturing people.
There were two ladies hiding in bushes. Spying on us. Kieran Smith, the series producer, spoke to me before I visited: "Generally speaking, there might be one or two people who would rather we weren't there. But we haven't faced massive opposition. Alex Cunningham [the local MP] has very publicly pronounced against us from a position of no knowledge. Politicians who they've never seen on Kingston Road. To put it bluntly, what MPs want is for you to tell a story about the amazing investment that's happened in their city.
Which is fine, but don't try and stop people who haven't seen that investment … Don't try to silence them because they don't fit your picture. But it isn't strictly true to say that opposition is mostly from politicians. At a Middlesbrough football match two weekends ago, vast banners were unfurled, saying "Being Poor is Not Entertainment". Another anonymous man, sitting in his front garden in perpendicular Tilery Way, doesn't exactly agree. But Alex Cunningham's a good lad.
