Threads
Encyclopedia
Threads is a British television drama produced by the BBC
in 1984. Written by Barry Hines
and directed by Mick Jackson
, it is a documentary
-style account of a nuclear war
and its effects on the city of Sheffield
in northern England
.
Filmed in late 1983 and early 1984, the primary plot centres on two families, the Kemps and the Becketts, as an international crisis between the United States
and the Soviet Union
erupts and escalates. As the United Kingdom prepares for war, the members of each family deal with their own personal crises. Meanwhile, a secondary plot centered upon Clive J. Sutton, the Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council
serves to illustrate for the viewer the United Kingdom government's then-current continuity of government
arrangements. As open warfare between NATO and the USSR-led Warsaw Pact
begins, the harrowing details of the characters' struggle to survive the attacks is dramatically depicted. The balance of the film details the fate of each family as the characters face the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war. Both the plot and the atmosphere of the film are extremely bleak.
) and Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale
) decide to marry due to an unplanned pregnancy. As they and their families are presented, news reports over the course of several weeks indicate that the Soviet Union
has invaded Iran
following a coup, and that the United States
military, with British support, has intervened. Sheffield City Council
is directed by the Home Office
to assemble an emergency operations team which establishes itself in a makeshift bomb shelter in the basement of the Town Hall.
The Soviets use a nuclear warhead
on a surface-to-air missile to destroy American bombers attacking a Soviet airbase in Mashhad
; the Americans respond by detonating a nuclear missile over the airbase. Britain is gripped by fear. As supplies and food run low some retailers resort to profiteering, with looting and rioting breaking out. "Known subversives" (including peace activists and some trade unionists) are arrested and interned.
At 8:30am (3:30am in Washington) on May 26, Attack Warning Red is transmitted, sending the emergency team into frantic action. The city's air raid sirens sound, Sheffield erupts into panic and Jimmy and his workmate Bob take cover under their van. A warhead detonates over the North Sea
, creating an EMP (electromagnetic pulse
) that disrupts power and communications. Minutes later a nuclear weapon strikes RAF Finningley
, a NATO base 20 miles (32.2 km) from Sheffield. Despite the distance the flash and mushroom cloud from this groundburst are visible in Sheffield, adding to the panic. One woman wets herself in shock as she sees the mushroom cloud. People caught in the open are injured by flying debris as the blast blows out windows across the city. As the blast wave passes Jimmy and Bob clamber out and Jimmy runs to his car shouting that he is going to try and reach Ruth. The car will not start (due to the EMP) and he sets off on foot through the chaos. He is never seen again. The Becketts hurry to their basement while the Kemps (Jimmy's parents) desperately rush to finish a shelter they were preparing out of mattresses, bags and doors. Jimmy's younger sister, Alison, was sent to the shops minutes before the attack and is not seen again. Mrs Kemp is seen shielding her youngest son, Michael, as the blast blows in the front windows of the house. Minutes later, Michael is seen crying in the aviary, where he still is when the bomb falls on Sheffield.
As the exchanges escalate, Sheffield and nearby Rotherham
are struck by nuclear weapons. In total, 210 megatons fall on the United Kingdom, with a total of 3,000 megatons falling worldwide. 2/3 of all homes are destroyed by blast or fire and immediate deaths are between 17 and 30 million. Nuclear fallout
keeps rescuers from fighting the fires or rescue those trapped in the debris. A montage shows milk bottles melting, animals writhing amid the flames and human corpses burning. The emergency planning team is alive, except for one member killed by falling debris, but they are trapped beneath the rubble of the Town Hall, which has collapsed on top of them. Initially, they are able to contact what remains of local fire and police services by radio. It is not possible for rescue teams to reach them, since radiation levels are too high and all approaches are blocked.
Within hours, fallout from a groundburst at Crewe
begins to land in Sheffield. As their severely damaged home offers little protection the Kemps suffer from radiation sickness
, and Mrs Kemp is also severely burned (it is worth noting that the narrator points out: "the symptoms of radiation sickness and panic are identical"). A day after the attack they stumble outside to look for Michael, and look in horror at the devastation and fires. They find Michael dead under a pile of wreckage in the front garden. The Becketts are better protected in their cellar, but Ruth's grandmother (who had been sent to live with them as hospitals were cleared for expected casualties) dies. After helping to move her body to the front room, Ruth leaves the cellar and wanders through the devastated city. Little has been left standing. Bodies are everywhere, along with dazed, traumatised and injured survivors. Eventually she arrives at a hospital in Buxton
, twenty miles from Sheffield. There is no electricity, no running water, no sanitation and drugs and medical supplies have long since run out. Crowds of people await treatment. Floors are covered with blood, pillowcases are being torn up into makeshift bandages, shrapnel is being extracted from injured people, and a man screams through the rag he has been given to bite on as his leg is amputated without anaesthetic. The voice-over points out that the entire peacetime resources of the National Health Service
would be unable to cope with just the one bomb that has hit Sheffield: in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear attack, 'as a source of help or comfort he [a doctor] is little better equipped than the nearest survivor.'
When Ruth returns to Sheffield she goes first to the Kemps' house and finds Mrs Kemp's body in their shelter; Mr Kemp has left, and dies some time later from radiation sickness. She then returns to her own home, where her grandmother's body is decaying under a blanket. The cellar is full of flies and vermin, and she realises her parents, if they are there, must be dead. In fact, as a previous scene has shown, they have been murdered by looters, one of whom is himself shot by soldiers who chance upon the gang leaving the house. By this time order has broken down and 'starving mobs' (in the words of one of the emergency planning team) are seeking food in many places around the city. Mr Kemp is among a crowd at one food storage depot who are dispersed by tear gas. One month after the attack soldiers force their way into the town hall basement and find the bodies of the emergency planning team, who have died of suffocation.
No efforts are made to bury the dead as the surviving population is too weak for manual labour. Burning the bodies is considered a waste of what little fuel remains. Millions are left unburied, which leads to the outbreak of diseases such as cholera
and typhoid. The government authorises the use of capital punishment and special courts are given wide-ranging powers to shoot prisoners. As food stocks dwindle, rations are reduced to 500-1000 calories per day. Those who work get more food than those who do not.
Due to the millions of tons of soot, smoke, and dust that have been blown into the upper atmosphere by the explosions, a 'nuclear winter
' develops. Ruth is later working on a farm (having defied official advice and fled the city), eventually giving birth alone in a farm out-building to her daughter, Jane. With nobody to help, Ruth is forced to cut the umbilical cord
with her teeth.
A year after the war, sunlight begins to return, but harvests produce few returns due to the lack of proper equipment, fertilisers and fuel. Damage to the ozone layer also means this sunlight is heavy with ultraviolet radiation: cataracts and cancer are much more common. The few remaining survivors are weakened from illness and hunger. Even more die with the onset of winter.
A few years later, Britain's population falls to medieval levels and numbers an estimated four to eleven million. The country has managed only very little recovery; survivors, including Ruth and her daughter Jane, work in the fields. Children born since the attacks are educationally stunted and speak a broken form of English. Prematurely aged and blind with cataracts, Ruth dies, survived by 10 year old Jane (Victoria O'Keefe
).
Three years after Ruth's death, Jane and two boys her age are caught stealing food. When they try to escape, one boy is shot dead as they flee. She and the other boy wrestle for the food, and they end up having what the script describes as "crude intercourse." Months later, she is seen stumbling through the rubble of a city, heavily pregnant. Finding a makeshift hospital she attempts to get help, but to no avail. The story ends as Jane gives birth to a stillborn, deformed baby.
, which was made in 1965 and dealt with similar subject matter, Threads mixes conventional narrative with documentary-style text screens and narration, in this case by BBC
journalist Paul Vaughan. One of the key elements of the play is that much of the reportage of world events leading up to the war is in the background, with few people paying attention until it becomes clear that war is imminent.
A common theme is the importance of interdependence in society, and how a nuclear war can unravel these connections. The story opens with alternating shots of a spider weaving its web and of power lines running over Sheffield, as the narrator points out how interconnected humans' lives are in modern urban society (thus the title of the play). In the initial salvo of the war we see command and control centres disrupted, followed by the destruction of cities as more missiles hit. Law and order breaks down, then people apparently stop caring for each other, probably due to large-scale posttraumatic stress at what they have endured. Eventually, even language
, a fundamental building block of human society, has degenerated.
Threads has been compared to The Day After
, a 1983 U.S. television film depicting a similar scenario in the United States. (One review of both films said, "Threads makes The Day After look like A Day at the Races
.")
on 23 September 1984. It was repeated on BBC One
on 1 August 1985 as part of a week of programmes marking the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings
of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, which also saw the first television screening of The War Game (which had been deemed too disturbing for television in the 20 years since it had been made). Threads was not shown again on British screens until the digital channel BBC Four
broadcast it in October 2003.
Threads was broadcast in the USA
on cable network Superstation TBS
on January 13, 1985, followed by a panel discussion on nuclear war. It was also shown on PBS stations as part of fund raising drives.
Threads was broadcast in Australia
on the Nine Network
on 19 June 1985. Unusually for a commercial network, it broadcast the film without commercial breaks.
awards in 1985. It won for Best Design, Best Film Cameraman, Best Film Editor, and Best Single Drama. Its other nominations were for Best Costume Design, Best Make-Up, and Best Film Sound.
and, for a very short period, Betamax
) in 1987 (catalogue number BBCV4071) in the United Kingdom but soon went out of print and became a much sought-after item in the 1990s.
The film was re-released on both VHS and DVD in 2000 on the Revelation label, followed by a new DVD only edition in 2005.
Due to licensing difficulties the 1987 release replaced Chuck Berry
's recording of his song "Johnny B. Goode
" with an alternative recording of the song.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1984. Written by Barry Hines
Barry Hines
Melvin Barry Hines, FRSL is a British author who has written several popular novels and television scripts.-Early life:Born in the mining village of Hoyland Common near Barnsley, England, he attended Ecclesfield Grammar School and played football for the England Grammar Schools team...
and directed by Mick Jackson
Mick Jackson (film director)
Mick Jackson is a British television and film director, television producer and author. He won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for Temple Grandin .-Selected filmography:...
, it is a documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
-style account of a nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
and its effects on the city of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
in northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
.
Filmed in late 1983 and early 1984, the primary plot centres on two families, the Kemps and the Becketts, as an international crisis between the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
erupts and escalates. As the United Kingdom prepares for war, the members of each family deal with their own personal crises. Meanwhile, a secondary plot centered upon Clive J. Sutton, the Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors...
serves to illustrate for the viewer the United Kingdom government's then-current continuity of government
Continuity of government
Continuity of government is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of nuclear war or other catastrophic event....
arrangements. As open warfare between NATO and the USSR-led Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
begins, the harrowing details of the characters' struggle to survive the attacks is dramatically depicted. The balance of the film details the fate of each family as the characters face the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war. Both the plot and the atmosphere of the film are extremely bleak.
Plot
Young lovers Ruth Beckett (Karen MeagherKaren Meagher
Karen Meagher is an English actress, sometimes credited as Karen Meacher.Her first acting role was playing a skivvy in the 1979 television series The Mallens...
) and Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale
Reece Dinsdale
Reece Dinsdale is an English actor of stage, screen and television.-Acting career:He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1977 until 1980...
) decide to marry due to an unplanned pregnancy. As they and their families are presented, news reports over the course of several weeks indicate that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
has invaded Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
following a coup, and that the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
military, with British support, has intervened. Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors...
is directed by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
to assemble an emergency operations team which establishes itself in a makeshift bomb shelter in the basement of the Town Hall.
The Soviets use a nuclear warhead
Warhead
The term warhead refers to the explosive material and detonator that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo.- Etymology :During the early development of naval torpedoes, they could be equipped with an inert payload that was intended for use during training, test firing and exercises. This...
on a surface-to-air missile to destroy American bombers attacking a Soviet airbase in Mashhad
Mashhad
Mashhad , is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world. It is also the only major Iranian city with an Arabic name. It is located east of Tehran, at the center of the Razavi Khorasan Province close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Its...
; the Americans respond by detonating a nuclear missile over the airbase. Britain is gripped by fear. As supplies and food run low some retailers resort to profiteering, with looting and rioting breaking out. "Known subversives" (including peace activists and some trade unionists) are arrested and interned.
At 8:30am (3:30am in Washington) on May 26, Attack Warning Red is transmitted, sending the emergency team into frantic action. The city's air raid sirens sound, Sheffield erupts into panic and Jimmy and his workmate Bob take cover under their van. A warhead detonates over the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, creating an EMP (electromagnetic pulse
Electromagnetic pulse
An electromagnetic pulse is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation usually results from certain types of high energy explosions, especially a nuclear explosion, or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field...
) that disrupts power and communications. Minutes later a nuclear weapon strikes RAF Finningley
RAF Finningley
RAF Finningley is a former Royal Air Force station at Finningley, South Yorkshire, partly within the traditional county boundaries of Nottinghamshire and partly in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now wholly within the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster....
, a NATO base 20 miles (32.2 km) from Sheffield. Despite the distance the flash and mushroom cloud from this groundburst are visible in Sheffield, adding to the panic. One woman wets herself in shock as she sees the mushroom cloud. People caught in the open are injured by flying debris as the blast blows out windows across the city. As the blast wave passes Jimmy and Bob clamber out and Jimmy runs to his car shouting that he is going to try and reach Ruth. The car will not start (due to the EMP) and he sets off on foot through the chaos. He is never seen again. The Becketts hurry to their basement while the Kemps (Jimmy's parents) desperately rush to finish a shelter they were preparing out of mattresses, bags and doors. Jimmy's younger sister, Alison, was sent to the shops minutes before the attack and is not seen again. Mrs Kemp is seen shielding her youngest son, Michael, as the blast blows in the front windows of the house. Minutes later, Michael is seen crying in the aviary, where he still is when the bomb falls on Sheffield.
As the exchanges escalate, Sheffield and nearby Rotherham
Rotherham
Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...
are struck by nuclear weapons. In total, 210 megatons fall on the United Kingdom, with a total of 3,000 megatons falling worldwide. 2/3 of all homes are destroyed by blast or fire and immediate deaths are between 17 and 30 million. Nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
keeps rescuers from fighting the fires or rescue those trapped in the debris. A montage shows milk bottles melting, animals writhing amid the flames and human corpses burning. The emergency planning team is alive, except for one member killed by falling debris, but they are trapped beneath the rubble of the Town Hall, which has collapsed on top of them. Initially, they are able to contact what remains of local fire and police services by radio. It is not possible for rescue teams to reach them, since radiation levels are too high and all approaches are blocked.
Within hours, fallout from a groundburst at Crewe
Crewe
Crewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...
begins to land in Sheffield. As their severely damaged home offers little protection the Kemps suffer from radiation sickness
Radiation Sickness
Radiation Sickness is a VHS by the thrash metal band Nuclear Assault. The video is a recording of a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, London in 1988. It was released in 1991...
, and Mrs Kemp is also severely burned (it is worth noting that the narrator points out: "the symptoms of radiation sickness and panic are identical"). A day after the attack they stumble outside to look for Michael, and look in horror at the devastation and fires. They find Michael dead under a pile of wreckage in the front garden. The Becketts are better protected in their cellar, but Ruth's grandmother (who had been sent to live with them as hospitals were cleared for expected casualties) dies. After helping to move her body to the front room, Ruth leaves the cellar and wanders through the devastated city. Little has been left standing. Bodies are everywhere, along with dazed, traumatised and injured survivors. Eventually she arrives at a hospital in Buxton
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...
, twenty miles from Sheffield. There is no electricity, no running water, no sanitation and drugs and medical supplies have long since run out. Crowds of people await treatment. Floors are covered with blood, pillowcases are being torn up into makeshift bandages, shrapnel is being extracted from injured people, and a man screams through the rag he has been given to bite on as his leg is amputated without anaesthetic. The voice-over points out that the entire peacetime resources of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
would be unable to cope with just the one bomb that has hit Sheffield: in the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear attack, 'as a source of help or comfort he [a doctor] is little better equipped than the nearest survivor.'
When Ruth returns to Sheffield she goes first to the Kemps' house and finds Mrs Kemp's body in their shelter; Mr Kemp has left, and dies some time later from radiation sickness. She then returns to her own home, where her grandmother's body is decaying under a blanket. The cellar is full of flies and vermin, and she realises her parents, if they are there, must be dead. In fact, as a previous scene has shown, they have been murdered by looters, one of whom is himself shot by soldiers who chance upon the gang leaving the house. By this time order has broken down and 'starving mobs' (in the words of one of the emergency planning team) are seeking food in many places around the city. Mr Kemp is among a crowd at one food storage depot who are dispersed by tear gas. One month after the attack soldiers force their way into the town hall basement and find the bodies of the emergency planning team, who have died of suffocation.
No efforts are made to bury the dead as the surviving population is too weak for manual labour. Burning the bodies is considered a waste of what little fuel remains. Millions are left unburied, which leads to the outbreak of diseases such as cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and typhoid. The government authorises the use of capital punishment and special courts are given wide-ranging powers to shoot prisoners. As food stocks dwindle, rations are reduced to 500-1000 calories per day. Those who work get more food than those who do not.
Due to the millions of tons of soot, smoke, and dust that have been blown into the upper atmosphere by the explosions, a 'nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
' develops. Ruth is later working on a farm (having defied official advice and fled the city), eventually giving birth alone in a farm out-building to her daughter, Jane. With nobody to help, Ruth is forced to cut the umbilical cord
Umbilical cord
In placental mammals, the umbilical cord is the connecting cord from the developing embryo or fetus to the placenta...
with her teeth.
A year after the war, sunlight begins to return, but harvests produce few returns due to the lack of proper equipment, fertilisers and fuel. Damage to the ozone layer also means this sunlight is heavy with ultraviolet radiation: cataracts and cancer are much more common. The few remaining survivors are weakened from illness and hunger. Even more die with the onset of winter.
A few years later, Britain's population falls to medieval levels and numbers an estimated four to eleven million. The country has managed only very little recovery; survivors, including Ruth and her daughter Jane, work in the fields. Children born since the attacks are educationally stunted and speak a broken form of English. Prematurely aged and blind with cataracts, Ruth dies, survived by 10 year old Jane (Victoria O'Keefe
Victoria O'Keefe
Victoria O'Keefe was a British actress.Her first role was in the 1983 television series Nanny. She also played Letty in the 1984 mini-series of the same name....
).
Three years after Ruth's death, Jane and two boys her age are caught stealing food. When they try to escape, one boy is shot dead as they flee. She and the other boy wrestle for the food, and they end up having what the script describes as "crude intercourse." Months later, she is seen stumbling through the rubble of a city, heavily pregnant. Finding a makeshift hospital she attempts to get help, but to no avail. The story ends as Jane gives birth to a stillborn, deformed baby.
Themes
Like The War GameThe War Game
The War Game is a 1965 television documentary-style drama depicting the effects of nuclear war on Britain. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology series, it caused dismay within the BBC and in government and was withdrawn from television...
, which was made in 1965 and dealt with similar subject matter, Threads mixes conventional narrative with documentary-style text screens and narration, in this case by BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
journalist Paul Vaughan. One of the key elements of the play is that much of the reportage of world events leading up to the war is in the background, with few people paying attention until it becomes clear that war is imminent.
A common theme is the importance of interdependence in society, and how a nuclear war can unravel these connections. The story opens with alternating shots of a spider weaving its web and of power lines running over Sheffield, as the narrator points out how interconnected humans' lives are in modern urban society (thus the title of the play). In the initial salvo of the war we see command and control centres disrupted, followed by the destruction of cities as more missiles hit. Law and order breaks down, then people apparently stop caring for each other, probably due to large-scale posttraumatic stress at what they have endured. Eventually, even language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, a fundamental building block of human society, has degenerated.
Threads has been compared to The Day After
The Day After
The Day After is a 1983 American television movie which aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast....
, a 1983 U.S. television film depicting a similar scenario in the United States. (One review of both films said, "Threads makes The Day After look like A Day at the Races
A Day at the Races (film)
Further reading* Elisabeth Buxbaum: Veronika, der Lenz ist da. Walter Jurmann – Ein Musiker zwischen den Welten und Zeiten. Mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Alexander Sieghardt. Edition Steinbauer, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-902494-18-2-External links:*...
.")
Broadcast
Threads was first broadcast on BBC TwoBBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 23 September 1984. It was repeated on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
on 1 August 1985 as part of a week of programmes marking the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
of Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and Nagasaki, which also saw the first television screening of The War Game (which had been deemed too disturbing for television in the 20 years since it had been made). Threads was not shown again on British screens until the digital channel BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
broadcast it in October 2003.
Threads was broadcast in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on cable network Superstation TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
on January 13, 1985, followed by a panel discussion on nuclear war. It was also shown on PBS stations as part of fund raising drives.
Threads was broadcast in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
on 19 June 1985. Unusually for a commercial network, it broadcast the film without commercial breaks.
Awards
Threads was nominated for seven BAFTABritish Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
awards in 1985. It won for Best Design, Best Film Cameraman, Best Film Editor, and Best Single Drama. Its other nominations were for Best Costume Design, Best Make-Up, and Best Film Sound.
Video and DVD releases
Threads was originally released by BBC Video (on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and, for a very short period, Betamax
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
) in 1987 (catalogue number BBCV4071) in the United Kingdom but soon went out of print and became a much sought-after item in the 1990s.
The film was re-released on both VHS and DVD in 2000 on the Revelation label, followed by a new DVD only edition in 2005.
Due to licensing difficulties the 1987 release replaced Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
's recording of his song "Johnny B. Goode
Johnny B. Goode
"Johnny B. Goode" is a 1958 rock and roll song written and originally performed by American musician Chuck Berry. The song was a major hit among both black and white audiences peaking at #2 on Billboard magazine's Hot R&B Sides chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.The song is one of Chuck Berry's...
" with an alternative recording of the song.
See also
- Nuclear weapons and the United KingdomNuclear weapons and the United KingdomThe United Kingdom was the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, in October 1952. It is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK ratified in 1968...
- Protect and SurviveProtect and SurviveProtect and Survive was a public information series on civil defence produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was intended to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack, and consisted of a mixture of pamphlets, radio broadcasts,...
, the 1970s British government information films on nuclear war. - Square LegSquare LegSquare Leg was a 1980 British government home defence exercise that assessed the effects of a Soviet nuclear attack. It was assumed that 131 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons...
, a 1980 British government home defence exercise that assessed the effects of a Soviet nuclear attack. - The War GameThe War GameThe War Game is a 1965 television documentary-style drama depicting the effects of nuclear war on Britain. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology series, it caused dismay within the BBC and in government and was withdrawn from television...
, a 1960s BBC docudrama about the effects of nuclear war that was not broadcast until the 1980s - The Day AfterThe Day AfterThe Day After is a 1983 American television movie which aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast....
, an American made-for-television film which also portrays the buildup to and the after-effects of large-scale nuclear war - List of nuclear holocaust fiction
- Nuclear weapons in popular cultureNuclear weapons in popular cultureSince their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age."-Images of nuclear weapons:...
External links
- Threads complete movie at Google Videos
- Plot outline with screenshots
- Threads in pictures BBC South Yorkshire
- Threads at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...