Threads

1985

Producer/Director/Writer: Mike Jackson

Cast Includes: Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale, David Brierly, Rita May, Nicholas Lane

Chilling drama-documentary that imagined the unthinkable - the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Britain.

Threads picked on one city, Sheffield, and showed the horrific story of a nuclear strike through the eyes of two ordinary families - the Kemps and the Becketts - and their designated wartime controller, the city's peacetime Chief Executive, Clive Sutton.

It traced the events of the four weeks that lea up to the nuclear exchange, as the East and West power blocs stumbled to war over a crisis of control in the Middle East. It showed in graphic detail the inferno of suffering inflicted on the city and its population, and followed the scenario through the first post-holocaust decade as the 'threads' of civilization unravelled.

Writer Barry Hines and producer/diretor Mick Jackson drew on reams of scienticic studies to make Threads vastly more factual than the American TV movie The Day After and brought the images of the banned BBC film The War Game bang up to date. The city of Sheffield also responded with more than 1000 volunteers to be 'victims'.

There was no light relief in Threads. Watching it was a chastening experience.

Moe Grassia:

The BBC film Threads must also be on your list, as it makes The Day After look like a Sunday luncheon at a rest home for old ladies. I have been trying to find this on video in the States for a long time now, as I only saw it once nine years ago on PBS (which is our sick version of your BBC; there is something to be said for good, public, state television, believe me). The final scene has been burned into my memory.

External Links

IMDB (Internet Movie Database)