Threads - BBC4 - 9 October 10.15pm

[AlecTrevelyan006]

Probably the most harrowing television show ever made, Threads follows the build up to and aftermath of a nuclear attack on Great Britain.

It is being broadcast for only the fourth time, and the first time since 2003.

If, like me, you watched it first time around you will never have forgotten it. If you’ve never seen it before, it is a must-watch - but prepare to be traumatised.

I didn't want to exaggerate ... but yes.

I wasn’t allowed to watch it in 1984. I watched it this afternoon. It’s up there with ‘The boy from space’ as things that were scary from my childhood. Yes it was of its time but it was still impactful I thought.

The things that struck me were :

1. Absolutely no way in the current day any of us would think we could escape nuclear fall-out under a door/table or a mattress but in those times, infomercials and public information leaflets were all our parents would have had to refer to.
2. I would also walk outside rather than try to survive if the blast was in/around London. Chernobyl tells us that the effects are pretty much inescapable.
3. The kids learning to talk using old VHS tapes of “words and pictures’ was heart-breaking and the lack of language skills the kids were left with was something I’d never considered
4. The captions detailing what would have happened even 10 years later was really interesting.

As a child for me, Nuclear war was the number one worry other than your Dad being made redundant. It seemed to be all the news was ever about.

@Netaporter
I worried about Nuclear War ( Threads )
Aids ( the tombstone ad)
and getting electrocuted on a pylon or substation ( government safety ads ) 😬
Yes I agree with everyone in that the old style gritty non cgi film is what makes it grim and scary.

@Netaporter - the Words and Pictures bit really got to me too. I remember watching that in school.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel maybe that’s why. he found HBOs Chernobyl a hard watch (I didn’t watch it). And he always says 9/11 impacted him the most, all the real life footage/documentaries etc.

I take it back re my earlier post about being desensitised. All I remember from seeing it in the 80s was the blast - I'd forgotten about how bleak it was after. That last scene is harrowing.

I found Chernobyl very different to watch. Mainly because I was so angry about the way Russia tried to conceal the issue which had such a massive impact not just on its own people but on the rest of the world. You’d like to think if anything like this was to happen again, the immediate actions would be different. But sadly I doubt it.

For me, Threads was more dramatic because it involved warfare and accurately predicted the lack of preparation the Country had made in readiness for such a catastrophic event. Imagine a bomb doing off in Sheffield the size of which would blow out most of the windows in Britain? Mind-blowing stuff.

I’m part way through watching this on I-player. I remember watching the trailer for it when it was going to be shown for the second time - 1985. It was around the 40th anniversary of Hiroshima.

Some thoughts: like other posters have pointed out - it’s so bleak. Even the section before the bomb, which depicts “normal life” - it’s grey - even the “romantic” but at the start seems desolate. The Kemp home seems so cramped and dark. The Beckett home is meant to be “posh” but it doesn’t seem comfy and it’s very traditional.

In the days after the attack, the Becketts are in a better position, just because of their larger home and because they were further away from the centre. The Beckett dad had paid a bit more attention and seemed to grasp the danger and so they had their “fall out room”. But it was futile really.

Initially, the war “cabinet” seems fortunate. But they’re not really. And despite trying desperately to organise relief, everything they do is also futile. I love the part where the young Zach Dingle shouts: “BASTARDS!” He might mean the aggressors but also the UK government too.

I wonder what Ruth and Jimmy’s baby would have been like and how happy they would have remained as a couple. I could see the Kemp parents as doting grandparents.

Silly me - we do know what Jimmy and Ruth’s baby is like - but I wonder what her life might have been like without the attack.

Shit. Only got about two thirds of the way through this last night and had to stop (intending to go back to it). Had the worst dream ever last night where I was living through it. It was so real, and the most incredible relief when I woke up. Utterly terrifying.

Don't know why I never saw this the first time round. I was 21 when it came out in 1984 and was probably out having fun or something. Very glad I didn't see it then though. Would have haunted me.

yes to all of those & also to fireworks & sparklers - the little girl in the mittens

Me too!

She’s 40 years old and on Mumsnet. She started watching Threads the other day but turned it off and went to bed because she has 2 primary age children and a job in the NHS and she’s knackered.
Probably.

I was a young teenager in the 80s but didn't watch this back then, I'm surprised it was allowed to be shown in schools at that time !! I think I would have really been affected by it if I'd watched it back then but watching it for the first time last night I found it really well done and bleak but not traumatising. I think all the real footage we see every day now from wars and disasters makes the impact of a drama less harrowing for me as I know it's not real.

It wasn’t ever shown in schools. The boy from space was - supposedly entertaining but was the stuff of nightmares 😂

Jimmy and Ruth's baby is the young girl whose story we followed after the blast isn't she?

@Netaporter it absolutely was shown in schools, I watched it in English class when I would have been about 13

Blimey! Even the BBC has only shown it a number of times.

Schools, and teachers, had a lot more free choice in those days about what they chose to show to kids. No national curriculum, less of a culture of parents going in to complain if they don’t think something was appropriate, much more room for maverick teachers or for teachers to pursue their own hobby horses. I can well believe a teacher of the 1980s might decide it was worth showing, in order to educate the next generation about the realities of war.

(In contrast, when ds2 was in y6 we were given a trigger warning and the chance to opt out of a showing of Wallace and Gromit ‘The Wrong Trousers.’ 😵‍💫)

It isn't cruelty, there is a brief shot in the immediate aftermath of the blast of a cat writhing around. It is literally only a flash.

You see dead rats, dead birds and a dead sheep. At no point do you see anyone hurt or kill an animal.

I've never even heard of this and I'm an 80s child. I'm watching it now. I love the actor playing Jimmy ( forgot his name - he was in the film ID which I loved).

I loved the Chernobyl series so interested in this sort of subject.

It's already very dark and grim 5: minutes in

Reece Dinsdale?

@Netaporter that's the guy! Thank you. I find it hard to look at him the same after watching him in ID but do love him.

Just been musing on what would happen if we were away as if a bomb dropped now. We're off to Southern Europe next week but all our family will still be in the UK. Would we be 'safe'? Would I want to be safe?!

I know, it's stayed with me & along with others on here found it traumatising