Threads (1984 film)

Threads is a 1984 British television docudrama account of a full-scale nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in Northern England.

Britain has emergency plans for war. If central government should ever fail, power can be transferred instead to a system of local officials dispersed across the country. In an urban district like Sheffield, there is already a designated wartime controller. He's the city's peacetime chief executive. If it should suddenly become necessary, he can be given full powers of internal government. When, or if, this happens depends on the crisis itself. ~ Narrator

This time they are playing with at best the destruction of life as we know it and at worst total annihilation. You cannot win a nuclear war! Now just suppose the Russians did win this war... What exactly would they be winning? Well, I'll tell you! All major centres of population and industry would have been destroyed. The soil would have been irradiated. Farmstock would be dead, diseased or dying. The Russians would have conquered a corpse of a country.

Hanging in the atmosphere, the clouds of debris shut out the sun's heat and light. Across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere it starts to get dark, it starts to get cold. In the centers of large land masses like America or Russia, the temperature drop may be severe, as much as 25 degrees centigrade. Even in Britain, within days of the attack it could fall to freezing or below for long, dark periods. ~ Narrator

It is 8:30 a.m.; 3:30 in the morning in Washington. Over the past few days, neither the President nor his senior staff will have had more than a few hours rest. This is when they may be asleep. This is when Western response will be slowest. ~ Narrator

Narrator

• In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable.

• Britain has emergency plans for war. If central government should ever fail, power can be transferred instead to a system of local officials dispersed across the country. In an urban district like Sheffield, there is already a designated wartime controller. He's the city's peacetime chief executive. If it should suddenly become necessary, he can be given full powers of internal government. When, or if, this happens depends on the crisis itself.

• In the last few days, emergency headquarters like this have been hastily improvised up and down the country, in the basements of town halls and civic centres.

• Many of these officers have had no training at all. Some have learnt of their emergency role in the last few days, and almost all are unsure of their exact duties.

• It is 8:30 a.m. 3:30 in the morning in Washington. Over the past few days, neither the President nor his senior staff will have had more than a few hours rest. This is when they may be asleep. This is when Western response will be slowest.

• The first fallout dust settles on Sheffield. It's an hour and 25 minutes after the attack. An explosion on the ground at Crewe has sucked up this debris and made it radioactive. The wind has blown it here. This level of attack has broken most of the windows in Britain. Many roofs are open to the sky. Some of the lethal dust gets in. In these early stages, the symptoms of radiation sickness and the symptoms of panic are identical.

• Hanging in the atmosphere, the clouds of debris shut out the sun's heat and light. Across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere it starts to get dark, it starts to get cold. In the centers of large land masses like America or Russia, the temperature drop may be severe, as much as 25 degrees centigrade. Even in Britain, within days of the attack it could fall to freezing or below for long, dark periods.

• The entire peacetime resources of the British Heath Service, even if they survived, would be unable to cope with the effects of even the single bomb that's hit Sheffield.

• By this time, without drugs, water or bandages, without electricity or medical support facilities, there is virtually no way a doctor can exercise his skill. As a source of help or comfort, he is little better equipped than the nearest survivor.

• Money has had no meaning since the attack. The only viable currency is food, given as reward for work or withheld as punishment. In the grim economics of the aftermath, there are two harsh realities. A survivor who can work gets more food than one who can't and the more who die, the more food is left for the rest.

• Detention camps are improvised to cope with looters. Their numbers are growing.

• A growing exodus from cities in search of food. It's July. The countryside is cold and full of unknown radiation hazards. By now, five to six weeks after the attack, deaths from the effects of fallout are approaching their peak.

• Collecting this diminished first harvest is now literally a matter of life and death.

• Chronic fuel shortages mean that this could be one of the last times tractors and combine harvesters are used in Britain.

• The first winter. The stresses of hypothermia, epidemic and radiation fall heavily on the very young and old. Their protective layers of flesh are thinner. In the first few winters, many of the young and old disappear from Britain.

News reports

Saturday 5 March

• [Radio announcement fragmentary due to Jimmy channel hopping] There's been further fighting in Iran between government and... as the civil war there...

Thursday 5 May

• [Footage with caption "ndr film"] This film, shot secretly by a West German television crew on Tuesday, shows one of the Soviet convoys on the move in northern Iran. The convoys were first spotted by United States satellites on Monday, moving across three of the mountain passes leading from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Foreign Minister has defended the incursions, and has accused the United States of deliberately prompting last week's coup in Iran. Speaking on his arrival in Vienna, Mr. Gromyko claims the Soviet vehicles were responding to appeals from legitimate government forces from the Bojnord. He went on to define American covert activities in Iran in the period immediately preceding the coup as "destabilising". He warned the United States of the dangers seeking in what he called "an easy return to the reign of the Shah."

Sunday 8 May

• The United States has hinted it may send troops to the Middle East if the Russians don't move their forces out of Iran. The Prime Minister has joined the chorus of western leaders calling for immediate withdrawal and has spoken of a serious threat to world peace. Four people were killed today on the M6 motorway in Staffordshire when their car was in a collision with a heavy tanker. The accident happened at the junction with the A449 near Dunston.

Wednesday 11 May

• On a day that has seen U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean put on high alert, and on the eve of the Iran debate in the United Nations Security Council, this morning's report came as a bombshell to most Americans. Quoting sources close to the administration, the Washington Post says there's been a serious incident involving a United States warship in the waters off the coast of Iran. No further details are given in the story, attributed the paper's defence correspondent. However, one rumour, being heard increasingly in the Capitol this morning, says the vessel is a U.S. submarine that has disappeared whilst on routine patrol in the area. Coming just at the same time, the latest news of a Naval alert [...] has alarmed many people, by seeming to confirm that something very serious has happened. A Pentagon spokesman refused to be drawn one way or other on the crisis parrying all reporter's questions at his regular morning press briefing.

Thursday 12 May

• BBC News at 8 o'clock: The Soviet Union has protested strongly to the United States about what it calls "dangerous provocations" by American warships in the Gulf of Oman yesterday. This follows an incident in which serious damage was caused to the Soviet cruiser Kirov, when she was in collision with the U.S. destroyer Callaghan.
• American and Israeli search and rescue vessels in the area today came across debris and oil slicks that could only have come from the missing submarine. It's still being said in Washington, that the Los Angeles was on a routine reconnaissance mission off the coast of Iran, when she sank last Tuesday with the loss of all hands. After paying tribute to her 127 officers and men, the President went on to say that he held the Soviet Union solely responsible for their deaths, and for the vessel's disappearance.

[The last clip was followed by an extract from speech by (then) United States president Ronald Reagan: see § United States president → Thursday 12 May.]

Tuesday 17 May

[The only television extract for that day was a speech by Ronald Reagan, accompanied by footage of United States soldiers arriving in western Iran: see § United States president → Tuesday 17 May.]

Thursday 19 May

• The remaining units of the United States 10th Airborne Division, which parachuted into western Iran yesterday, have taken up defensive positions near Isfahan, designed, according the spokesman, to block any possible move towards the oilfields in the Persian Gulf. Squadrons of American B-52 bombers have been arriving at U.S. bases in Turkey since late on Tuesday evening, together with three AWACS early warning aircraft. It's believed that they'll be used in a supporting role to the Middle East task force. The 84th Airborne Division has also been placed on the state of combat readiness, and is set to be able to [...]
• Worldwide [...] about the superpower confrontation in the Middle East has increased [...] this evening . In a statement issued a short time ago by the Pentagon in Washington, the United States has accused the Soviet Union of moving nuclear warheads into their new base at Mashhad in northern Iran. According to the American spokesman, the war [...] aboard two giant Antonov transport planes late yesterday afternoon and were immediately moved undercover into temporary hangars. [...] predictable flurry of activity in and around the NATO headquarters. Among those arriving in the last half-hour [...] member countries. They entered the building swiftly, and do not comment on the reports at this stage. [...] a statement within the next hour or so. NATO's position on the United State's action in sending its task force to Iran has been cautious up to now [...] from which neither side could back down. Arriving here in Brussels a short time ago, NATO's Secretary General said he [...] in the Middle East. Whether the latest news [...] strengthens the divisions within NATO is something we should know in a few hour's time, when the full council of ministers meets in an emergency session to debate its response to the crisis [...] into London. And we've just heard that the Prime Minister has issued a message of support for the United States government. The statement, just released from Downing Street, condemns what it calls "reckless Soviet actions, which can only worsen an already grave situation."

Saturday 21 May

• There's been no response from the Soviet government as yet to the United States ultimatum delivered to Moscow last night. The American note calls for joint withdrawal of all U.S. and Soviet forces from Iran by noon on Sunday. However, NATO observers in West Germany have reported increasing build-ups of Warsaw Pact troops and vehicles at points along the central frontier this morning. The Ministry of Defence has announced it's sending more troops to Europe to reinforce the British commitment to NATO. The first contingent left RAF Brize Norton this morning.
• The day has been marked by a number of demonstrations up and down the country, reflecting support for and against the government's decision to reinforce Europe. Although most of these passed off without incident, police made a number of arrests for disorderly conduct at rallies in the North and Midlands.
• The government has taken control of British Airways and all cross-channel ferries: they say it's a temporary step to help move troops to Europe; thousands are stranded at Heathrow and Gatwick; and the Royal Navy is to guard the North Sea oil rigs: the MOD says it's a prudent, precautionary measure.

Monday 23 May

• Since the expiry of the American ultimatum to the Soviet Union at noon yesterday, there have been intense diplomatic efforts to mediate between the two countries. There is still no information from Iran itself: no news teams have been allowed in or out of the country since phone and telex links were cut on Friday evening. Questioned in the House this morning, the Foreign Secretary said he had no definite news to report, and that it would be unhelpful to speculate in the absence of any hard information from the area.
• There's been a run on tinned food, sugar, and other storable items, which is causing shortages in some areas. A spokesman for the main supermarket chain said that panic buying is unnecessary. Fuel shortages are hindering resupply in some areas, but overall there is no shortage of stocks. They urge the public to calm down, be patient [...]
• In response to today's news of the outbreak of hostilities between vessels of the United States and Soviet navies, a special session of parliament has this evening passed an Emergency Powers Act. There'll be a special announcement at the end of this bulletin, and details will be given then of how this affects you. The Prime Minister is expected to address the nation on the international crisis later this evening. A statement, issued earlier from Downing Street, said the government is optimistic that a peaceful, negotiated settlement to the conflict is at hand. In the meantime, the public is urged to remain calm, and to continue normally.

Tuesday 24 May

• Nevertheless, people are alarmed about the lack of advice or information from the government. Well, the policy of the government is quite clear on the matter, we are urging to people to keep calm, use their common sense and to go about their business as normal. Panic can only make matters worse. We all know the situation is serious but we are in constant touch with our allies in Washington and have firm assurance that it's under control. [...] proceed smoothly. Thank you Minister, and we've just had a newsflash from Bonn, that the Russians have cut the road links into and out of West Berlin. Radio and air communications with the city have apparently also been severed. Details are still coming in, but it seems an American army convoy bound for West Berlin has been turned back at Helmstedt on the East German border. Unconfirmed reports say the Russians have offered a safe passage out of the city to the U.S., British and French garrisons. It's not clear if this move is connected with yesterday's riots in East Germany. We'll bring you more details on the story as soon as we have them.
• Local authorities have been given the power to suspend certain peacetime functions, and to requisition premises and materials for civil defence purposes. A government spokesman said that this was a precautionary move only: it was not a cause for alarm.
• The AA and RAC have reported heavy congestion on roads up and down the country, particularly those leading to Wales and the West Country. The police are urging motorists not to travel unless absolutely necessary, and if it is essential, to use only minor roads and leave motorways and intercity trunk routes clear for official traffic. A full list of designated Essential Service Routes is posted outside your local authority headquarters: it includes the M1, M18, A63 and A629.

Wednesday 25 May

• There's growing evidence overnight from scientists and observers in many countries that there have been two nuclear explosions in the Middle East. There's no official confirmation of what has happened, and the Foreign Office in London say they have no comment to make on the report. The evidence also points to two major explosions in Northern Iran on Sunday afternoon. The Swedish government [...] said yesterday that its instruments [...] recorded just before half past one and again at two o'clock our time [...] 100 kilotons were detonated, several times higher than the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The French news agency Agence France-Presse has [...] bright light [...] Unconfirmed reports from Islamabad, reaching London this morning, suggest [...] that radioactive debris may have fallen on parts of west[ern] Pakistan. According to the report [...] high levels of radiation were reported by army units in the region around Kharan and Qalat, near the country's border with Iran. The evacuation of the area is also reported.

Wartime Broadcasting Service broadcasts

See also: Wartime Broadcasting Service on the English Wikipedia

• Radiation levels are still dangerous. Residents of Release Band A—that is Woodseats, Dore and Totley, and Abbeydale—should not stay out of their shelters for more than two hours per day. Residents of Release Band B—that is Nether Edge, Banner Cross, and Broomhill—no longer than one hour per day.
• All able-bodied citizens—me[n], women and children—should report for reconstruction duties, commencing 08:00 hours tomorrow morning. The [in]habitants of Release Band A—that is Dore and Totley, Abbeydale, and Woodseats—should rendezvous in Abbeydale Park. Release Band B—that is Nether Edge, Broomhill, and Banner Cross—should rendezvous [...]
• If we are to survive these difficult early months and establish [a] firm base for the redevelopment of our country, then we must concentrate all our energies on agricultural production.

Newspaper headlines

Sunday 8 May

• The Mail on Sunday
  • Afghanistan again! Red Army tanks go in
  • 'Get Out!': U.S. warning to Moscow
• The Observer
  • I see Russians dig in around Mashad
  • Soviet move 'Threat to Peace' says US: Moscow hits back at U.S. stage management
• Sunday Mirror
  • U.S. gets tough with Kremlin

Tuesday 17 May

• The Daily Telegraph:
  • Paratroops go in: U.S. acts on Iran: Landing sites near Isfahan
  • NATO cautious on move: 'Considerable doubts'

Sunday 22 May

• The Mail on Sunday (poster):
  • U.S. ultimatum expires today

Tuesday 24 May

• The Times:
  • Road links to Berlin are cut
  • U.N. Chief's plea for stand off

Wednesday 25 May

• The Times:
  • War in Europe 'Can be avoided' says PM: Naval task force in position
  • U.S. blockade of Cuba
  • Rivals seek to end violence
  • American Carrier sunk in Gulf battle

Thursday 26 May

Newspapers start carrying Protect and Survive inserts.

• Sheffield Star:
  • Iran crisis latest (poster)
• Daily Mirror
  • "Stay calm!" says P.M. (main headline)
  • Turn to Centre Pages: Government Emergency Advice
  • Wry Wolves (sport headline)

Protect and Survive

[The first two quotes are heard twice, at timestamps 39:13 and 42:58. On the second play of the second quote, the sound effects are omitted.]

• The time has now come to make everything ready for you and your family, in case an air attack happens. This does not mean that war is bound to come, but there is a risk of this, and we must all be prepared for it.
• [attack warning] When you hear the attack warning, you and your family must take cover at once. Do not stay out of doors. If you are caught in the open, lie down. [first note of the theme]
• If you leave your home, your local authority may take it over for homeless families. And if you move, the authorities in the new place will not help you with food, accommodation, or other essentials. You are better off in your own home. Stay there. [theme]
• If anyone dies, while you are kept in your fallout room, move the body to another room in the house. Label the body with name and address, and cover it as tightly as possible in polythene, paper, sheets, or blankets. If however, you have had a body in your house for more than 5 days, and, if it is safe to go outside, then you should bury the body for the time being in a trench, or cover it with earth and mark the spot of the burial. [theme]
• Here are some ideas for making your inner refuge. One. Make a ‘lean-to’ with sloping doors or strong boards rested against an inner wall. Prevent them from slipping by fixing a length of wood along the floor. Build further protection of bags or boxes of earth or sand, or books, or even clothing, on the slope of your refuge, and anchor these also against slipping. Partly close [...]
• Have you made your inner refuge, inside the fall-out room? Have you strengthened it with dense materials? Have you put the following items in your fall-out room: enough water, in sealed or covered containers, to last you and your family for 14 days; enough food to last you and your family for 14 days, including tinned or powdered milk for the children, and food for the baby - and a closed cupboard or cabinet in which to store these supplies; a portable radio with spare batteries; a tin opener, bottle opener, cutlery, crockery and cooking utensils; improvised lavatory seat, polythene buckets fitted with covers, polythene bag linings, for emptying the containers, strong disinfectant and toilet paper; candles and matches [...]
• The most widespread danger is fall-out. Fall-out is dust, that is sucked up from the ground by the explosion. Fall-out can kill.

Peace activist

• This time they are playing with, at best, the destruction of life as we know it, and at worst, total annihilation. You cannot win a nuclear war! Now just suppose the Russians did win this war... What exactly would they be winning? What would they have conquered? Well, I'll tell you! All major centres of population and industry would have been destroyed. [Heckler: "Industry? What industry? We ain't got no industry in Sheffield!"] Yes, and if the money hadn't - [trying to make herself heard amongst the jeers] if the money hadn't - if the money hadn't been spent on nuclear weapons, you would have built up industry. We would have put money into welfare, we would have found alternative sources of energy. Industry... [pauses for applause] Industry will have been destroyed. The soil would have been irradiated. Farmstock would be dead, diseased or dying. The Russians would have conquered a corpse of a country.

Sheffield District Emergency Headquarters

Home Office telex to Clive Sutton

Timestamp: 13:50

• As a result of decisions taken in Cabinet last night, and passed to the Home secretary for implementation, you are requested to undertake an initial review of the Emergency Arrangements listed [...] You will, of course, take care that any such review is carried out with discretion and does not cause undue public alarm [...]

List of officers

[The list is partially obscured, and some initials were expanded from Clive Sutton's telephone conversation. Timestamp: 15:14]

• Emergency Committee - Cllrs. Flint, Langdon, Matthews
• Controller - Clive J. Sutton
• Deputy Controller - Alan Boulton
• Works Officer - George Cox
• Food Officer - Roger Fisher
• Manpower Officer - Susan Russell
• Environmental Health Officer - D. [...]
• Homelessness Officer(s) - Tony Barnes, Roy Chamberlain
• Information Officer - D. Talbot
• Scientific Advisers - Keith H[...], A. Jennings, Charles [...]
• District Inland Transport Co-ordinator - James Lee

United States president

Thursday 12 May

See also: § News reports, Thursday 12 May

• The unprovoked attack on our submarine, and the move into Iran, are the actions of a reckless and warlike power. I have to warn the Soviets in the clearest possible terms that they risk taking us to the brink of an armed confrontation, with incalculable consequences for all mankind.

Tuesday 17 May

• The United States government has been forced, reluctantly, to take action to safeguard what it believes are legitimate Western interests in the Middle East. This administration has therefore resolved to send units of its rapid deployment force, the U.S. Central Command, into western Iran. We are confident that the Soviet Union will take note of our resolve, and will desist from its present perilous course of action.

Dialogue

Mrs. Beckett: Ruth, Ruth love, come on love, you'll have to eat something. You'll have to love, it's not just you now you know, the baby needs food as well.

Ruth Beckett: [crying] I don't care about this baby anymore, I wish it was dead.

Mrs. Beckett: Oh Ruth! Don't say things like that.

Ruth Beckett: There's no point! There's no point with Jimmy dead.

Mrs. Beckett: But you don't know...

Ruth Beckett: He is! He is! I know he is!

Mrs. Beckett: You can't be certain.

Ruth Beckett: We're breathing in all this radiation all the time. My baby. It will be ugly and deformed. [sobs]

---

Clive Sutton: We've not heard from county yet.

Food Officer: If we don't release some food now, we'll never get things under control!

Information Officer: You try getting through to them! It's bloody hopeless.

Food Officer: I've got starving mobs in Sharrow, Ecclesfield...

Clive Sutton: Look, it's not our decision anyway! It's up to Zone to authorise the release of buffer stocks and then it becomes a County decision.

Manpower Officer: We can't get through to County!

Food Officer: What are we going to do? Let them starve?

Clive Sutton: Look, even if we did have the authority...

Manpower Officer: We're on our own! You've got the authority, it's about bloody time you did something with it!

Clive Sutton: Look, what's the point in wasting food on people who are going to die anyway?

Medical Officer: I agree with Clive. The food stocks are not going to last long. A lot of people just didn't stock up.

Food Officer: How could they? The bloody shops were empty!

Medical Officer: And now they're coming out of the shelters. I know it sounds callous, but I think we should hang on to the little food we've got.

Manpower Officer: And I need that food to force people to work.

[beat]

Food Officer: Can you make us a cup of tea, Sharon?

Manpower Officer: Go make it yourself, I'm not your bloody wife.

Food Officer: Anybody got a fag?

Medical Officer: [tosses a pack to the Food Officer] Bad for your health, innit.

---

Clive Sutton: We've no choice, as far as I see.

Food Officer: Can't we get any food from outside?

Clive Sutton: Where from? We've told County and everybody's in the same boat. The trouble is, we can't contact Rockley or Airs Brook. God knows what's happened there.

Food Officer: Probably been raided.

Clive Sutton: What do you think, Doctor?

Medical Officer: We'll have to cut their rations. I've worked it out there. [produces a file] A thousand calories for manual workers and 500 for the rest.

Food Officer: 500? 500?! That wouldn't keep a flea alive!

Clive Sutton: Should we be bothering to keep anybody alive if they can't work?

Medical Officer: A lot of people are gonna die anyway. It's back to survival of the fittest, I suppose.

Clive Sutton: What is that in terms of food, then, 500 calories?

Medical Officer: I don't know... A few slices of bread... some soup... a lamb chop... a treacle tart... a few pints of beer... [beat, then he raises a fist in the air] BASTARDS!

---

[arguing over where to house survivors]

Chief Supt. Hirst: Look, you must have an empty factory somewhere to put them!

Accommodation Officer: No, you look! I've got thousands of homeless bloody people up there walking around, and I've got enough on with them without being worried about bloody criminals!

Chief Supt. Hirst: Well, you're gonna have to find somewhere to put them, aren't you?!

Accommodation Officer: Well, I don't know! Look, shoot the buggers, I don't care!

[Chief Supt. Hirst walks off, but the Information Officer enters to hand the Accommodation Officer a file which he reads]

Accommodation Officer: Aw, Christ, Steve... this should've been sorted out days ago!

Information Officer: Well, what about the rest centers, can we not tell them to make their way there?

Accommodation Officer: No, no, there'll be no point. They'll be overrun anyway.

Information Officer: What about tents? Any tents we could use?

Accommodation Officer: What-- Tents?! How the hell should I know?! Look, if you want to know about tents, go and phone the bloody Boy Scouts!

Information Officer: Oh, piss off, will you?! You're not the only one under pressure!

Accommodation Officer: I bloody know! [starts coughing]

Information Officer: [throws the file over to a desk] YOU sort it!

About Threads

• Our intention in making Threads was to step aside from the politics and – I hope convincingly – show the actual effects on either side should our best endeavours to prevent nuclear war fail.
  • Barry Hines, as quoted in Kibble-White, J., "Let's All Hide in the Linen Cupboard", Off The Telly (September 2001).

Reece Dinsdale

• Nuclear war is everyone’s problem, it’s not just country to country. It’s a worldwide problem, we all share it, and that’s why it’s so frightening now. Since Threads was made I’m sure there have been advances in what nuclear weapons can do.
• Of course, my character goes missing halfway through the film, so half of the filming I wasn’t privy to. [...] You want to know what happens, but you’re not told. I suppose the message is that’s exactly what it’ll be like — nothing will be tied up nicely because people will disappear.
• Who knows? He died, presumably. I have no more idea than anyone else, but that’s the point. That’s why it’s so clever.
  • Answering the question "So what do you think happened to Jimmy?"

Mick Jackson

• Barry came up with the idea of the two families – one working class, the other lower-middle – and what their lives were like. Sheffield seemed a good place to set it, and Barry knew it well. It was bang in the middle of the country, and a good way from London. Strategically, it also made sense: there were industrial and military targets nearby.
  Both of us were interested in the idea that none of these characters would ever have a god’s-eye-view of events, and never find out what was happening outside their immediate experience, certainly not outside Sheffield. That seemed to be the way most people would have to deal with a nuclear apocalypse, with most forms of communication vaporised.
  • From "How we made the nuclear apocalypse TV drama Threads", The Guardian (8 January 2019)
• From the point where the bomb happens, the whole nature of the movie changes. In the first half of the movie, I hope, you have a very full soundtrack. You have all the soundtrack of TV broadcasts and radio broadcasts, the sound of birdsong in the country, the sound of musical things happening, the sound of traffic and city noises. And from the moment that the bomb drops you don't have anything. You don't even have the teletype, all these things, they just type out in silence, and all you hear is wind. [...] You hear voices of people screaming, coughing or whatever. You hear wind, you hear no birds. [...] It's gone. That world is gone.
  • From DVD audio commentary with Mick Jackson: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• In this movie, from the outset, I wanted to put it in the scale of people that you might know, people like yourself, your immediate family, relations and so on, and no bigger than that, and not really to show anything except how it would happen to them. So, there's no God's eye view in this movie. You don't actually get to look down and get the overall picture and see maps of Europe and maps of the world and so on. You just get what's happening to these people, and it's all really done from ground level. There's no cinematic crane shots or anything like that. It's just very, very documentary.
  • From DVD audio commentary with Mick Jackson: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• People tell me how relevant they find the movie to what's happening now. It’s comforting, at a time when so many films are being remade, to find that people still appreciate – and are scared by – the original film.
  • From "How we made the nuclear apocalypse TV drama Threads", The Guardian (8 January 2019)
• The idea was to take a movie which was about death...and use the iconography of life to tell the story.
  • From "The Director of the Scariest Movie We've Ever Seen Still Fears Nuclear War the Most", Vice (27 February 2018)
• The real effect of a nuclear weapon is not what it does to things, to buildings, to cities: it's what it does to society, what it does to people, what it does psychologically. I was very struck by the work that an American writer called Robert Jay Lifton had done on the psychological effects of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima on the survivors and I talked to him a lot. It seemed to me that the story that needed to be told was the story of what this does to society as well as what it does to physical things, and you could only really tell that with a drama, with people that you identified with.
  • From DVD audio commentary with Mick Jackson: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• There's the hospital sequence in The Day After and there's the hospital sequence in Threads. [...] In The Day After people are being wheeled in on gurneys and everybody's stressed, but they're coping with it as they would do on ER or something like that. In Threads, the floor is covered with muck and shit and blood and people don't have anything they can work with. [...] We see people having their legs amputated without an anesthetic, just something stuck between their teeth for them to bite on. That's what it's going to be like! And I wanted every part of this movie to be "That's what it's going to be like".
  • From DVD audio commentary with Mick Jackson: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• What we’d depicted and its implications stayed in the minds of every actor and crew member for a long time. I’m sure there were some nightmares. There are some things so far outside our experience or comprehension that they are unthinkable. Nuclear war is one.
  • From "How we made the nuclear apocalypse TV drama Threads", The Guardian (8 January 2019).

Karen Meagher

• I think Threads didn't keep people at arm's length, it drew people in because of the characters that everybody knew. I mean, we related to them, and that's what I think made Threads so visceral for people.
  • From Auditioning for the Apocalypse, DVD special feature: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• I was unaware really of the importance of it at the time, but I was asked to go for an interview, which I did, and I was the first person that Mick Jackson saw for the part. And I went looking rather radical, because I thought "oh, it's about nuclear war", you know, and I'm a very radical person, so I kind of went wearing my sort of "combat gear" which was very "in" at the time. And it was really strange, because afterwords, when I got the part of Ruth, who turned out to be a very fragile sort of a person, I was surprised and he said having been the first one, he saw me for the part. He obviously saw something in me that was, I don't know, vulnerable, maybe. It was the only time I've ever said to a director "I would really like a part in this, regardless of what that part may be", because I knew that the content would be close to my heart.
  • From Auditioning for the Apocalypse, DVD special feature: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• It was cloaked to a great extent in secrecy almost. [...] You knew what it was about, but the script was a close-kept secret I think. Not many people had seen it, and I think they were worried that it would go the same way as War Games, which was made but never seen, so it was all quite mysterious really.
  • From Auditioning for the Apocalypse, DVD special feature: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
• It's hard to watch and it should be hard to watch. It should frighten people, and if it's done that, it's done its job.
  • From Auditioning for the Apocalypse, DVD special feature: Threads: remastered. Director: Mick Jackson. 1984. 2-disc special edition. Severin Films Inc., 2017.
  • The BBC drama-documentary The War Game was intended for broadcast in 1965, but was withdrawn from the television schedules. It was given a limited theatrical release and received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 1967. The BBC did not screen The War Game until July 1986. The film WarGames, an American science fiction techno-thriller film, was released in 1983.

External links

• Threads quotes at the Internet Movie Database