It's *such* a difficult watch but sadly still so relevant. It was clear from the tweets during the rerun how much it was affecting people watching it for the first time too...
Wow, Tim, that must have been one hell of an experience. Even just being an extra would have brought on nightmares I imagine! What scenes were you in?
And totally agree about the lack of fear - it's actually insane how little serious public attention is paid to nuclear weapons now when the global situation is so parlous.
It was good fun to do. There were four days of extraing over two weekends. The first weekend was demonstrations and panic scenes in Sheffield city centre.
The next weekend started with a day in the Peak District filming the refugees leaving the city ( on a bright sunny day - not as seen in the film ).
The final day was the hospital scene which was filmed in an old hospital and included BBC bacon rolls and make up which involved sauce and cornflakes!
The hospital scene filming was as grim as it appeared on the telly.
It was an experience. The film still holds up well I think.
I’ve only watched it three times, including the premiere in Sheffield.
Wow, amazing memories! I read about that premiere in Sheffield. People crying (not surprisingly). And the ketchup and cornflakes - British special effects at their very best eh 😄 Even just thinking about the hospital scene is too much...
The egg box type building you see blown apart in the attack was a representation of the Town Hall extension ( nicknamed the “egg box” ). I worked in the building at the time so it was a bit surreal seeing your place of work nuked.
In later, real life, it was demolished but I’d left the city by then.
I think this might be too soon for me to watch after losing so many people here due to the Hurricane. Got partially through the youtube clip and had to stop. I can't think of a single film that made me feel so viscerally and instantly like that. I can't believe it's fiction. It felt. It is so so real.
I would say be kind to yourself and maybe leave watching Threads till another time - it's definitely not an easy thing to watch any time, but especially not when you're vulnerable and processing other loss already. I'm gonna be posting out a few companion documentaries and other things this week which might be a less emotionally challenging way to engage with some of the issues. But you'll know if it feels too much right now. Sending love and solidarity x
I was about to move to Sheffield, the week after watching this. I still have my diary for that year, and just wrote "evil stuff" - you can see the contextual roots of anarcho-punk and goth in this program and its overwhelming climate of fear and the pure banality of superpowers. There's a bit of urban mythology about the chalk outlines of the vaporised bodies being a little more permanent than agreed
Evil stuff - no better way of putting it. And yes on the banality. So chilling seeing glimpses of consumer society in the post-bomb world. Didn't know that about the chalk outlines 😱
You definitely need to pick your moment - on a bright sunny day when you're feeling pretty robust would be good! I actually stopped watching this second time just after the first bomb goes off and picked up watching the morning after with a strong coffee as I just didn't want to have all those painful images in my mind as I was falling asleep...
An almost excellent post. I say "almost" because i think there are other potential triggers for a nuclear war than the ones you mention. I didn't see Threads, but thanks to your post I've added it to my watchlist on the BBC iPlayer at some point.
Did you ever see The War Game by Peter Watkins? It was made in the 1960s and was terrifying, again all based on the known facts about the effects of atom bombs. The BBC banned it for five years. It's available on Amazon Prime for a fee.
I'm just old enough to recall the Cuban missile crisis, and that was pretty worrying.
During the 1970s and1980s there was a lot of scare stories about the impending aramgeddon, and there was a ludicrous public information film called Protect and Survive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yrv505R-0U Perhaps it did some good by making people feel less hopeless about their survival chances.
I have indeed seen The War Game. I saw that first and thought it was the most terrifying thing I'd seen. Until I saw Threads... They're both brutal but I think the difference in Threads is that you really come to know and care about these individual characters and the relatable dramas of their lives in the first half of the film so the terror feels so much more personal and hard to bear when it comes. Interestingly, Jackson has said he thinks the BBC's internal guilt and shame about basically suppressing Watkins' film for 20 years was a direct reason for Threads being commissioned after the Director General Alasdair Milne rewatched The War Game. Have got a little follow up post planned with links to a bunch of other related stuff and I'll certainly be talking about the War Game in that.
Protect & Survive features prominently in Threads (as indeed it does in When the Wind Blows - though I don't think it's explicitly named in that). One of the couples is futilely trying to follow the instructions to build a shelter in their living room. Horrifically farcical.
Another thing that occurred to me that I never touched on was the risk of accidental detonation and false alarms. There was a major one about a year before Threads went out I think. I'm fairly sure the guy who wrote Fast Food Nation wrote a book on US nuclear weapons accidents, I'll have to go look that up now!
I was going to mention when the wind blows but didn't want to go too far from your original post. What you said about threads makes sense. I heard that the BBC banned the wAr game for five years. Was it really twenty? What a disgrace. Protect and Survive was, rightly, the target of many jokes. I mean, to tell people to hide under a table!! There was a poster at the time, you probably saw it, which instructed people to bend over, put their head between their knees, and kiss their arse goodbye. 😂
I have seen threads and it was so heartwrenching tbh. It shows what people had to deal with
It's *such* a difficult watch but sadly still so relevant. It was clear from the tweets during the rerun how much it was affecting people watching it for the first time too...
I enjoyed that read. I was an extra in the film and in my mid 20’s at that time.
40 years on I feel the world is a much more dangerous place.
Where is the fear?
Wow, Tim, that must have been one hell of an experience. Even just being an extra would have brought on nightmares I imagine! What scenes were you in?
And totally agree about the lack of fear - it's actually insane how little serious public attention is paid to nuclear weapons now when the global situation is so parlous.
Hi Vicki.
It was good fun to do. There were four days of extraing over two weekends. The first weekend was demonstrations and panic scenes in Sheffield city centre.
The next weekend started with a day in the Peak District filming the refugees leaving the city ( on a bright sunny day - not as seen in the film ).
The final day was the hospital scene which was filmed in an old hospital and included BBC bacon rolls and make up which involved sauce and cornflakes!
The hospital scene filming was as grim as it appeared on the telly.
It was an experience. The film still holds up well I think.
I’ve only watched it three times, including the premiere in Sheffield.
Wow, amazing memories! I read about that premiere in Sheffield. People crying (not surprisingly). And the ketchup and cornflakes - British special effects at their very best eh 😄 Even just thinking about the hospital scene is too much...
The egg box type building you see blown apart in the attack was a representation of the Town Hall extension ( nicknamed the “egg box” ). I worked in the building at the time so it was a bit surreal seeing your place of work nuked.
In later, real life, it was demolished but I’d left the city by then.
Terrific analysis of the film and of the reactions to it, Vicki. Its importance can’t really be overstated.
Thanks Wendy! And thanks again for letting me include your response in the piece too 🙏
I think this might be too soon for me to watch after losing so many people here due to the Hurricane. Got partially through the youtube clip and had to stop. I can't think of a single film that made me feel so viscerally and instantly like that. I can't believe it's fiction. It felt. It is so so real.
I would say be kind to yourself and maybe leave watching Threads till another time - it's definitely not an easy thing to watch any time, but especially not when you're vulnerable and processing other loss already. I'm gonna be posting out a few companion documentaries and other things this week which might be a less emotionally challenging way to engage with some of the issues. But you'll know if it feels too much right now. Sending love and solidarity x
Yes that’s what I thought. I’d like to watch it but maybe a few months down the road. Thank you! Love what you’re doing.
I was about to move to Sheffield, the week after watching this. I still have my diary for that year, and just wrote "evil stuff" - you can see the contextual roots of anarcho-punk and goth in this program and its overwhelming climate of fear and the pure banality of superpowers. There's a bit of urban mythology about the chalk outlines of the vaporised bodies being a little more permanent than agreed
Evil stuff - no better way of putting it. And yes on the banality. So chilling seeing glimpses of consumer society in the post-bomb world. Didn't know that about the chalk outlines 😱
It's unnerving just reading about it. I'm in two minds about whether to try to watch it! :P
You definitely need to pick your moment - on a bright sunny day when you're feeling pretty robust would be good! I actually stopped watching this second time just after the first bomb goes off and picked up watching the morning after with a strong coffee as I just didn't want to have all those painful images in my mind as I was falling asleep...
In Australia I never saw it, although I do recall reading about it, either in the papers or in 80s books. Thanks for this fascinating piece.
Thanks Andres. The Wikipedia page has a link to the review in The Age newspaper the day after the Australian broadcast. Pretty interesting! https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TDRVAAAAIBAJ&pg=4247,5751601
An almost excellent post. I say "almost" because i think there are other potential triggers for a nuclear war than the ones you mention. I didn't see Threads, but thanks to your post I've added it to my watchlist on the BBC iPlayer at some point.
Did you ever see The War Game by Peter Watkins? It was made in the 1960s and was terrifying, again all based on the known facts about the effects of atom bombs. The BBC banned it for five years. It's available on Amazon Prime for a fee.
I'm just old enough to recall the Cuban missile crisis, and that was pretty worrying.
During the 1970s and1980s there was a lot of scare stories about the impending aramgeddon, and there was a ludicrous public information film called Protect and Survive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yrv505R-0U Perhaps it did some good by making people feel less hopeless about their survival chances.
I have indeed seen The War Game. I saw that first and thought it was the most terrifying thing I'd seen. Until I saw Threads... They're both brutal but I think the difference in Threads is that you really come to know and care about these individual characters and the relatable dramas of their lives in the first half of the film so the terror feels so much more personal and hard to bear when it comes. Interestingly, Jackson has said he thinks the BBC's internal guilt and shame about basically suppressing Watkins' film for 20 years was a direct reason for Threads being commissioned after the Director General Alasdair Milne rewatched The War Game. Have got a little follow up post planned with links to a bunch of other related stuff and I'll certainly be talking about the War Game in that.
Protect & Survive features prominently in Threads (as indeed it does in When the Wind Blows - though I don't think it's explicitly named in that). One of the couples is futilely trying to follow the instructions to build a shelter in their living room. Horrifically farcical.
Another thing that occurred to me that I never touched on was the risk of accidental detonation and false alarms. There was a major one about a year before Threads went out I think. I'm fairly sure the guy who wrote Fast Food Nation wrote a book on US nuclear weapons accidents, I'll have to go look that up now!
I was going to mention when the wind blows but didn't want to go too far from your original post. What you said about threads makes sense. I heard that the BBC banned the wAr game for five years. Was it really twenty? What a disgrace. Protect and Survive was, rightly, the target of many jokes. I mean, to tell people to hide under a table!! There was a poster at the time, you probably saw it, which instructed people to bend over, put their head between their knees, and kiss their arse goodbye. 😂