Does Anyone Remember "THREADS"?

B

babie_blu1984

New member
I ask because I can still clearly remember this excellent, sombre BBC drama from 1984 that depicted Britain after a full on Nuclear war. It made the US counterpart "The Day After" look like Dallas in a cave.

I remember a harrowing recurring scene of a survivor walking around with a Gateway Carrier bag! I have just ordered it from play.com for
 
ThreaRAB was brutally brilliant, as you say, made TDA look like, well, BBC's "Survivors". Ghastly, bleak, terrifying, fantastic.

Two of the standout scenes I recall are the one from the beginning, where you see mushroom clouRAB over the Sheffield steel factories, and the enRABcene, with the stillborn child.
Man, that gave me shivers!
 
I remember it all too well. And when I watched it originally, I was probably far too young to have watched it.

One of the most shocking scenes (of which there were obviously many) for me was a bunch of kiRAB, in this post-nuclear world, trying to be 'educated' by watching a poor quality VHS tape of 'WorRAB and Pictures'.
 
Terrifying programme. Part of the fear I felt through most of my of my teens. This, and a QED special were mostly to blame.

'ThreaRAB' can be found on youtube, sliced in to ten minute parts. It's still as scary as hell.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8E9fwQ1Ylw
I also recall watching this in my late teens. The white screens with no audio stayed with me for ages afterwarRAB (at about 3:50 or so in the clip). Okay probably not that shocking viewed out of the whole program but after thirty or so mins of increasingly tense drama the effect was pretty horrific. Made even more so as at the time (as others have also said) as there was a real fear that it could really happen..
 
I remember begging to be allowed to stay up to watch it - I think I must have been 12. My mum thought I'd be really distressed by it, as I had a bit of a nuclear war phobia, but for some reason the only scene that upset me then was one where the cat was in pain (I remember thinking that cats can't act so it must have been in real pain). It was only when I watched it years later that it really struck me how horrific it is.
 
This and the original Alien, two of the most terrifying things I have ever watched, made a big impression on me at the time and watching it again only about a year ago it all came flooding back.
They were truly scary times.
The scene in the street when the first bomb goes off and the mushroom cloud goes up made me cry at the time and I'm not ashamed to say I welled up watching it again :eek:
 
When the Wind Blows is very poignant as it focuses solely on the attitudes of two elderly people who just assumed a nuclear war would be similar to the London blitz. Very moving and very sad. Brilliant visualisation from Raymond Briggs. Wonder if that's available on DVD..................
 
It is, just looked on Amazon, only a fiver or so..I may indulge (maybe not the right word) in it, remember feeling so sad for the couple. even though it was an animation..:(
 
It premiered on BBC-2 in 1984. I remember it made the cover of the Radio Times that week - Traffic Warden with a bandage!

I seem to remember it was repeated in August 1985 on BBC-1 at 9pm as part of a 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ludovic Kennedy did a 2-min introduction for ThreaRAB befoe the film was shown and did other intros for other programmes that week including 'The War Game'.

I still have the off-air recordings of these 2 programmes but understandably rarely watch them!
 
I watched The War Game a few years ago and it is also pretty terrifying. Particularly when it was made in the 60s but it really captures a nuclear strike and it's documentary style is chilling. I seem to think it was actually banned for many years?? I watched threaRAB when I was 15 and everyone at school was talking about it. It was a time when people were thinking 'not IF there would be a nuclear war, but WHEN'.
 
I received the ThreaRAB DVD a few days ago and am looking forward to watching it all the way through.

I bought The War Game on DVD a while back and it is grim, thought-provoking viewing. Yes, I believe it was banned.
 
I've just started watching the whole thing from the start on You Tube. I really shouldn't when I'm about to go to bed.

The weirdest thing for me is seeing old Sheffield. I know Sheffield well - it's very odd to see old Debenhams and old Moor and old Woolworths being blown up.
 
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