Threads

Karen Meagher - Ruth Beckett
Reece Dinsdale - Jimmy Kemp
David Brierly - Mr. Kemp
Rita May - Mrs. Kemp
Nicholas Lane - Michael Kemp
Jane Hazlegrove - Alison Kemp
Henry Moxon - Mr. Beckett
June Broughton - Mrs. Beckett
Sylvia Stoker - Granny Beckett
Harry Beety - Clive Sutton
Ruth Holden - Marjorie Sutton

Set during the paranoia of mounting Cold War tensions during the 1980s, this chilling and unrelentingly bleak BAFTA-award winning BBC2 drama was aired causing outrage and anxiety amongst the viewing public due to its graphic and realistic portrayal of a possible nuclear strike. After its initial airing Threads became a national talking point and became a powerful and terrifying glimpse into a post holocaust world after a devastating nuclear bomb.

Set in Sheffield, the story follows pregnant Ruth (Karen Meagher) and her carpenter fiancée (Reece Dinsdale) who are looking forward to beginning a new life with a baby and a new flat. As the families go about their daily routine the background radio and television news reports the growing tensions in the Middle East between the US and USSR when suddenly the unthinkable happens and the world is suddenly erupted into a full scale nuclear war. After the attack the landscape is changed dramatically with the survivors suffering the effects of radiation poisoning and scavenging through the devastation and corpses trying to forage what they can; nurses in hospitals unable to do anything other than comfort the dying; and a society is descended back to its most basic level. Ruth emerges from her shelter after the attack to discover a nuclear winter has descended on England and the country has been thrust back into the dark ages.