‘That's going to happen to us. It is’:Threadsand the Imagination of Nuclear Disaster on 1980s Television

Abstract

The broadcast of Threads (BBC) on 23 September 1984 was a key moment in the Cold War imagination of nuclear catastrophe. Directed by Mick Jackson, and scripted by Barry Hines, the docudrama was widely trailed, attracted a large audience and was influential in defining a vision of what nuclear war would mean. The early 1980s had seen a resurgence in Cold War tensions with both superpowers adopting more bellicose rhetoric and actions; with nuclear war felt by many to be a distinct possibility, nuclear protest had also re-emerged as a shaping influence on the political landscape. Yet Threads is now, if not quite forgotten, certainly little known: with some notable exceptions, few critics have written about it and it has rarely been screened since its first broadcast. This article seeks to recover Threads and argue for its significance in providing 1980s Britain with a vision of what nuclear war would mean. It shows how it works within and against established television genres, exploiting the tensions between dramatic and documentary aesthetics, and how scheduling framed it as significant by placing it within the context of other documentary and discussion programmes. Finally, the article assesses the long-term impact of Threads. Although it swiftly faded from popular memory, it had a lasting impact on a specific demographic within its original audience: those who were adolescents or young adults when it was first broadcast. Not coincidentally, it was this generation who provided many of the new recruits for CND and other protest groups during the 1980s.

The politics of the unknown: Uncertainty and the nuclear threat in Britain, 1979–1985

“…Moreover, such an endeavour could explore the extent to which this nuclear secrecy prompted critics of official nuclear policies to create an alternative “nuclear public sphere” to disseminate information on the nuclear threat, as Joseph Masco has observed within the context of the United States (Masco, ). Here, articles and books by journalists such as Duncan Campbell or television productions by Britain's public broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), on the imagined effects of nuclear war like Threads (BBC 2 TV, UK, 1984) or On the Eighth Day (BBC 2 TV, UK, 1984) are likely to offer valuable insight into a 1980s British “nuclear public sphere” (Campbell, ; Cordle, ).…”

“…Conceptionally, an answer to this question could draw on Sebastian Job's classification of gossip and rumour as "narratives of hearsay" that constitute another form of "uncertain knowledge" (Jobs, 2014, p. 2). Moreover, such an endeavour could explore the extent to which this nuclear secrecy prompted critics of official nuclear policies to create an alternative "nuclear public sphere" to disseminate information on the nuclear threat, as Joseph Masco has observed within the context of the United States (Masco, 2005 (Campbell, 1982;Cordle, 2013).…”

“…Did CND and other British anti-nuclear weapons campaigners reject the Cold War in a similar fashion by the early 1980s? In answering this question, an examination of this politics of the unknown would go beyond a dominant thread in the existing historiography (e.g., Hogg, 2012;Seed, 2006;Weart, 2012;Willis, 1995;Winkler, 1999), contributing instead to a growing body of literature that presents a more multifaceted picture of the nuclear threat and its impacts on society and culture (e.g., Burkett, 2010;Cordle, 2013;Hogg, 2016;Hughes, 2015;Overpeck, 2012).…”