Topics: How the atomic bomb drama horrified the extras in Sheffield

A week after “Threads” aired, the television review program “Did You See” sought various opinions from people who had a professional interest in the topic.

Bruce Kent of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament felt that “in the end it could have given people a little more positive direction in terms of the things they could actually do.”

Military strategist Air Vice-Marshall Stewart Menaul remained skeptical of the program’s claims.

He said: “Let me emphasize right away, no one is going to start throwing 5,000 megatons around this planet. Nobody, not the Russians, the Americans, the British, the French or anyone else. It’s just never going to happen.”

One of those who saw the film at a formative age was Black Mirror author Charlie Brooker, who was 13 in 1984.

He told Desert Island Discs in 2018: “I remember seeing Threads and not being able to process what it meant; I didn’t understand how society continued.”

He added: “I accepted it [nuclear war] was going to happen, and I think in the 1980s it seemed like that was going to happen.

Although the world has changed in many ways since Threads first aired, it retains its shocking power.