Shades (1982)

If you were a fan of post-apocalyptic nuclear fiction in the first half of the 1980s, you were absolutely spoiled. From The Day After through to Threads and onto When the Wind Blows, it felt as though a full-scale attack of harrowing nuclear dramas were raining down from the heavens. And it was a reflection of a much wider public consciousness, one which was being drip fed a diet of fear through a very real nuclear arms race and the harsh reality of Protect & Survive.

No one truly knew what the future held. Would we be reduced to eating a diet of rats and radioactive sheep as imagined in Threads? Hopefully not. But when the bomb dropped, we did know one thing: we were going to be eating a diet of rats and radioactive sheep. Perhaps, though, there would be an alternative. Maybe the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) would work, and nuclear weapons would be no more. Or, as suggested by Stephen Lowe’s Shades, we’d simply learn to forget about the whole thing.

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The Critics View of The Day of the Triffids

The Day of the Triffids is one of the finest examples of British science fiction on television. The performances are less acted and more inhabited, the atmosphere coiled tighter than a rationed gas ring, and the effects - well, let’s call them charmingly shoddy. It’s ridiculous to suggest it’s anything less than a stone-cold classic.

And, 40 years on from its original broadcast, Douglas Livingstone’s adaptation of John Wyndham’s magnum opus remains a talking point. The BBC’s 1981 version, we won’t discuss 2009’s attempt which sunk without a trace, was rewarded with a Blu-Ray release in 2020 and prompted much discussion, even if a lot of that was due to criticism of the restoration.

But back in 1981, a full 30 years on from the publishing date of the original novel, what did the critics make of the BBC’s latest science fiction offering? The Day of the Triffids was part of the BBC’s £33 million drama lineup for 1981 and, as ever, would be under scrutiny from the viewers and the press. There was also the Star Wars issue. Ever since Star Wars had redefined special effects in 1977, anything less than a stellar visual spectacle would be ridiculed, regardless of the budgetary constraints.

So, did the critics hold back? Was there a chance, much like today’s fans of vintage post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction, they would appreciate the craft and aesthetics of a story which, in 1981, reflected the public’s paranoia of an apocalyptic event? Well, some did. Others, less so.