This week Lost and Found moves from last week’s comedy horror to something genuinely horrifying. Threads, written by Barry Hynes, is set in Sheffield in the 1980s, depicting with terrifying realism the events surrounding a direct nuclear attack on British soil.

It focuses on a young couple, Ruth (Karen Meagher) and Jimmy (Reece Dinsdale) and their immediate family, occasionally switching to authority figures and related characters, from two months before the nuclear attack, through it, and then to years afterwards. Ruth is the closest the show came to having a main character (a role which is generally filled by humanity as a whole) but Meagher’s performance was unnervingly believable.

The plot is wonderfully paced; it grows from the slow, uncomfortable start, where the normal lives of the Sheffielders are brushed lightly by a crisis in the Middle East – where the Soviet Union and the USA are at a stand-off. The characters get on with their everyday challenges in their own social bubbles. This is loaded with potent dramatic irony, the audience well aware of the coming dread.

The attack itself is horrifying, focusing on the reaction of individuals in the streets of Sheffield, including some truly disturbing images of passers-by wetting themselves, weeping and collapsing in horror. Flashes of light and clouds of fallout dust provide the apocalyptic imagery, albeit in incredibly dated special effects.

Though the initial attack inspires fear, the post-blast world represents the most unnerving aspect of the show. The dark and disturbing place that Britain becomes following the attack is rendered in graphic detail, from the break-down of social order to the more unsettling nuances – people choking on vomit from radiation sickness, and starving survivors feasting on raw sheep.

Threads is a period piece, filled with scenes and ideas typical of the 1980s, but it is also timelessly relevant, its title and overriding message reminding us of the fragility of the bonds that keep society together. It is truly impeccable television, if highly disturbing.