People tell me how relevant they find the movie to what’s happening now. It’s comforting, at a time when so many films are being remade, to find that… - Mick Jackson

The idea was to take a movie which was about death...and use the iconography of life to tell the story.

It is unthinkable for most people. Nuclear war is so outside your everyday experience it’s hard to get your mind around it. And if you can’t get your mind around it, you can’t talk about it and have a meaningful debate.

Barry came up with the idea of the two families – one working class, the other lower-middle – and what their lives were like. Sheffield seemed a good place to set it, and Barry knew it well. It was bang in the middle of the country, and a good way from London. Strategically, it also made sense: there were industrial and military targets nearby.
Both of us were interested in the idea that none of these characters would ever have a god’s-eye-view of events, and never find out what was happening outside their immediate experience, certainly not outside Sheffield. That seemed to be the way most people would have to deal with a nuclear apocalypse, with most forms of communication vaporised.