This collaboration between writer Alan Bennett and director Lindsay Anderson was awaited with great expectations by the critics and public, but was an almost complete disaster, denigrated by angry viewers and dismissed in reviews. It was chiefly blamed on Anderson, but Bennett defended his contribution strenuously, and claimed that the most frequently-quoted dialogue exchange in the play ("Have you seen someone die before?" - "Only at school") was added by Anderson during rehearsals.
Alan Bennett was so downhearted at the joint failure of this and of his stage play "Enjoy" shortly afterwards that he seriously considered quitting writing and leaving Britain for America. He felt that the critical mauling of the film was partly due to its heavy prior promotion with interviews and reports from the set (the fact that Clive James, in a review that particularly angered Bennett, extensively quoted one such interview with Lindsay Anderson, titled "The Master at Work", bears this out).
Alan Bennett kept a diary detailing his work on the script with Lindsay Anderson and the filming process, which was published in his 1994 anthology "Writing Home".
Playwright Alan Bennett observed that during production, Jill Bennett was the only cast member tough enough to stand up to director Lindsay Anderson.
Co-stars Rachel Roberts and Jill Bennett later committed suicide, in 1980 and 1990. Director Lindsay Anderson, a good friend of both actresses, was given their ashes, which he scattered in a ceremony documented in his last film, Is That All There Is? (1992).