Despite achieving huge popularity in the U.K., the show only ran for two seasons, from 1998 to 2000, as Victoria Wood did not want a third series. A second series was unexpected from the writer who said she doesn't like to do anything twice, but Wood felt like she should write a second series as the first had "felt like an experiment".
In a first for a U.K. sitcom (and at Victoria Wood's insistence) each episode was recorded twice in front of different studio audiences, giving the perfectionist Wood a chance to watch the recording and make any changes or rewrites she felt necessary; forcing the cast to learn new lines in a day, before rerecording the following evening.
The cast have said that the atmosphere of the recording changed depending on the audience.
Victoria Wood wrote Petula, the mother of Wood's character Bren, specifically for comedy partner Dame Julie Walters, but was unsure if Walters would be happy taking the part, as Petula is, at fifty-five, several years older than Walters. However, Walters immediately accepted the role, stating that "everybody thinks I'm fifty-five anyway."
The first season originally was to have ten episodes, but Victoria Wood threw four of them away, as she was not happy with the quality of her own writing.