It is most clear in this production that the puritanical playwright played by Alan Dobie is deliberately meant to remind viewers of the actual author, Dennis Potter, many of whose well-known mannerisms (for example, his habit, caused by psoriasis, of holding his cigarettes between the third and fourth fingers of his hand) are faithfully mimicked.
In her autobiography, Kika Markham recalled how she was cast by Dennis Potter for this episode. "Dennis Potter wanted to meet me; he had writer's block and wanted to discuss a new idea about acting versus prostitution - over a dinner. He had seen me in a commercial for Cornetto, and thought, as a committed socialist and serious actress, I should not have allowed myself to become sexualized for money. I did have doubts myself at the time, but we sold a lot of papers in the pubs on the strength of my being recognised as the 'Cornetto girl'. I went along to meet him at The Regent Palace Hotel and we had a very long, mostly friendly argument for the whole meal, about acting and prostitution. 'How much would I compromise my principles if I got a large fee?' He put it all in the play, everything I said, without taking any notes, and told me that I would play the actress and the prostitute - although it would involve doing a nude scene, which I wasn't keen on. But as he believed 'actresses were prostitutes in disguise,' he thought I would agree in the end. And of course I did because it was a wonderful play, although I suffered doing the nude scene and had to suck a Cadbury's Flake," she said.