The play got a huge audience on the Tuesday night it was screened in 1977. In the UK in those days there were only three TV channels: one (ITV) was on strike and the other (BBC2) was affected by a large storm causing all viewers to tune into the BBC station (BBC1) screening the play.
When Beverly puts on a record of "Love to Love You, Baby", it is not Donna Summer singing. Her version of the song had been banned by the BBC because it featured "orgasmic moans". Instead the play used a cover version by Clare Torry.
Alison Steadman was heavily pregnant with her and Mike Leigh's son while playing this role, but the flowing evening dress disguises the bump.
Alison Steadman based Beverly on a lady she knew whilst at Drama school in Essex, she merged this person with a woman she saw demonstrating a make-up range at a department store who either knowingly or unknowingly humiliated a lady she had plucked from the passing shoppers and telling a watching crowd she had applied her lipstick very badly.
During the film, Angela mentions that Tony used to play, in the first team, for Crystal Palace when he was in his late teens. John Salthouse, who plays Tony, played for the same team, around the same time as Tony did.