There was some controversy when the film won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010 as some members of the jury were unsure whether it qualified as a documentary or not.
Originally intended for transmission for television.
Clio Barnard recorded audio interviews with Lorraine Dunbar and other members of the Dunbar family over a two year period to create her screenplay.
George Costigan - one of the stars of the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987) which was written by Andrea Dunbar - here plays one her boyfriends.
The idea of using actors lip syncing taped interviews was actually first used 10 years previously in the play "State of Affairs", a follow-up of sorts to Andrea Dunbar's own work.