This movie was shown on the opening night of Channel 4 in the U.K. on November 2, 1982. It brought a storm of protest from many of the audience, who had expected lighter fare.
Despite some mild controversy about the dark tone of the film, Ian McKellen's performance received good reviews and helped establish McKellen's name in the UK as an emerging heavyweight dramatic actor (prior to this his career had mostly been in minor television roles and on stage).
Like several other early Channel 4 funded feature films, this was given a very limited (consisting of three or four film prints) theatrical release in the late summer of 1982 to help drum up interest in the new channel (which was launched in November that year). The idea was to show that Channel 4 would be investing in low budget but quality productions of some worth rather than being yet another commercial TV station. The limited theatrical release of these films would also enable them to be entered into various festivals and competitions to generate publicity.
Originally planned to be made by ITC Entertainment in association with Randell-Evans Productions who before this film did a number of promotional films for various disability organizations but it became a Central Production after the name change from ATV.