To look as much as possible like the real Lord Longford, Jim Broadbent wore a prosthetic nose and chin that took two hours to apply each day. A prison guard who had known the real Lord Longford was once very startled when Broadbent entered the prison door in costume. To make himself walk very slowly and lamely when Longford sees Myra Hindley for the last time in the movie (when the character is 92 years old), Broadbent put small, painful stones inside his shoes.
The art critic Brian Sewell, who had a long acquaintance with the real Lord Longford, praised the performance of Jim Broadbent in this film on television, but caustically added that Broadbent, and the film itself, had omitted what he claimed was the most immediately obvious characteristic of the real man - "egomaniacal arrogance".