Mark Strong revealed in an interview that Christopher Eccleston took a dislike to him, and outside of their scenes together the pair did not speak for the entire production. Eccleston for his part stated that they mutually disliked each other, as their characters did and suspected that Strong was jealous of him.
The entire BBC2 drama budget for 1996 (approximately four million pounds) was spent on this one series.
Christopher Eccleston said that he learned more about acting from Peter Vaughan than anyone else. He recalled their first meeting at a readthrough, when the older actor said to him, "I don't like the look of you", to which he replied, "Well, I don't like the look of you". They got on very well after that.
Austin Donohue and John Edwards were directly based on the real-life scandals of T Dan Smith and John Poulson, who built cheap high-rise housing projects in Newcastle, that they knew to be of low quality. Peter Flannery contacted Smith and explained that he was going to write a play based on the events of the scandal, to which Smith replied, "There is a play here of Shakespearean proportions." Smith and Poulson died before the program aired.