The film takes place in 1977.
The film's characters Chris and Caz are operating a pirate radio station from a tower block in Dalston. Dalston is a real-life district of the London Borough of Hackney, located at a distance of 4 miles (6.4 km) to the north-east of Charing Cross. Dalston was a hub for the 1970s and 1980s pub rock venues, but most of them were demolished after the gentrification of the area in the 1990s and 2000s.
The film is partly set in Dalston. While Dalston had a poor reputation as an "ethnic area" in the 1970s and 1980s, it had its share of famous residents. Among other people with houses in Dalston were the politician Tony Blair, the actors Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and the actress Emily Lloyd.
Caz's boyfriend in the film is the character "Billibud", a punk rock fan and voter of the Socialist Workers Party (a Trotskyist organization). Billibud is named after "Billy Budd", the title character of the novel "Billy Budd, Sailor" (written 1888, published 1924) by American writer Herman Melville (1819-1891). The original Billy Budd was depicted as extremely good-looking and charismatic, but exceptionally naive and rather dim-witted.