The commercial interest expressed in the United Kingdom was initially much lower than in other European countries and only 30 prints of the film were planned for distribution in the UK, compared with 300 in France. However, after the Palme d'Or award the film appeared on 105 screens in the UK, more than three times larger than the UK release for any of Ken Loach's previous films.
In the cinema scene, the man at the piano is really playing it. He's Neil Brand, one of Britain's leading silent cinema accompanists, who in 2006 featured significantly as a composer and accompanist in the BBC television series "Paul Merton's Silent Clowns".