[5][6][7] The film was shot in and around Brafferton Arbor, a street on the Buttershaw Estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where Andrea Dunbar lived and worked.

The film was inspired[8] by so-called verbatim theatre, with audio recordings of Lorraine Dunbar and other family members, lip-synched by professional actors in set-designed environments.

[9] The film also includes from Dunbar’s autobiographical play The Arbor performed outdoors by a mix of actors and estate residents, the 1986 film Rita, Sue and Bob Too written by Dunbar, Robin Soans' 2000 play A State Affair, as well as archive footage.

[10][9] Barnard's original intention for this film was not to make it about Andrea Dunbar, but after speaking with her eldest daughter, Lorraine, that is what emerged.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Smart and inventive, The Arbor offers some intensely memorable twists on tired documentary tropes.