The play was written by Ian Curteis, an experienced writer who had started his television career in drama, but had increasingly come to specialise in dramatic reconstructions of history.

Secretary of State for Defence John Nott, acting on behalf of his government, demands total withdrawal of Argentinian garrisons, in compliance with UN Resolution 502.

His research also involved reading most of what had already been published about the War, biographies of the chief protagonists, Hansard for the relevant Parliamentary debates, official reports, and the contemporary press coverage.

At a meeting with Milne on 2 June 1986, Curteis raised the question of the general election that was expected to happen the following year, and asked whether it might compromise the planned transmission date of the play.

In addition, he considered that attributing such fictional dialogue to real people could be libellous, although he had been quite willing to do exactly that for conversations between – variously – members of the Argentinian Junta, American envoy Alexander Haig, and the Pope.

Bill Cotton, the BBC's Managing Director of Television, issued a statement claiming: "Ian Curteis completed the first draft of his Falklands Play three and a half years after we had commissioned it...

In fact, there had been an approach from Anglia Television to buy the rights on the day the cancellation was announced, but it had been categorically refused "off the record" by Michael Grade, then Controller of BBC One.

Coupled with the decision to continue with Tumbledown (although its transmission was eventually delayed until 31 May 1988), the whole furore led to accusations of censorship and left-wing bias at the BBC, particularly as the play depicted Thatcher as both a strong and sympathetic character.

In 1991, as part of a wider season of programmes about censorship, Channel 4 included a reading of some dialogue from the play in the documentary The Liberal Conspiracy, in which Curteis was also interviewed.

The TV transmission was preceded by a half-hour programme on the controversy surrounding the original production, and was followed by a studio debate on the issues raised by both the cancellation and the play itself.