The film features Richard Goolden, Mandy Carlin and John Dalby.

[1] The film uses puppets to tell Hans Christian Andersen's tale about the song of a nightingale heard by the little kitchen girl at the Emperor of China's palace.

Sands Films, the production company that made the film, is owned and run by Christine Edzard, the screenwriter and director known for her meticulous filmmaking, often based on Victorian English sources,[2] and her husband Richard B.

[3] Their other productions include Stories from a Flying Trunk (1979), Biddy (1983), Little Dorrit (1987), The Fool (1990), As You Like It (1991), Amahl and the Night Visitors (1996), The IMAX Nutcracker (1997), The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream (2001) and The Good Soldier Schwejk (2018).

[4] The Nightingale won an award at the 12th International Short and Documentary Film Festival in Lille, January 1982.