It is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's King Lear and was commissioned by actor and director Tim Roth with backing from Film Four.
Roth told the Independent in February 2000, before Pinter completed the screenplay, "This is a very hefty piece, to say the least, and I'm not interested in a bunch of people standing around a castle talking.
… What Harold Pinter will do is rearrange, cut and then turn it from a stage piece into cinema.
"[1] At the time, Roth was "working with Dixie Linder, the producer of his directorial debut about incest, The War Zone,[2] with whom he formed the company Roth-Linder Productions.
"[4]Manuscripts and typedrafts for this work and related correspondence pertaining to it are part of The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library.