Paul Hamann's film about political extremism in Northern Ireland was originally scheduled for transmission in BBC1's Real Lives series in August 1985, but was shelved following the intervention of the then-Home Secretary Leon Brittan. In the atmosphere of tension that existed at the time, he claimed that it would give terrorists what Mrs Thatcher called "the oxygen of publicity".

Broadcasting journalists held a one-day strike in protest at what they saw as the BBC's Board of Governors bowing to government pressure, and with a few changes the film was screened two months later. The government felt obliged to give the assurance that it had no desire to act as BBC censor.

The film now launches a season of programmes to mark 25 years of the Troubles. It looks at the city of Londonderry, where they began, through the eyes of two men politically far apart. One is the leading Sinn Fein member Martin McGuinness, who was alleged at one time to be the IRA's Chief of Staff; the other is hard-line Loyalist and "shoot to kill" supporter Gregory Campbell, now leader of the Democratic Unionists on Derry City Council.