Edward Bond(1934-2024)

His plays 'Saved' (1965) and 'Early Morning' (1968) were banned or heavily censored by the Lord Chamberlain who at that time had the right to impose such censorship. The plays are seen as instrumental in the passing of the Theatres Act of September 1968 which removed this right of censorship, and paved the way for violence, sex, political satire and nudity in the theatre.

The army's a sort of parodied version of civil society - without all the face-saving rituals and without all the social excuses and just the naked barbarism - an amalgam of sentimental sloppy reverence for dead idols, combined with a real viciousness. I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future.