View source for Edward Bond

{{Short description|English dramatist (1934–2024)}}
{{Other people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2015}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Edward Bond
| image            = Edward Bond at the Théâtre National de la Colline, Paris, January 2001.jpg
| caption          = Bond in 2001
| birth_name       = Thomas Edward Bond
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1934|7|18|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Holloway, London]], England
| death_date       = {{death date and age|2024|03|03|1934|7|18|df=y}}
| death_place      = Cambridge, England
| occupation       = {{cslist|Playwright|theatre director|poet|[[dramatic theorist]]|screenwriter}}
| language         = English
| period           = 1958–2016
| spouse           = {{marriage|Elisabeth Pablé|1971|2017|end = died}}
| notable_works    = {{ubl|[[Saved (play)|''Saved'']] (1965)|[[Lear (play)|''Lear'']] (1969)|[[The Sea (play)|''The Sea'']] (1971)|[[The Fool (play)|''The Fool'']] (1974)}}
| awards           = {{ubl|[[John Whiting Award]] (1968)|[[Obie Award]] (1976)}}
}}

'''Thomas Edward Bond''' (18 July 1934 – 3 March 2024) was an English playwright, theatre director, poet, [[dramatic theorist]] and screenwriter. He was the author of some 50 plays, among them ''[[Saved (play)|Saved]]'' (1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of [[theatre censorship]] in the UK. His other well-received works include ''[[Narrow Road to the Deep North]]'' (1968), [[Lear (play)|''Lear'']] (1971), [[The Sea (play)|''The Sea'']] (1973), [[The Fool (play)|''The Fool'']] (1975), [[Restoration (play)|''Restoration'']] (1981), and the [[The War Plays|''War Plays'']] (1985). Bond was broadly considered among the major living dramatists<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mccarrick|first=Jaki|date=2017-01-20|title=Ideas of war, riot and murder – Theatre|url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/ideas-of-war-riot-and-murder/|access-date=2020-06-28|website=TLS|language=en-GB}} "Regularly hailed as Britain’s greatest living playwright, [...]"</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Quirke|first=Kieron|date=17 November 2002|title=Fringe theatre roundup|url=http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2002/nov/17/featuresreview.review1|access-date=30 March 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}} "The French think Bond is among the greatest British playwrights and theatre's most important theorist since [[Brecht]]."</ref> but he has always been and remains highly controversial because of the violence shown in his plays, the radicalism of his statements about modern theatre and society, and his theories on drama.

== Early life ==
Thomas Edward Bond was born on 18 July 1934 into a lower-working-class family in [[Holloway, North London]].<ref name = Coveney>{{cite news|url = https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/mar/05/edward-bond-obituary|title = Edward Bond obituary|last = Coveney|first = Michael|authorlink = Michael Coveney|date = 5 March 2024|newspaper = [[The Guardian]]|accessdate = 5 March 2024}}</ref><ref name = Telegraph>{{cite news|url = https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/03/05/edward-bond-playwright-sex-violence-censorship-saved/|title = Edward Bond, playwright whose sex and violence defeated the censor in the 1960s – obituary|date = 5 March 2024|newspaper = [[The Daily Telegraph]]|accessdate = 5 March 2024|url-access = subscription}}</ref> As a child [[Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II|during World War II he was evacuated]] to the countryside, but witnessed the [[The Blitz|bombings on London]] in 1940 and 1944.<ref name = Telegraph /> This early exposure to the violence and terror of war probably shaped themes in his work, while his experience of the evacuation gave him an awareness of social alienation which would characterise his writing.<ref name="ReferenceA">"Drama and the Dialectic of Violence", interview with A. Arnold in: ''Theatre Quarterly'', {{vol.|2}}, No.&nbsp;5, Cambridge, 1972</ref><ref name="ReferenceB">"Something of Myself" in David Davis (ed.): ''Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Edward Bond's Plays for Young People'', London, Trentham Books, 2005</ref>

His first contact with theatre was music-hall, where his sister used to be sawn in two in a conjuror's sideshow.<ref name="Coult 1979 13">{{harvnb|Coult|1979|pp=13}}</ref> At fourteen, with his class he saw a performance of [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Macbeth]]'' by [[Donald Wolfit]] which was revelatory. He later explained that this performance was the first time he had been presented with traumatic experiences comparable to his own in a way he could apprehend and give meaning to.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

At fifteen, he left school with only a very basic education, something from which he derived a deep sense of social exclusion<ref name="ReferenceB" /> that contributed significantly to his political orientation.<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=15}}</ref> Bond then educated himself, driven by an impressive eagerness for knowledge.<ref name="Coult 1979 12">{{harvnb|Coult|1979|pp=12}}</ref> After various jobs in factories and offices, he did his national service in the British Army occupation forces in [[History of Vienna#Allied occupation|Vienna]] between 1953 and 1955. During his time in the army he discovered the naked violence hidden behind normal social behaviour, and decided to start writing.<ref name="Coult 1979 12" />

Back in London, he educated himself in theatre while working, saw everything he could on stage and exercised his skill by writing drama sketches.<ref name="Coult 1979 13" /> He was especially impressed by the performances of the [[Berliner Ensemble]] in the summer of 1956. In June 1958, after submitting two plays to the [[Royal Court Theatre]] (''The Fiery Tree'' and ''Klaxon in Atreus' Place'', which Bond kept unpublished in perpetuity) he was invited to join its newly formed writers' group.<ref>{{harvnb|Coult|1979|pp=14}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=14–22}}</ref>

== 1960s – mid-1970s: first plays, Royal Court association ==

After three years studying with writers his age but already well-known (like [[John Arden]], [[Arnold Wesker]], and [[Ann Jellicoe]]), Bond had his first real play, ''The Pope's Wedding'', staged as a Sunday night "performance without décor" at the [[Royal Court Theatre]] in 1962.<ref name="Hay 1980 23">{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=23}}</ref> This is a falsely naturalistic drama (the title refers to "an impossible ceremony")<ref name="Hay 1980 23" /> set in contemporary [[Essex]] which shows, through a set of tragic circumstances, the death of rural society brought about by modern post-war urban living standards. Michael Mangan writes in ''Edward Bond'' that ''The Pope's Wedding'' received "mixed but predominantly friendly reviews". Bernard Levin of ''[[Daily Mail]]'' lauded it as an "astonishing ''tour de force''", but it was criticized in ''[[The Observer]]'' as "too elliptical".<ref>{{harvnb|Mangan|2018|pp=6}}</ref> Jenny S. Spencer wrote in ''Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of Edward Bond'' that the play was praised as an "auspicious beginning for a new playwright".<ref>{{harvnb|Spencer|1992|pp=14}}</ref> In 1980, academic Frances Rademacher listed it among Bond's major plays.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rademacher|first=Frances|year=1980|title=Violence and the Comic in the Plays of Edward Bond|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/497695/summary|journal=Modern Drama|language=en|volume=23|issue=3|pages=258–268|doi=10.1353/mdr.1980.0007|s2cid=201757110|issn=1712-5286|url-access=subscription}}</ref> In 2014, [[Michael Billington (critic)|Michael Billington]] praised ''The Pope's Wedding'' as a "masterly" early play.<ref name=TopFiveDystopias>{{Cite news|last=Billington|first=Michael|date=2014-02-19|title=Never mind 1984: Michael Billington's top five theatrical dystopias|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/19/top-five-theatrical-dystopias-1984|access-date=2021-03-30|issn=0261-3077}} "I admit that the Bond I honour most is that of the masterly early plays: The Pope's Wedding, Saved, Bingo."</ref>

Bond considered his plays written for France's [[Théâtre national de la Colline|Théâtre National]] and the theatre-in-education company Big Brum to be his most important works.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2012-04-12|title=Edward Bond is back with a vengeance|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/edward-bond-is-back-with-a-vengeance-7637164.html|access-date=2021-03-31|website=Evening Standard|language=en}}</ref> However, Benedict Nightingale of ''[[The New York Times]]'' wrote in 2001 that most critics consider Bond's best works to have been written between 1965 and 1978.<ref name=Nightingale>{{Cite news|last=Nightingale|first=Benedict|date=2001-02-18|title=THEATER; An English Playwright With Very Mixed Notices|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/theater/theater-an-english-playwright-with-very-mixed-notices.html|access-date=2020-06-09|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> A 2011 editorial in ''The Guardian'' claimed that "his later plays have often been glibly dismissed as [[Marxist]] parables".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Editorial|date=2011-10-03|title=In praise of... Edward Bond|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/03/in-praise-of-edward-bond|access-date=2020-07-02|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Graham Saunders argued that in Britain he was "most associated with work produced in the period from ''Saved'' to ''The Sea''" and that later works are seen as minor, while in France he was equally well known for newer works.<ref name="Saunders2">{{Cite journal|last=Saunders|first=G.|year=2004|title=Edward Bond & the celebrity of exile|url=http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31332/2/31332EDWARD%20BOND%20AND%20THE%20CELEBRITY%20OF%20EXILE.pdf|journal=Theatre Research International|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=29|issue=3|pages=256–266|doi=10.1017/S0307883304000665|s2cid=194096667}}</ref> In 2005, Lyn Gardiner wrote that his body of work in the previous 20 years "stands alongside his classic plays".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gardiner|first=Lyn|date=10 November 2005|title=The Under Room, MAC, Birmingham|language=en|newspaper=The Guardian|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/nov/11/theatre1|access-date=30 March 2021}}</ref> In 2007, Peter Billingham listed the later works [[Restoration (play)|''Restoration'']], ''[[The War Plays|The War Trilogy]]'', ''Coffee,'' and ''Born'' among the major plays.<ref name="Billingham">{{Cite journal|last1=Bond|first1=Edward|last2=Billingham|first2=Peter|year=2007|title=Drama and the Human: Reflections at the Start of a Millennium|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30131055|journal=PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art|volume=29|issue=3|pages=1–14|doi=10.1162/pajj.2007.29.3.1|jstor=30131055|s2cid=57568352|issn=1520-281X|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Billington argued that "even if in his later years Bond seems to start from a position of dogmatic certainty, he retains his ability to create durable images."<ref name=TopFiveDystopias />

Bond's play ''[[Saved (play)|Saved]]'' (1965) became one of the best known [[cause célèbre]]s in 20th-century British theatre history. ''Saved'' delves into the lives of a selection of South London working-class youths suppressed – as Bond would see it – by a brutal economic system and unable to give their lives meaning, who drift eventually into barbarous mutual violence. Among them, one character, Len, persistently (and successfully) tries to maintain links between people violently tearing each other to pieces.<ref>''Saved'', Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by David Davis, London, Methuen Drama, 2008</ref> The play shows the social causes of violence and opposes them with individual freedom. This would remain the major theme throughout Bond's work.

The play was directed by [[William Gaskill]], then artistic director of the Royal Court. The [[Theatres Act 1843]] was still in force and required scripts to be submitted for approval by the [[Lord Chamberlain's Office]]. ''Saved'' included a scene featuring the stoning to death of a baby in its pram. The Lord Chamberlain sought to censor it, but Bond refused to alter a word, claiming that removing this pivotal scene would alter the meaning of the play.<ref>''Selections from Edward Bond's Notebooks'', edited by Ian Stuart, {{vol.|1}}, London, [[Methuen Publishing|Methuen]], 2000, {{p.|87}}</ref> He was firmly backed by Gaskill and the Royal Court although threatened with serious trouble. Formation of a theatre club normally allowed plays that had been banned for their language or subject matter to be performed under "club" conditions – such as that at the [[Comedy Theatre]], however the [[English Stage Society]] were prosecuted. An active campaign sought to overturn the prosecution, with a passionate defence presented by [[Laurence Olivier]], then artistic director of the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]]. The court found the English Stage Society guilty and they were given a [[conditional discharge]].<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=39–42}}</ref><ref>David Davis: "Commentary" in E. Bond: ''Saved'' Student Editions, Methuen, 2008, {{p.|lii}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2003-04-23 |title=Edward Bond, Saved, November 1965 |url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/apr/23/theatre.samanthaellis |access-date=2022-12-06 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref>

Bond and the Royal Court continued to defy the censor, and in 1967 produced a new play, the surreal ''[[Early Morning]]''. This portrays a lesbian relationship between [[Queen Victoria]] and [[Florence Nightingale]], the royal Princes as [[Siamese twins]], [[Disraeli]] and [[Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha|Prince Albert]] plotting a coup and the whole dramatis personae damned to a cannibalistic Heaven after falling off [[Beachy Head]]. The Royal Court produced the play despite the imposition of a total ban and within a year the law was finally repealed.<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=65–69}}</ref> In 1969, when the Royal Court was finally able to perform Bond's work legally, it put on and toured the three plays in Europe, winning the [[Belgrade International Theatre Festival]] prize.<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=103}}</ref> The experience of prosecution and mutual support sealed a link between Bond and the Royal Court where all his plays (except external commissions) would be premiered until 1976, most directed by Gaskill.

While Bond's work remained banned for performance in Britain, ''Saved'' became the greatest international success of its time with more than thirty different productions around the world between 1966 and 1969, often by notorious directors such as [[Peter Stein (director)|Peter Stein]] in Germany or [[Claude Régy]] in France.<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1978|pp=37–40}}</ref> At that time, the play was controversial everywhere but is now considered as a 20th-century classic. ''Early Morning'' was initially panned but garnered praise from a number of writers in later years.

Bond then wrote a few commissioned works. The British Empire satire ''[[Narrow Road to the Deep North]]'' (1968), which received generally positive reviews, was for the Coventry People and City Festival. He wrote two [[agit-prop]] plays for festival performances, ''Black Mass'' (1970) to commemorate the [[Sharpeville massacre]] and ''Passion'' (1971) for the [[CND]] Easter Festival. A one-act play, the full text of ''Passion'' was printed in ''[[The New York Times]]'' the year it was first performed.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Bond|first=Edward|date=1971-08-15|title=A Passion Play For Our Time|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/15/archives/a-passion-play-for-our-time-a-passion-play-for-our-time.html|access-date=2020-06-11|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Spencer described ''Black Mass'' and ''Passion'' as works with "power and humor".<ref>{{harvnb|Spencer|1992|pp=116}}</ref> Bond composed ''[[Lear (play)|Lear]]'', based on [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[King Lear]]''. The play follows the decay of an ageing tyrannical king. Betrayed by his two cynical daughters; hounded as a political risk following military defeat; pursued by the ghost of a man whose life he has destroyed and whose death he has caused; imprisoned and tortured until enucleated; after a life of violence he finally finds wisdom and peace in a radical opposition to power. The end of the play shows him as a forced labourer in a camp setting an example for future rebellion by sabotaging the wall he once built, which subsequent regimes keep perpetuating.<ref>''Lear'', Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by Patricia Hern, Londres, Methuen Drama, 1983</ref> David L. Hirst wrote that ''Lear'' divided both critics and audiences while Ronald Bryden reported that the play garnered acclaim from critics. [[Patrice Chéreau]]'s 1975 production of the play "established Bond as a major contemporary figure in France".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carlson|first=Marvin|date=1993-05-01|title=In the Company of Men|url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=01922882&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA13891545&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs|journal=Theatre Journal|language=en|volume=45|issue=2|pages=240–242|doi=10.2307/3208928|jstor=3208928|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

In 1972, [[Charles Marowitz]] praised Bond as "one of the foremost writers of his generation, although you'd never think so if you lived in England, a country which treats him with a disdain that would be inconceivable on the Continent. [...] On the Continent, where there is a long tradition of political theater, these works are instinctively understood."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Marowitz|first=Charles|date=1972-01-02|title=If a House Is on Fire and I Cry 'Fire'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/02/archives/if-a-house-is-on-fire-and-i-cry-fire-bond-if-i-cry-fire-.html|access-date=2020-07-02|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

The subdued [[Edwardian]]-set comedy ''[[The Sea (play)|The Sea]]'' (1973) shows a seaside community on England's East Coast a few years before [[World War I]], dominated by a dictatorial woman and overwhelmed by the drowning of one of its young citizens. Nurtured by his experience as a child evacuee to the seaside, the play is subtitled "a comedy" and was intended as optimistic after the gloomy mood of his previous plays.<ref>{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1978}}</ref><ref>Philip Roberts (ed.): ''Bond on File'', London, Methuen, 1985, {{p.|55|56}}</ref> This is encapsulated by the successful escape of a young and promising couple from this narrow and oppressive society. This play would be the last of Bond's plays that was directed by Gaskill.

In 1974 Bond translated ''[[Spring Awakening (play)|Spring Awakening]]'' (1891) by the German playwright [[Frank Wedekind]], about the suppression of adolescent sexuality. The play had always been censored or presented with major cuts since its writing, and Bond's was the first translation to restore Wedekind's original text, including its most controversial scenes.

Bond then produced two pieces exploring the place of the artist in society. ''[[Bingo (play)|Bingo]]'' (1974) portrayed the retired [[Shakespeare]] as an exploitative landlord, an impotent yet compassionate witness of social violence, who eventually commits suicide, repeatedly asking himself "Was anything done?". ''[[The Fool (Edward Bond play)|The Fool]]'' (1975) reinterprets the life of the rural 19th century poet [[John Clare]]. It involves Clare in the [[Ely and Littleport riots 1816|Littleport Riots]] of 1816, and then makes his own poetry the depository of the spirit of this rural rebellion against the growth of modern [[industrial capitalism]]. The failure of this historical class war eventually drives him to a madhouse. In 1976 ''Bingo'' won the [[Obie award]] as Best [[Off-Broadway]] play and ''The Fool'' was voted best play of the year by ''Plays and Players''.

== 1970s – mid-1980s: broader scope<!-- of practice -->, political experiments ==
Bond remained a successful playwright in England all through the 1970s, expanding his range of writing and his collaborations. His plays were requested by institutional and community theatres, for premieres and revivals, and he was commissioned to write plays both by renowned institutions and fringe activist companies. For example, in 1976 he wrote, on one hand ''Stone'' and ''A-A-America'' (pronounced as a sneeze), two [[agit-prop]]-style plays, respectively for [[Gay Sweatshop]] and the [[Almost Free Theatre]] and, on the other, an adaptation of [[John Webster|Webster]]'s ''[[The White Devil]]'' for [[Michael Lindsay-Hogg]] to re-open the [[Old Vic]] and a libretto for the German composer [[Hans Werner Henze]] to open at the [[Royal Opera House]] in [[Covent Garden]]: ''[[We Come to the River]]''. (In 1982 the pair collaborated again, less successfully on another opera, ''[[The English Cat]]''.) Ann Marie Demling wrote that in ''A-A-America!'' "Bond borrows cleverly and skillfully from the caricature and dialect of the American tall-tale and folk legend." She found ''Stone'' "problematic in structure because Bond couches the theme in the framework of pseudo-Biblical allegory. [...] The play deals with many complex issues difficult to express in the rather clear-cut nature of allegory."<ref name="Demling22">{{Cite web|last=Demling|first=Ann Marie|year=1983|title=The Use of the Grotesque in the Plays of Edward Bond.|url=https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4841&context=gradschool_disstheses|website=LSU Digital Commons}}</ref>

However, Bond's working relationship with the Royal Court progressively slackened, and by the mid-1970s he had found a new partner in the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]] (RSC). Beginning with ''Bingo'' in 1976, the RSC revived and toured his plays regularly until the early 1990s, and Bond, though often disagreeing with the aesthetic choices of its productions<ref name="David Hirst 1985, p.13222">David Hirst: ''Edward Bond'', New York, [[Grove Press]], Modern Dramatists, 1985, {{p.|132}}</ref> or protesting at not being consulted sufficiently, recognized the genuine support the company gave to his work.<ref>Bond: Letter to A. Noble, 24 September 1988, ''Letters'' I, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, {{p.|135}}</ref> In 1977 the RSC commissioned a new play for the opening of their new London theatre, the [[Donmar Warehouse|Warehouse]], which would be ''The Bundle''. Set in an imaginary [[History of Japan|medieval Japan]] and based on an anecdote from the classical Japanese poet [[Bashō]],<ref>Bashō: ''Narrow Road to the Interior'' (''[[Oku no Hosomichi]]'') 1689</ref> the play shows an eventually successful revolution whose leader nevertheless constantly faces the human cost of political change and experiences as futile an ideology of compassion, being (in Bond's view) politically counterproductive and supportive of reactionary violence. [[Richard Eder]] criticized ''The Bundle'' as "a thin political parable made up from ingredients that we have been served before. It is a warmedover [[Brecht]] fast. [...] The language has been stripped, but for emptiness rather than leanness."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Eder|first=Richard|date=1979-03-11|title=Edward Bond 'Bundle,' Political Fable|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/11/archives/edward-bond-bundle-political-fable-the-cast.html|access-date=2020-06-20|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In 1996, [[D. J. R. Bruckner]] panned an [[Irondale Ensemble Project]] performance as "utterly frustrating". While praising the choreography and direction, Bruckner said that "one finds it impossible to say what it was all about" and described the philosophizing of the last hour as "portentous".<ref>{{Cite news|date=1996-05-08|title=Theater in Review|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/08/arts/theater-in-review.html|access-date=2020-07-02|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> However, in a 1998 review of the fifth collection of Bond plays, Richard Boon called ''The Bundle'' "a genuine and shamefully-neglected masterpiece, worth the cost of purchase by itself".<ref name=RichardBoon>{{Cite journal|last=Boon|first=Richard|year=1998|title=A Review of Plays: 5 (Human Cannon, The Bundle, Jackets, In the Company of Men) by Edward Bond|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/10486809808568474|journal=Contemporary Theatre Review|volume=7|issue=3|pages=129–130|doi=10.1080/10486809808568474|issn=1048-6801|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Bond assigned the same political concern to his next play, ''The Woman'', set in a fantasy [[Trojan War]] and based on [[Euripides]]' ''[[Trojan Women]]''. Comparable to ''[[Lear (play)|Lear]]'', it shows the fight of the decayed Trojan queen, [[Hecuba]], against the [[Delian League|Athenian empire]], succeeding only when she abandons the [[aristocracy]] and the interests of the state to physically meet the [[proletariat]] and join the people's cause.

In 1977, Bond accepted an honorary [[doctorate in letters]] from [[Yale University]] (although, thirty years previously, he had not been allowed to sit for his [[eleven-plus]] examination) and he began to take up students workshops in Newcastle, Durham and Birmingham, for which he wrote several plays. The most accomplished among them{{according to whom|date=June 2020}} was ''The Worlds'',  written for the [[Newcastle University]] Theatre Society, based on the recent events in the UK, both the [[Northern Ireland conflict]] and the social crisis of the [[winter of Discontent]]. Reception was mixed.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IoAEAQAAIAAJ&q=September+reception+edward+bond|title=Theater Three|date=1992|publisher=College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University|language=en}}</ref> Demling, noting that audience reactions to the most controversial scene in ''Saved'' partially resulted from its break in style from previous episodes' domestic realism, listed ''The Worlds'' as an example of a work in which Bond "integrates the grotesque more successfully into the plot."<ref name="Demling22" />

His early 1980s plays were directly influenced by the coming to power of the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] led by [[Margaret Thatcher]] and the profound social changes they were bringing about. ''[[Restoration (play)|Restoration]]'', as a half-musical parody of [[Restoration comedies]], deals with working-class support for the Tories by showing a servant accepting his conviction and eventual execution for a murder committed by his cynical and silly master. ''Restoration'' has sometimes been viewed as one of the best of Bond's later plays. ''Summer'' deals with the moral ambiguities of capitalism through the conflict of two women in [[socialist Yugoslavia]]. One is the daughter of former landlords, whose compassionate nature does not prevent them from being exploiters and collaborationists during the [[German occupation of Yugoslavia|German occupation]]. The other, the daughter of servants, rejects the values of the former, whom she once saved from a firing squad. ''Derek'', written for a youth festival, alludes directly to the [[Falklands War]] and shows an idiotic aristocrat stealing the brain of a gifted worker and sending him to die in a war in a country that "sounds like the name of a disease".

== Controversial directing attempts, quarrels with institutions ==
During the late 1970s, Bond felt he needed practical contact with the stage to experiment with his ideas on drama and improve his writing.<ref name="Hay 1980 240–244">{{harvnb|Hay|Roberts|1980|pp=240–244}}</ref> He therefore began directing his own plays and progressively he made this a condition of their first production. After staging ''Lear'' in German at the [[Burgtheater]], in Vienna in 1973, Bond directed his last four plays in London between 1978 and 1982: ''The Worlds'' and ''Restoration'' at the Royal Court and ''The Woman'' and ''Summer'' at the National Theatre.<ref>see Ian Stuart: Politics in Performance, the Production Work of Edward Bond, 1978 1990, New-York, Peter Lang Publishing, 1996</ref> These latter two introduced the South African actress [[Yvonne Bryceland]], whom Bond admired, considering her the ideal female interpreter.<ref>see Bond's obituary for ''The Guardian'': "A Power to Hold the Stage, Yvonne Bryceland: An Appreciation" 17 January 1992, in ''Letters'' III, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, {{pp.|28|30}}</ref> In 2002, Christopher Innes criticized ''Summer'', as well as ''Human Cannon'' and ''Jackets II'', as examples of a problem in Bond's later plays of protagonists who are either virtuous or evil, lacking complexity. Innes dubbed ''Restoration'' the "only play to rise above this simplification in the recent phase of Bond's career".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Innes|first=Christopher|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gWmEDuwC_BQC&pg=PA177|title=Modern British Drama: The Twentieth Century|date=2002-11-28|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-01675-9|pages=173|language=en}}</ref> [[Frank Rich]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' also panned ''Summer'' in 1983 as "pallid and inept", and "torpid [...] As characters, Xenia and Marthe do not have the depth that might relieve some of the tedium. Mr. Bond's deterministic view of society reduces them to symbols".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Rich|first=Frank|date=1983-02-11|title=The Stage: 'Summer,' Adriatic Recriminations|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/11/theater/the-stage-summer-adriatic-recriminations.html|access-date=2020-06-28|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

''The Woman'' was the first contemporary play performed in the recently opened [[Royal National Theatre#Architecture|Olivier auditorium]] and the production was acclaimed<ref>{{Cite news|date=1978-12-03|title=Stratford to Stage Bond's 'The Woman'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/03/archives/stratford-to-stage-bonds-the-woman.html|access-date=2020-07-02|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> as an aesthetic success, especially for its innovative use of the huge [[open stage]].<ref name="Hay 1980 240–244" /><ref>Ian Stuart: "Edward Bond on the English Stages in 1991–92 in New Theatre Quarterly 1992"</ref><ref>P. Hall: ''Diaries, The Story of a Dramatic Battle'', London, [[Hamish Hamilton]], 1983, see: July–August 1978</ref> David L. Hirst wrote that in the play Bond "skilfully reworks ''[[The Trojan Women]]'' so as to cast the image of that society into the present and inform contemporary political opinion."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hirst|first=David L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aEJdDwAAQBAJ|title=Edward Bond|date=1985-10-18|publisher=Macmillan International Higher Education|isbn=978-1-349-17983-1|language=en}}</ref> [[Adam Thorpe]] called the play "magnificent" in 2006.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Thorpe|first=Adam|date=22 February 2006|title=Attack!|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/feb/22/theatre2|access-date=29 March 2021|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> However, Bond's working relationships as a director with both the National Theatre and the Royal Court were highly conflicted. The theatres and their actors accused him of being authoritarian and abstract in his direction<ref name="David Hirst 1985, p.13222" /> and unrealistic in his production requirements, and Bond complained undiplomatically about their lack of artistic engagement<ref>{{harvnb|Bond|1998|pp=316}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bond|1998|pp=318}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bond|1998|pp=324}}</ref><ref>Bond: Letters to T. Hands, 4 December 1985, in ''Letters'' II, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995, {{p.|89|90}}; to M. Stafford-Clark, 24 April 1990, in ''Letters'' III, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996, {{p.|129|135}}; to D. Jansen, 3 October 1989, in ''Letters'' I, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, {{p.|143}}</ref> and had crude rows both with some reluctant actors and theatre managers.<ref>P. Hall: Diaries, The Story of a Dramatic Battle, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1983, see: March–April 1978</ref><ref>P. Arendt: "Massey reveals her acting nightmare" in ''The Guardian'' 9 May 2006</ref> He felt that British theatre had no understanding of his intention to revitalise modern drama and could no longer fulfil his artistic demands.

With his notoriously uncompromising attitude, Bond gained the reputation of a "difficult author", which contributed to keeping him away from the major English stages. During the mid-1980s, [[Peter Hall (director)|Peter Hall]] at the National Theatre repeatedly refused to allow him to direct his new play ''Human Cannon'', written for Yvonne Bryceland and the wide stage of the Olivier.<ref>Letter to T. Hands, 10 January 1986, to Yvonne Bryceland 17 December 1986, to B. Alexander, 6 January 1988, in ''Letters'' II, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996, {{p.|88|90}}, {{Page numbers|58 & 68}}</ref> Richard Boon described ''Human Cannon'' as "very good".<ref name=RichardBoon />

In 1985, he attempted to direct his ''[[The War Plays|War Plays]]'' at the RSC, accepting very bad working conditions, but left the rehearsals before the premiere after disastrous sessions, and then violently criticized the production and the theatre.<ref>see Ian Stuart: ''Politics in Performance, the Production Work of Edward Bond'', 1978 1990, New-York, Peter Lang Publishing, 1996, {{p.|142|sqq}}</ref><ref>Bond: Letters to T. Hands, in ''Letters'' II, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995, {{p.|83|92}} and Letter to D. Jansen, 3 October 1989, in ''Letters'' I, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, {{p.|143}}</ref> [[Max Stafford-Clark]] has written that with the [[Barbican]] production of ''The War Plays'', Bond "reduced a talented cast into a stumbling and incoherent shambles of walking wounded. Edward Bond is simply the most difficult person I have worked with in 40 years."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Stafford-Clark|first=Max|date=2008-01-09|title=Letters: Why I fell out with Edward Bond|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/jan/09/theatre2|access-date=2020-07-01|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> He then decided not to allow his plays to be premiered in London by institutional theatres without proper working conditions. He only agreed to return to the RSC in 1996 when he directed ''In the Company of Men'', but considered this production a failure. He nevertheless regularly accepted revivals and sometimes got involved in these productions, although remaining generally unsatisfied,<ref>Letter to D. Jansen, 3 October 1989, in ''Letters'' I, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994, {{p.|143}}</ref> and he directed workshops for RSC actors with [[Cicely Berry]].<ref>"A Political Language for The Theatre: Edward Bond and the Royal Shakespeare Company" in ''New Theatre Quarterly'' 1994</ref> Except for two plays written for the BBC in the early 1990s (''[[Olly's Prison]]'' and ''Tuesday''), Bond continued writing plays in the knowledge that they would not be staged in Britain except by amateur companies.

These conflicts are still highly controversial, and Bond and those with whom he had clashed continued to settle scores in letters, books and interviews.<ref>see: [https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/jan/03/theatre "If you’re going to despair, stop writing", interview with M. Billington, in ''The Guardian'', 3 January 2008] and an [https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/jan/09/theatre2 answer by] [[Max Stafford-Clark]]</ref><ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/bond_transcript.shtml Transcript & audio of an interview for BBC3] by [[John Tusa]] broadcast on 7 January 2001</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=John Tusa Interview|url=http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/j/jo/john_tusa_interview__the.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161228135355/http://radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/j/jo/john_tusa_interview__the.html|archive-date=28 December 2016|access-date=19 March 2018|website=radiolistings.co.uk|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

== 1980s turning point ==
Nevertheless, in the mid-1980s, Bond's work had a new beginning with the trilogy of ''The War Plays''. Motivated by the threats of the last years of the [[Second Cold War|Cold War]] and the [[CND#The second wave 1980–89|political activism]] it provoked in Britain and Europe, Bond had planned to write about [[Nuclear warfare#1980s|nuclear war]] since the early 1980s. He found a means to do so after testing a storyline with [[Sicilians|Sicilian]] students in [[Palermo]]. To point to the barbarity of a society which planned to kill the enemy's children to protect their own (that being how he saw the logic of [[Deterrence theory|nuclear deterrence]]), he suggested an improvisation in which a soldier was ordered to kill a child of his community to curb mass starvation. According to Bond, each student who improvised as the soldier refused to kill a foreign child and paradoxically returned home to kill their own sibling instead.<ref>{{harvnb|Bond|1998|pp=247}}</ref> He saw in this a deeply rooted force in the individual preserving an innate sense of justice that he theorized as 'Radical Innocence'.<ref>{{harvnb|Bond|1998|pp=250}}</ref> Subsequently, he built on this concept a comprehensive theory of drama in its anthropological and social role that he intended to go beyond [[Brecht]]'s theories on political drama.<ref>see Bond: ''The Hidden Plot, Notes on Theatre and the State'', London, Methuen, 2000</ref> This discovery also gave him the key to write on nuclear war, not just to condemn the atrocity of war in a general way but, from a political perspective, questioning public acceptance of it and collaboration with it by ordinary citizens.

Between 1984 and 1985 he wrote three plays to meet various requests, which he united as ''The War Plays''. The first, ''Red Black and Ignorant'' (written for a Festival dedicated to [[George Orwell]]), is a short agitprop play in which a child, aborted and burnt to death in the nuclear global bombings, comes from the future to accuse the society of the audience of his murder. The second, ''The Tin Can People'' (written for a young activists' company), denounces capitalist society's ideology of death. It shows a community of survivors living on an infinite supply of canned food running berserk when they feel threatened by a stranger and destroying all they have as in a reduced nuclear war. The third, ''Great Peace'' (written for the RSC) re-enacts the Palermo improvisation in a city barely surviving in the aftermath of nuclear bombardment. It focuses on a soldier who kills his baby sister and his mother who tries to kill her neighbour's child to save her own. The play then follows her twenty years later, in the sterile global wilderness that nuclear war has made of the world, where she rebuilds her humanity bit by bit by meeting other survivors.

Mangan commented that the 1995 [[Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe]] performance of ''The War Plays'' was quite successful, and that in France the work "was described as the most important play written since the Second World War."<ref name="Saunders">{{Cite journal|last=Saunders|first=G.|year=2004|title=Edward Bond & the celebrity of exile|url=http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/31332/2/31332EDWARD%20BOND%20AND%20THE%20CELEBRITY%20OF%20EXILE.pdf|journal=Theatre Research International|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=29|issue=3|pages=256–266|doi=10.1017/S0307883304000665|s2cid=194096667}}</ref> In 1996, however, Janelle G. Reinelt described the reception as "chilly".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Reinelt|first=Janelle G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AWmv8udX45cC|title=After Brecht: British Epic Theater|publisher=University of Michigan Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-472-08408-1|pages=50|language=en}}</ref>

These desperate efforts to stay human or be human anew in an inhuman situation would be the purpose of most of the characters in Bond's subsequent plays, the scope of which will be to explore the limits and possibilities of humanity. His next play, ''Jackets'', again uses the Palermo improvisation and sets up a confrontation between two young men manipulated by military conspiracies, first in medieval Japan, then in contemporary urban riots. Sometimes the portion in [[medieval Japan]] and the portion in Britain are referred to as ''Jackets I'' and ''II'', respectively. ''The Guardian''{{'}}s theatre reviewer Robin Thornber praised ''Jackets'' as "an astonishingly powerful piece of political, polemical poetry".<ref>{{Cite web|date=20 February 2014|title=Revival of play first performed by Harry Potter star at Lancaster {{!}} Lancaster University|url=http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2014/revival-of-play-first-performed-by-harry-potter-star-at-lancaster-/|access-date=29 March 2021|website=lancaster.ac.uk|language=en}}</ref> In 1993, Christine Shade listed ''The War Plays'' and ''Jackets'' as Bond's "best-known works".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Shade|first=Christine|date=21 February 1993|title=STUART STUDIES VIOLENT DRAMA OF BRITISH PLAYWRIGHT EDWARD BOND|url=https://news.usc.edu/20644/STUART-STUDIES-VIOLENT-DRAMA-OF-BRITISH-PLAYWRIGHT-EDWARD-BOND/|access-date=29 March 2021|website=USC News|language=en-US}}</ref> In 1998, Richard Boon dubbed ''Jackets'' a "very good" play (as he did with ''Human Cannon'').<ref name=RichardBoon /> However, Maxie Szalwinska wrote in ''[[The Guardian]]'', after watching a performance at [[Theatre503]], that "the awareness that this is minor stuff slowly but surely leaks in. [...] his weakness for point-making gets in the way of his characters."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Szalwinska|first=Maxie|date=17 November 2005|title=My love letter to the fringe|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/nov/17/fringetheatre|access-date=29 March 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref>

''In the Company of Men'' shows a desperate fight by the adoptive son of an armaments factory manager to be who he is in a cynical, intrigue-ridden neo-liberal business world that Bond considers the mirror of our [[post-modern]] times. While ''In the Company of Men'' was a critical and commercial success in France,<ref name="Saunders" /> Jenny Kowalski noted that the RSC production received almost overwhelmingly negative reviews, explaining that it "was the language of the long speeches, both in its detail and in its sheer quantity, that proved to be the stumbling block for most critics." Kowalski praised "Bond's fine sense of style and rhythm" and argued that "one of the points made by the play is that we are moving towards a future where the huge [[multinational corporation|multinationals]] will control all production indiscriminately"; however, the critic said that "the contrasting moods of the text were missed in performance: the black farce of Oldfield's demise, for instance, did not seem to be appreciated as such". Anthony Jenkins dismissed the play as "a rambling, self indulgent account of post-modern society".<ref name="Saunders" />

Paul Taylor of ''[[The Independent]]'' called the play "interminable" and wrote, "Bond does not seem to have acquired the ability to distinguish between the genuine moments of surreal comedy in the script and the parts where it is straight-facedly unaware of its side-splitting potential. [...] It's an indictment of something (the English institutions that now turn down Bond's scripts or the scripts themselves for being – for all one knows – so turndownable) that a dramatist of his penetration should have lost contact with an English audience's psychology to this degree."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Taylor|first=Paul|date=1996-10-24|title=THEATRE In the Company of Men RSC, The Pit|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-in-the-company-of-men-rsc-the-pit-1359923.html|access-date=2020-07-01|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref>

In ''[[Olly's Prison]]'', a man who has killed his daughter and forgotten his crime tries to find meaning in his life. ''Olly's Prison'' divided critics. In ''Tuesday'', a young deserter tries to tell the truth about the war but is destroyed by society. More innovative in structure, ''Coffee'' exposes the cultural roots of violence. It contrasts an initial, imaginary section resembling a gloomy [[fairy tale]], in which a mother kills her child because she can no longer feed her, with a second, realistic part reproducing the historical [[Babi Yar]] massacre, where the same characters are among the victims. As in the Palermo improvisation, a soldier realises he cannot shoot the victims any more, and eventually decides instead to shoot his officer and escape with the girl. Saunders listed ''Coffee'' as one of the later works for which Bond is well known in France.<ref name="Saunders" /> ''The Independent''{{'s}} Carl Miller dubbed it "dense, theatrically sophisticated writing", and a powerful play.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Miller|first=Carl|date=20 May 1997|title=Theatre: 'Theatre begins at the gates of Auschwitz and if you don't|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-theatre-begins-at-the-gates-of-auschwitz-and-if-you-don-t-know-what-i-m-talking-about-then-i-m-wasting-my-time-1262616.html|access-date=29 March 2021|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> Adrian Turpin reported being "defeated by large chunks of [the scene that] dominates the play's first half". Turpin said that Bond's humanism at times "breaks through his rhetoric, shedding a ray of light on the text's opacity", but deemed the play impenetrable.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Turpin|first=Adrian|date=29 May 1997|title=THEATRE Coffee Royal Court Theatre Upstairs at the Ambassadors, London|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-coffee-royal-court-theatre-upstairs-at-the-ambassadors-london-1264168.html|access-date=29 March 2021|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> Benedict Nightingale said that most Bond plays from ''The Worlds'' onward "tended to combine vivid observation with a preachy radicalism that could take disconcertingly hardline forms" but praised ''Coffee'' (and ''The Crime of the 21st Century'') as much livelier works.<ref name=Nightingale />

== Later years ==
From 1997 to 2008, Bond's plays explored in depth a gloomy vision of a future society (in 2077) where the potential menaces of social breakdown and bio-political control have become real and structural.{{Citation needed|date=April 2016}} The first in this cycle, ''The Crime of the 21st Century'', shows a few outcasts who have fled the over-controlled cities to hide in a no-man's-land where they try in vain to rebuild their humanity by creating a semblance of community. Gerry Colgan wrote in ''[[The Irish Times]]'' that ''The Crime of the 21st Century'' "ends on an odd note of anti-climactic ritual. It is clear that the author intends his play to be deeply meaningful, and to explore issues such as justice, freedom and interpersonal dependency. Little of this comes across as the characters address each other in artificial dialogue and the plot becomes steadily more improbable [...] a leaden, pretentious play."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Colgan|first=Gerry|date=2001-04-13|title=The Crime of the Twenty-First Century|language=en|newspaper=The Irish Times|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/the-crime-of-the-twenty-first-century-1.301126|access-date=2020-07-11}}</ref>

''Have I None'', [[Chair (play)|''Chair'']] and ''The Under Room'' show the monotonous life of the cities, where social relationships and memory have been abolished, consumption and possession standardized, and where people are harassed by the resistance of their imagination and panicked by strangers. ''Born'' and ''Innocence'' follow the actions of militarized policemen, the 'Wapos', who perpetrate atrocities on reluctant civilians during mass deportations, but some of whom try to find a human dimension to their lives and desperately attempt to escape the alienated and criminal conditions they are trapped in.{{Citation needed|date=April 2016}}

Though isolated from the institutional British theatres, Bond found two new partners in the mid-90s who would keep alive his impulse for writing. One was the [[Birmingham]]-based theatre-in-education company Big Brum, of which he remained an associate artist.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ada |first1=Uğur |url=https://www.pegem.net/egitimde-tiyatro-theatre-in-education-tie |title=Eğitimde Tiyatro Theatre in Education |date=2021 |publisher=PegemAkademi |isbn=9786257582421 |page=147}}</ref> From 1995 to 2009 he wrote seven very different plays dedicated to young audiences for this company: ''At the Inland Sea'' (1995), in which a youth confronts the legacy of the holocaust; ''Eleven Vests'' (1997), on scholastic and military authoritarianism; ''Have I None'' (2000), ''The Balancing Act'' (2003), ''The Under Room'' (2005) ''Tune'' (2007) and ''A Window'' (2009). Big Brum appeared to be the only professional company in England for more than two decades that Bond openly wrote for and allowed to premiere his plays. This collaboration has brought Bond's theories on drama to broader attention in England, where they are now relayed by the National Association for Teaching of Drama. In 1999, he wrote ''The Children'' to be played by pupils at Manor Community College in [[Cambridge]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xaazgs_edward-bond-l-aventure-des-enfants_creation|title=Edward Bond – L'aventure des enfants – Rencontre – vidéo Dailymotion|date=28 August 2009|website=Dailymotion|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref> This other contribution to drama intended for young audiences has been performed ever since in many schools and theatres in England and abroad and counts as one of Bond's international successes.

Sarah Ratliff said that Bond is trying to argue in ''Eleven Vests'' that "we are responsible for our actions. [...] The characters could be developed more; it is very hard to empathize with the Student because the audience doesn't really know him. We know his actions, and they are deplorable, but we don't really understand him. Perhaps this was the playwright's intent. We still hope that the Student will change, will become better, but when he doesn't, we then have to look inward to ourselves and begin the questioning process. Edward Bond does a good job of pushing us toward this point."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ratliff|first=Sarah|title=Eleven Vests|url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2277&context=cbmr|journal=Children's Book and Media Review|volume=24}}</ref> Conversely, it was claimed in a text released on the [[Savitribai Phule Pune University]] website that "Bond wants to bring out how school and family – the very institutions which are supposed to benevolently nurture childhood – start corrosively exercising repressive ownership and control of the child-self and yet the society is so ideologically blinded towards such occurrences that we talk endlessly about adolescent crimes and the problem of the irresponsible youth."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Chapter Five – Mentoring the Ethics and Politics of Young Spectators: The Birmingham Plays|url=http://lib.unipune.ac.in:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/9075/14_chapter%205.pdf?sequence=14&isAllowed=y|website=Savitribai Phule Pune University}}</ref>

Bond's other partnership during his final years was with French director Alain Françon who premiered ''In the Company of Men''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xac30i_edward-bond-dans-la-compagnie-des-h_creation|title=Dans la compagnie des hommes / E. Bond / Extrait 1/4 – vidéo Dailymotion|date=31 August 2009|website=Dailymotion|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref> in 1992 and produced an acclaimed version of ''The War Plays'' at the [[Festival d'Avignon]] in 1994,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xabzyj_edward-bond-rouge-noir-et-ignorant_creation |title=Edward Bond – Rouge noir et ignorant – Analyse en images – vidéo Dailymotion |date=31 August 2009 |publisher=Dailymotion.com |access-date=2018-03-19}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6h94v_pieces-de-guerre-edward-bond_creation |title=PIECES DE GUERRE, EDWARD BOND – vidéo Dailymotion |date=18 August 2008 |publisher=Dailymotion.com |access-date=2018-03-19}}</ref> re-introducing Bond's work to France where his plays and theory have since become highly influential. Françon continued to promote Bond's work when he was head of the [[Théâtre national de la Colline]] in Paris from 1997 to 2010 and, with strong support and involvement from Bond, staged ''Coffee'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xac0b8|title=Edward Bond – Café – Analyse en images 1/2 – Vidéo dailymotion|website=Dailymotion|date=31 August 2009}}</ref> ''The Crime of the 21st Century'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xac0i4|title=Edward Bond – Café – Analyse en images 2/2 – Vidéo dailymotion|website=Dailymotion|date=31 August 2009}}</ref> ''Have I None'', ''Born''<ref>http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x147do_www-colline-fr_edward-bond-alain-françon{{dead link|date=October 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> and ''Chair''. To Françon and his actors Bond dedicated ''People'' and ''Innocence'', which, with ''Have I None'', ''Coffee'' and ''The Crime of the 21st Century'', he called ''The Colline Pentad'' and considered his major project of that decade.

''Chair'' was praised in [[MusicOMH|''Exeunt'']],<ref>{{Cite web|last=Yates|first=Daniel B.|date=2012-05-16|title=Chair|url=http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/chair/|access-date=2020-07-19|website=Exeunt Magazine}}</ref> [[Variety (magazine)|''Variety'']],<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Stasio|first=Marilyn|date=2008-12-11|title=Chair|url=https://variety.com/2008/legit/reviews/chair-1200472765/|access-date=2020-07-19|magazine=Variety|language=en}}</ref> TheaterMania,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Propst|first=Andy|date=2008-12-11|title=Chair {{!}} TheaterMania|url=https://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/reviews/chair_16555.html|access-date=2020-07-19|website=theatermania.com|language=en-US}}</ref> and ''The Guardian'',<ref>{{Cite news|last=Michael Billington|date=2012-05-15|title=Chair – review|language=en|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/15/chair-theatre-review|access-date=2020-07-19}}</ref> but criticized in ''[[Financial Times]]''<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hemming|first=Sarah|date=2012-05-15|title=Chair, Lyric Hammersmith Studio, London|newspaper=Financial Times|url=https://www.ft.com/content/35906f7e-9e70-11e1-a24e-00144feabdc0|access-date=2020-07-19}}</ref> and ''The New York Times''.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Isherwood|first=Charles|date=2008-12-12|title=Paying a Price for Kindness in a Bitter Dystopia|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/theater/reviews/13chai.html|access-date=2020-07-19|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Of ''A Window'', Lyn Gardner wrote, "This is a knotty and uncomfortable play of austere poetry and vision, written by a playwright who is like a latter-day [[Tiresias]]: sometimes gnomic, but seldom wrong". Gardner described the play as having "understated power".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gardner|first=Lyn|date=2009-10-22|title=A Window {{!}} Theatre review|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/oct/22/a-window-review|access-date=2020-07-19|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> In 2002, Arthur Smith said of ''Existence'', "It was all so powerful and demanding that at the end of it I fell into a disturbed sleep for an hour and a half."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Smith|first=Arthur|date=10 April 2002|title=Arts: Arthur Smith|url=http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/apr/11/artsfeatures2|access-date=30 March 2021|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> In 2005, David Davis lauded ''Born'' as "perhaps his greatest play to date".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7kAFedGQFNEC&q=born+Edward+Bond+review&pg=PR9|title=Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child: Edward Bond's Plays for Young People|date=2005|publisher=Trentham Books|isbn=978-1-85856-312-1|language=en}}</ref>

During the early years of the 21st century, there was renewed worldwide interest in Bond's work and ideas on drama. In France, he held several conferences with participants drawn from a wide audience,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x146yx_www-colline-fr_revue-edward-bond|title=Revue Edward Bond|website=Dailymotion|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref> directed many workshops in Paris and elsewhere, and was the most performed playwright after [[Molière]] (according to Lynne Walker in 2005).<ref>{{Cite web|last=Walker|first=Lynne|date=2005-03-23|title=Lear, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/lear-crucible-theatre-sheffield-529516.html|access-date=2020-06-13|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> He was invited to take part in conferences and workshops all over Europe and America. In the United States, [[Robert Woodruff (director)|Robert Woodruff]] and the [[American Repertory Theatre]] produced ''Olly's Prison'' in 2005; Woodruff also directed ''Saved'' (2001) and ''Chair'' (2008) at [[Theatre for a New Audience]] in New York City. In Germany, interest in his plays has remained high since the 1970s{{Crossreference|{{sp}}(see {{langx|de|{{section link|:de:Edward Bond|Stücke|nopage=y}}|links=no}})}}. In Britain his plays are now regularly revived in community theatre and in 2008, he enjoyed his first [[West End production]] in a career of almost fifty years with [[Jonathan Kent (director)|Jonathan Kent]]'s revival of ''[[The Sea (play)|The Sea]]'' at the [[Theatre Royal Haymarket]], with [[David Haig]] and [[Eileen Atkins]]. Among recent productions of his work have been revivals of ''[[Lear (play)|Lear]]'' at the [[Crucible Theatre]] [[Sheffield]] featuring [[Ian McDiarmid]] and ''Restoration'' with added songs, toured in early 2006 by the [[Oxford Stage Company]].

During the autumn of 2010 [[The Cock Tavern Theatre]] in London produced six of his plays simultaneously  (one chosen from each decade), including a new one, provisionally entitled ''There Will Be More'', commissioned for this occasion and performed although unfinished. Notably, Bond himself directed a revival of ''The Fool''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cocktaverntheatre.com/bond_season.htm |title=Cock Tavern Theatre: Edward Bond Season |access-date=2010-10-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723232308/http://www.cocktaverntheatre.com/bond_season.htm |archive-date=23 July 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> and took over the direction of ''There Will Be More''. ''The Guardian''{{'s}} [[Lyn Gardner]] wrote, "There is some hard, unflinching writing here, but uncertain performances and an awkward, often unintentionally comic production make this seem perilously close to a parody of an Edward Bond play."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Gardner|first=Lyn|date=2010-11-07|title=There Will Be More – review|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/nov/07/there-will-be-more-review|access-date=2020-07-20|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Conversely, Mark Taylor of ''The Independent'' wrote that "as its plot takes the path of least resistance between one primal convulsion after another, this starkly eloquent, theatrically knowing play stretches credulity to snapping point. [...]  It's no wonder that the tone of [[Adam Spreadbury-Maher]]'s unsparing, production teeters uncertainly at times between seriousness and melodramatic spoof."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Taylor|first=Paul|date=2010-11-03|title=There Will Be More, Cock Tavern Theatre, London|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/there-will-be-more-cock-tavern-theatre-london-2123453.html|access-date=2020-07-20|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> Also, Ian Shuttleworth of ''Financial Times'' panned the first 20 minutes of the latter play as "a parody of the work of Edward Bond" and the rest of the play as "more of the same [...] this is apparently part of a much longer work (be afraid, be very afraid) examining the inadequacy of modern drama. But it does not examine this; nor does it act as a moral conscience, indict our complacency or anything of that ilk."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Shuttleworth|first=Ian|date=2010-11-04|title=There Will Be More/Red, Black and Ignorant, Cock Tavern, London|newspaper=Financial Times|url=https://www.ft.com/content/415ad0da-e81c-11df-b158-00144feab49a|access-date=2020-07-20}}</ref>

The [[Lyric Hammersmith]] presented the first London production of Bond's ''[[Saved (play)|Saved]]'' for 27 years in autumn 2011 in a production by the venue's Artistic Director [[Sean Holmes (theatre director)|Sean Holmes]]. 2012 saw two new plays performed by Big Brum Theatre in Education Company; ''The Broken Bowl'' and ''The Edge''.  Both of these plays were filmed and made available online.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4a4ktaj4COAjxym0McUk5g|title=Big Brum TIE|via=YouTube|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref> In 2014 Big Brum Theatre in Education Company presented its tenth new Bond play, ''The Angry Roads''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bigbrum.org.uk/Programmes/tar.html |title=Big Brum |access-date=2014-11-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140825170240/http://www.bigbrum.org.uk/Programmes/tar.html |archive-date=25 August 2014 |df=dmy-all }}
On 8 April 2016, Unifaun Theatre Productions and Teatru Manoel will premiere his latest play ''The Price of One'' at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta and then in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  This is the first time that an international playwright of Edward Bond's calibre has been commissioned by a Maltese agency.</ref> His 2016 play ''Dea'' was panned in ''[[The Stage]]<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pringle|first=Stewart|date=2016-05-26|title=Dea review at Secombe Theatre, Sutton|url=https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2016/dea-review-at-the-secombe-theatre-london/}}</ref>'' and ''[[The Times]]'', with Dominic Maxwell of the latter publication referring to it as "awful".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Maxwell|first=Dominic|date=2016-05-27|title=Dea at the Secombe Theatre, Sutton|language=en|work=[[The Times]]|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/theatre-dance/article/dea-at-the-secombe-theatre-sutton-g3j5b5067|access-date=2020-07-24|issn=0140-0460}}</ref> Conversely, Tom Bolton of [[Londonist]] argued, "Dea is not just a shock-fest — the play is a deep, poetic, complex investigation of the condition of 21st century society."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bolton|first=Tom|date=7 June 2016|title=Review: Is Dea The Most Extreme Play London Has Ever Seen?|url=https://londonist.com/2016/06/the-most-extreme-play-london-has-ever-seen|access-date=24 July 2020|website=Londonist|language=en}}</ref>

In 2013 he accepted an honorary doctorate in letters from [[Newman University, Birmingham|Newman University]], Birmingham.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.newman.ac.uk/alumni/3085/honorary-alumni |title=Honorary Alumni – Newman University, Birmingham |access-date=10 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402135324/http://www.newman.ac.uk/alumni/3085/honorary-alumni |archive-date=2 April 2015 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref> He was an honorary associate of the [[National Secular Society]].<ref>{{cite web|title=National Secular Society Honorary Associates|url=https://secularism.org.uk/honorary-associates.html|website=National Secular Society|access-date=26 August 2019}}</ref>

== Personal life and death ==
Bond was married to Elisabeth Pablé from 1971 until her death in 2017.<ref name = Telegraph /> They lived in [[Great Wilbraham]], Cambridgeshire.<ref name = Coveney /><ref>{{cite journal|url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/30131055|title = Drama and the Human: Reflections at the Start of a Millennium|journal = [[PAJ (journal)|PAJ]]|date = September 2007|volume = 29|number = 3| jstor=30131055 |accessdate = 5 March 2024 | last1=Bond | first1=Edward | last2=Billingham | first2=Peter | pages=1–14 }}</ref>

Bond died in Cambridge on 3 March 2024, at the age of 89.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Smith |first=Harrison |date=2024-03-08 |title=Edward Bond, British playwright who battled royal censors, dies at 89 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/03/07/edward-bond-dead-playwright/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240701185458/https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/03/07/edward-bond-dead-playwright/ |archive-date=2024-07-01 |access-date=2024-03-08 |newspaper=The Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286 |quote=His death was confirmed by a representative for his talent agency, Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, who said Mr. Bond died in London but did not share additional details.}}</ref>

== Publications ==
Since the early 1970s, Bond has been conspicuous as the first dramatist since [[George Bernard Shaw]] to produce long, serious prose prefaces to his plays.{{Citation needed|date=April 2016}}

These contain the author's meditations on [[capitalism]], violence, technology, [[post-modernism]] and imagination and develop a comprehensive theory on the use and means of drama. Nine volumes of his ''Collected Plays'', including the prefaces, are available from the UK publisher [[Methuen Publishing|Methuen]].

In 1999 he published ''[[The Hidden Plot]]'', a collection of writings on theatre and the meaning of drama. He has published two volumes from his notebooks and four volumes of letters. His ''Collected Poems'' was published in 1987.

== Contribution to cinema ==
In the late 1960s/early 1970s Bond also made some contributions to the cinema. He wrote the English dialogue for ''[[Blowup]]'' (1966, directed by [[Michelangelo Antonioni]]), for which he received a joint [[Academy Awards|Oscar]] nomination for [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay#1960s|Best Original Screenplay]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6f695fc4|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211223552/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6f695fc4|url-status=dead|archive-date=11 February 2016|title=Blowup (1967)|publisher=British Film Institute}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1967|title=The 39th Academy Awards &#124; 1967|website=Oscars.org &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|date=4 October 2014 }}</ref> He also wrote an adaptation of [[Nabokov]]'s ''[[Laughter in the Dark (film)|Laughter in the Dark]]'' (1968, dir. [[Tony Richardson]]) and the screenplay for the aboriginal drama ''[[Walkabout (film)|Walkabout]]'' (1971, dir. [[Nicolas Roeg]]); as well as contributing additional dialogue to ''[[Nicholas and Alexandra]]'' (1971, dir. [[Franklin J. Schaffner]]).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba129af52|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180528033852/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba129af52|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 May 2018|title=Edward Bond|publisher=British Film Institute}}</ref> Except for Antonioni's ''Blowup'', Bond himself considered these works strictly as potboilers and often became frustrated when further involved in cinema projects. Bond contributed to the 2024 film ‘ ‘The Return’ ‘ which he co-wrote with John Collee.

== List of works ==
'''Plays'''

(Dates of writing, followed by director, place and date of world première, if any)
*'''''The Pope's Wedding''''' (1961–62) [[Keith Johnstone]], Royal Court Theatre, London, 9 December 1962
*'''''[[Saved (play)|Saved]]''''' (1964) [[William Gaskill]], English Stage Society, Royal Court Theatre, London, 3 November 1965
*'''''[[Early Morning]]''''' (1965–1967) [[William Gaskill]], English Stage Society, Royal Court Theatre London, 31 March 1968
*'''''[[Narrow Road to the Deep North]]''''' (1968) [[Jane Howell]], [[Belgrade Theatre]], Coventry, 24 June 1968
*'''''Black Mass''''' (1970) [[David Jones (director)|David Jones]], Lyceum Theatre, London, 22 March 1970
*'''''Passion''''' "a Play for CND" (1971) [[Bill Bryden]], au CND Festival of Life on Easter, [[Alexandra Park Racecourse]], 11 April 1971
*'''''[[Lear (play)|Lear]]''''' (1969–1971) [[William Gaskill]], Royal Court Theatre London, 29 September 1971
*'''''[[The Sea (play)|The Sea]]''''' "a comedy" (1971–72) [[William Gaskill]], Royal Court Theatre London, 22 May 1973
*'''''[[Bingo (play)|Bingo]]''''' "scenes of money and death" (1973) [[Jane Howell]] & John Dove, Northcott Theatre, November Exeter, 14 1973
*'''''[[The Fool (play)|The Fool]]''''' "scenes of bread and love" (1974) [[Peter Gill (playwright)|Peter Gill]], Royal Court Theatre London, 18 November 1975
*'''''A-A-America !''''': ''Grandma Faust'' "a burlesque" and ''The Swing'' "a documentary" (1976) [[Jack Emery (director)|Jack Emery]], Inter-Action's Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club, Almost Free Theatre, London. ''Grandma Faust'': 25 October; ''The Swing'': 22 November 1976
*'''''Stone''''' "a short Play" (1976) [[Gerald Chapman]], [[Gay Sweatshop]], Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 8 June 1976
*'''''The Woman''''' "scenes of war and freedom" (1974–1977) Edward Bond, National Theatre (Olivier Stage), London, 10 August 1978
*'''''The Bundle''' or New Narrow Road to the Deep North'' (1977) [[Howard Davies (director)|Howard Davies]], Royal Shakespeare Company, The Warehouse Theatre, London, 13 January 1978
*'''''The Worlds''''' (1979) Edward Bond, Newcastle University Theatre Society, Newcastle Playhouse, 8 March 1979
*'''''[[Restoration (play)|Restoration]]''''' "a pastorale" (1979–80) Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, London, 22 July 1981
*'''''Summer''''' "a European play" (1980–81) Edward Bond, National Theatre (Cottlesloe Stage), London, 27 January 1982
*'''''Derek''''' (1982) [[Nick Hamm]], Royal Shakespeare Company, The Other Place, Stratford On Avon, 18 October 1982
*'''''Human Cannon''''' (1979–1983) Dan Baron Cohen, Quantum Theatre Company, Manchester, 2 February 1986
*'''[[The War Plays]]''': ''Red Black and Ignorant'' (1983–84) [[Nick Hamm]] (as ''The Unknown Citizen''), Royal Shakespeare Company, pour le festival "Thoughtcrimes", Barbican Pit, London, 19 January 1984; ''The Tin Can People'' (1984) [[Nick Philippou]], Bread and Circus Theatre, Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, 4 May 1984; ''Great Peace'' (1984–85) [[Nick Hamm]], Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Pit, London, 17 July 1985; premiered as a trilogy: Nick Hamm, Royal Shakespeare Company, Barbican Pit, London, 25 July 1985
*'''''Jackets or The Secret Hand''''' (1986) [[Keith Sturgess]], Department of Theatre Studies, University of Lancaster, Nuffield studio, Lancaster, 24 January 1989
*'''''In the Company of Men''''' (1987–88) [[Alain Françon]] (as ''La Compagnie des hommes''), [[Théâtre de la Ville]], Paris, 29 September 1992
*'''''September''''' (1989) [[Greg Doran]], [[Canterbury Cathedral]], Canterbury, 16 September 1989
*'''''[[Olly's Prison]]''''' (1990) (stage version) [[Jorge Lavelli]] (as ''Maison d'arrêt''), [[Festival d'Avignon]], 15 July 1993
*'''''Tuesday''''' (stage version) Claudia Stavisky (as ''Mardi''), [[Théâtre de la Colline]], Paris, 23 November 1995
*'''''Coffee''''' "a tragedy" (1993–94) Dan Baron Cohen, The Rational Theatre Company, Chapter Art Centre, Cardiff, 27 November 1996
*'''''At the Inland Sea''''' (1995) Geoff Gillham, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Broadway School, Aston, Birmingham, 16 October 1995
*'''''Eleven Vests''''' (1995–1997) Geoff Gillham, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Birmingham, 7 October 1997
*'''''The Crime of the twenty-first Century''''' (1996–1998) Leander Haussman (as ''Das Verbrechen des 21. Jahrhunderts''), Schauspielhaus, Bochum, 28 May 1999
*'''''The Children''''' (1999) [[Claudette Bryanston]], Classwork Theatre, Manor Community College, Cambridge, 11 February 2000
*'''''[[The Chair Plays|Have I None]]''''' (2000) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre-in-Education Company, Birmingham, 2 November 2000
*'''''Existence''''' (2002) (stage version) Christian Benedetti, Studio Théâtre, Alfortville, 28 October 2002
*'''''Born''''' (2002–03) [[Alain Françon]] (as ''Naître''), Festival d'Avignon, 10 July 2006
*'''''The Balancing Act''''' (2003) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, Birmingham, October 2003
*'''''The Short Electra''''' (2003–04) John Doona, Young People Drama Festival, 13 March 2004
*'''''People''''' (2005), Alain Françon (as "Les Gens") Théâtre Gérard Philipe, Paris, 13 January 2014
*'''''[[The Chair Plays|The Under Room]]''''' (2005) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 9 October 2005
*[[The Chair Plays|'''''Chair''''']], stage version (2005) Alain Françon (as ''Chaise'') Festival d'Avignon, 18 July 2006
*'''''Arcade''''' (2006) John Doona, Chester, 21 September 2006
*'''''Tune''''' (2006) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 2007
*'''''Innocence''''' (2008), unperformed
*'''''A Window''''' (2009) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 12 October 2009
*'''''There Will Be More''''' (2010) (early version of the first part of Dea) Adam Spreadbury-Maher, Good Night Out Presents, The Cock Tavern Theatre, 26 October 2010
*'''''The Edge''''' (2011) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 15 October 2012
*'''''The Broken Bowl''''' (2012) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 24 April 2012
*'''''The Angry Roads''''' (2014) Chris Cooper, Big Brum Theatre in Education Company, 6 October 2014
*'''''The Price of One''''' (2016) Chris Cooper, Unifaun Theatre Productions & Teatru Manoel, [[Manoel Theatre]], Valletta (Malta), 8 April 2016
*'''''Dea''''' (2016) Edward Bond, [[Secombe Theatre]] (Sutton Theatres), [[Sutton, London|Sutton]], 26 May 2016
'''Television plays'''
*''Olly's Prison'' (1990), shot in December 1991 (Roy Battersby), broadcast: BBC2, May 1993
*''Tuesday'' (1992), shot in March 1993 (Sharon Miller and Edward Bond), broadcast: BBC Schools Television, June 1993

'''Radio plays'''
*''Chair'' (2000), broadcast: BBC Radio 4, 8 April 2000 (Turan Ali, Director/Producer)
*''Existence'' (2002), broadcast: BBC Radio 4, May 2002 (Turan Ali, Director/Producer)

'''Unavailable early plays'''
*''The Tragedy'', for television, 1950s
*"He jumped but the bridge was burning", 1950s
*''The Asses of Kish'', 1956–57
*''Too Late Now'', for television, {{circa|1957}}
*''The Broken Shepherdess'', for radio, {{circa|1958|lk=no}}
*''Sylo's New Ruins'', for television, {{circa|1958|lk=no}}
*''The Performance'' for television, {{circa|1958|lk=no}}
*''The Best Laid Schemes'', for television, {{circa|1958|lk=no}}
*''A Woman Weeping'', {{circa|1957|lk=no}}
*''The Roller Coaster'', {{circa|1958|lk=no}}
*''Klaxon in Aetreus' Place'', 1958
*''The Fiery Tree'', 1958
*''I Don't Want to Be Nice'', 1959
*''The Golden Age'', 1959
*''The Outing'', 1959–60
*''Kissing The Beast'', for radio, 1960
*''The Palace of Varieties in the Sand'', 1975–76

'''Libretti for operas by [[Hans Werner Henze]]'''
*''We Come to the river'' "Actions for Music in Two Parts and Eleven Scenes", 1972/74, in ''The Fool'', Londres, Eyre Methuen, 1976
*''The Cat'' "a story for music", 1979, in ''Restoration'', London, Methuen, 1982, from Honoré de Balzac's ''Peines d'amour d'une chatte anglaise'', music by H.W. Henze; recorded as: ''The English Cat'', "Ein Geschichte für Sänger und Instrumentalisten von Edward Bond", Parnassus Orchestra London, dir.: [[Markus Stenz-Peter Doll]], Mayence, Wergo, 2 CD, WER 62042, 1989

'''Libretti for ballets'''
*''Text for a Ballet: for Dancers, Chorus and Orchestra'' (1977), partially published as From an Unfinished Ballet, in ''Theatre Poems and Songs'', London, Methuen, 1980
*''Orpheus'' "a story in six scenes" (1977/78), music by [[Hans Werner Henze]], for [[William Forsythe (dancer)|William Forsythe]]
*''Burns'' "a piece for dancers and musicians" (1985), for Midland Ballet Company

'''Adaptations from other authors'''
*[[Thomas Middleton]]: ''A Chaste Maid in Cheapside'' (1965)
*[[Anton Chekhov]]: ''Three Sisters'' (1966), with [[Richard Cottrell]], for William Gaskill
*[[Bertolt Brecht]]: ''Heads'' (''Round Heads and Pick Heads'') ({{circa|1970|lk=no}}), with Keith Hack, inédit,
*John Webster: ''The White Devil'' (1976), "Acting Edition" for [[Michael Lindsay-Hogg]]
*[[Frank Wedekind]]: ''Spring Awakening'' (1974), with Elisabeth Bond-Pablé, for Bill Bryden
*[[Frank Wedekind]]: ''Lulu'' (1992), with Elisabeth Bond-Pablé, for Cambridge Theatre Company

'''Screenplays'''
*''[[Blowup]]'', from [[Julio Cortázar]], {{abbr|dir|director}}: [[Michelangelo Antonioni]], 1967
*''[[Man on Horseback|Michael Kolhaas – der Rebell]]'', from H. [[von Kleist]], dir: [[Volker Schlöndorff]], 1968
*''[[The Lady of Monza|The Nun of Monza]]'' (English language version dialogue), dir: [[Eriprando Visconti]], 1969
*''[[Laughter in the Dark (film)|Laughter in the Dark]]'', from V. [[Nabokov]], dir: [[Tony Richardson]], 1969
*''[[Walkabout (film)|Walkabout]]'', from [[Donald G. Payne|J. Vance Marshall]], dir: [[Nicolas Roeg]], 1971
*''[[Nicholas and Alexandra]]'' (additional dialogue), dir: [[Franklin J. Schaffner]], 1971
*''[[One Russian Summer|Days of Fury]]'' ({{AKA}} ''One Russian Summer''), with [[Ugo Pirro|U. Pirro]] and A. Calenda, dir: Antonio Calenda, 1973
*''[[The Master Builder]]'', from H. [[Ibsen]], unperformed, 1974-75
*''Moby Dick'', from [[Herman Melville|H.Melville]], 1991, unperformed
*''[[The Return (2024 film)|The Return]]'', from [[Homer]], 1998–99, dir: [[Uberto Pasolini]], 2024

=== Editions ===

'''Plays ("uniformed edition"; nine volumes by Methuen, London)'''
*Plays: 1 (1977): ''Author's note: On Violence; Saved, Early morning; Pope's Wedding''
*Plays: 2 (1978): ''Introduction; Preface to Lear; Lear; The Sea; Narrow Road to The Deep North, Black Mass; Passion''
*Plays: 3 (1987): ''Four Pieces; Introduction to Bingo, Bingo; Introduction to The Fool; The Fool; Clare Poems; The Woman; Poems, Stories and Essays for The Woman; Author's note; Stone''
*Plays: 4 (1992): ''The Worlds; The Activists Papers; Restoration; Restoration Poems and Stories; Summer; Summer Poems''
*Plays: 5 (1996): ''Human Cannon, The Bundle; In the Company of Men; Jackets''
*Plays: 6 (1998): ''Choruses from After the Assassinations; War Plays; Commentary on the War Plays''
*Plays: 7 (2003): ''The Cap; The Crime of the Twenty-first Century; Olly's Prison; Notes on Imagination; Coffee; The Swing; Derek; Fables and Stories''
*Plays: 8 (2006): ''Born, People, Chair, Existence, The Under Room''
*Plays: 9 (2011): ''Innocence, Window, Tune, Balancing Act, The Edge''
*Plays: 10 (2018): ''Dea, The Testament of this Day, The Price of One, The Angry Roads, The Hungry Bowl''

'''Other plays (by Methuen, London)'''
*''Lear'', Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by Patricia Hern (1983)
* ''Olly's Prison'', stage and TV version (1993)
* ''At the Inland Sea'' (1997)
*''Eleven Vests'' with ''Tuesday'' (1997)
*''The Children'' with ''Have I None'' (2001)
*''Saved'', Student Edition, with Commentary and Notes by David Davis (2008)
* ''The Chair Plays: Have I None, The Under Room and Chair'' (2012)
* ''Dea'' (2016)

==== Selected theoretical writings ====
*''A Note on Dramatic Method'' (1977), in: ''The Bundle'', London, Methuen, 1978
* ''The Activists Papers'' (1980) in ''Plays'' 4, London, Methuen, 1992
*''Introduction'', for ''The Fool'', in ''Plays'' 3, London, Methuen, 1987
* ''The Dramatic Child'' (1992), in ''Tuesday'', London, Methuen, 1992
*''Notes on Imagination'', in: ''Coffee'', London, Methuen, 1995
* ''Notes on Post-modernism'' (1989) in: ''Plays'' 5, London, Methuen, 1996
* {{cite book|last=Bond|first=Edward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wm1jAgAAQBAJ|title=Plays 6|chapter=Commentary on The War Plays|date=1998|publisher=Methuen|isbn=1-4725-3670-3}}
*''The Hidden Plot'' Notes on Theatre and the State, London, Methuen, 2000
*''Drama Devices'' (2004), in David Davis (ed.): ''Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Edward Bond's Plays for Young People'', London, Trentham Books, 2005
*"Something of Myself" (2004), in David Davis (ed.): Edward ''Bond and the Dramatic Child, Edward Bond's Plays for Young People'', London, Trentham Books, 2005

''Letters'', selected and edited by Ian Stuart:
*I, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994
*II, Luxembourg, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995
*III, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996
*4, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998
*5, London, Routledge, 2001

''Selections from Edward Bond's Notebooks'', edited by Ian Stuart, London, Methuen,
*{{vol.|1}}: 1959–1980, 2000
*{{vol.|2}}: 1980–1995, 2000

== See also ==
* [[List of British playwrights]]
== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
*{{cite book|last1=Hay|first1=Malcolm|last2=Roberts|first2=Philip|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRhaAAAAMAAJ|title=Edward Bond: A Companion to the Plays|date=1978|publisher=Eyre Methuen|isbn=0-904844-21-8}}
*{{cite book|last=Coult|first=Tony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2A1aAAAAMAAJ|title=The Plays of Edward Bond|date=1979|publisher=Eyre Methuen|isbn=0-413-46260-9}}
*{{cite book|last1=Hay|first1=Malcolm|last2=Roberts|first2=Philip|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uk9yzQEACAAJ|title=Bond, a Study of His Plays|date=1980|publisher=Eyre Methuen|isbn=0-413-38290-7}}
*{{Cite book|last=Spencer|first=Jenny S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eckvFCb8yU4C&pg=PA14|title=Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of Edward Bond|date=1992-12-17|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-39304-1|language=en}}
*{{Cite book|last=Mangan|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p0ZvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA6|title=Edward Bond|date=2018-08-01|publisher=Northcote House Publishers|isbn=978-1-78694-267-8|language=en}}

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL200623A/Bond_Edward Bibliography at Open Library]
*[https://edwardbonddrama.org/ Edward Bond Dramatist] (new address for Bond's own website)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050204184353/http://www.methuen.co.uk/authorpages/edwardbond.html Methuen Author's Site]
* [http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x146yx_www-colline-fr_revue-edward-bond Collection of videos from the Théâtre de la Colline including Bond holding a speech in 2001 {{in lang|fr|en}} and clips from plays in performance {{in lang|fr}}]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718072834/http://www.colline.fr/pdf/05-edward-bond.pdf Special issue of La Colline's Revue Electronique on Bond with pictures from performances, documents and analysis]
* [http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/birmingham-culture/theatre-in-birmingham/2009/10/21/dramatist-edward-bond-is-still-going-to-extremes-65233-24983934/ Bond interviewed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110527205516/http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/birmingham-culture/theatre-in-birmingham/2009/10/21/dramatist-edward-bond-is-still-going-to-extremes-65233-24983934/ |date=27 May 2011 }} by the ''[[Birmingham Post]]'', October 2009
* {{IMDb name|0093927|Edward Bond}}
* {{Screenonline name|id=842506|name=Edward Bond biography and credits}}
* {{discogs artist|Edward Bond}}
* [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4fy0b_edward-bond-nous-sommes-tous-nés-gr_creation Short speech on video about the purpose of drama]
* Archival material at {{wikidata|qualifier|property|P485|Q24568958|P2699|format=\[%q %p\]}}
*[http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8z109 Edward Bond Papers] at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
* {{NPG name}}
{{Angry young men}}
{{John Whiting Award}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bond, Edward}}
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:2024 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century English dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:21st-century English dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:21st-century English male writers]]
[[Category:British critics of religions]]
[[Category:English male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:English opera librettists]]
[[Category:English socialists]]
[[Category:People from Holloway, London]]
[[Category:People from South Cambridgeshire District]]