https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68480835

Edward Bond: 'Completely original' playwright dies aged 89

British playwright Edward Bond, who was known for his social commentary,
died on Sunday at the age of 89.

The dramatist penned more than 50 plays in his career, including Lear and
The Sea.

His play Saved, set on a south London council estate, sparked controversy
for its portrayals of violence, which initially saw it banned when first
staged in 1965.

Actor Samuel West described him as "a theatrical giant" in a post on X.

"His work was like nobody else's: passionate, serious, principled,
anguished, strange, completely original," added West, who performed in Sam
Mendes' 1991 production of The Sea at the National Theatre.

Bond was born in north London in 1934 and taught himself to read from his
mother's shopping catalogues, before quitting school at 15.

He said his lifelong love affair with theatre stemmed in part from seeing
his sister being sawn in half as a conjuror's assistant at a local music
hall.

Novelty aside, experiences of wartime society informed his peacetime works
of societal and community tensions in a changing world.

Bond's incendiary approach, which ultimately saw him fall out with
collaborators and cast members, initially helped him make an instant
impact as part of the Royal Court theatre's writers' group.

His first full play, goadingly titled The Pope's Wedding, opened in 1962
and explored the banality of rural life and growing isolation.

But it was Saved, three years later, that really set his reputation and
public reaction alight. Its depictions of mindless, frustration-filled
urban violence, including a baby being stoned to death in a pram, caused
outrage.

Looking back on the furore when speaking to the BBC in 2010, Bond said:
"When it was produced... the scandal and shock and the horror... people
were fighting in the theatre... the abuse in the papers. I used to get
letters written in blood and excreta. I was regarded as some sort of moral
hyena."

Defences from Sir Laurence Olivier and other theatre icons failed to stop
it being censored by Lord Chamberlain, who refused to licence the play.

Paradoxically, this banishment saw the work become a sensation outside the
UK, establishing Bond as a "colossus of the world stage", wrote Claire
Armitstead for The Guardian.

The Royal Court, perhaps spurred by the international interest, pushed
forward unapologetically in putting on Bond's next play - the surrealist
Early Morning.

This escalated shock value further - portraying Queen Victoria as killing
Prince Albert and raping Florence Nightingale, as well as delivering
conjoined twins. Heaven turns out to be a world of cannibalism.

Despite its satirical edge, the rewriting of Victorian monarchy once again
incurred the wrath of censors. Showings did unofficially go ahead,
however, billed as dress rehearsals.

Bond's two censored plays, banned so close in time, worked to force a
rethink. Taken together, they are credited with playing a pivotal role in
the abolition of theatre censorship by 1968.

"It is hard to imagine the explosion of visceral drama in the 1990s -
especially the work of Sarah Kane - without his example," said Dominic
Cavendish in his obituary for the the Telegraph.

Introspective biting underbelly
But although these early plays contained a "high quotient of violence", he
was neither a "sensation-seeker nor a despairing nihilist", wrote theatre
critic Michael Billington in the Guardian.

Social themes were evident in his Shakespearean works, including 1971's
Lear - a modern rewriting of King Lear.

In Bingo, he turned his focus upon the Bard himself, casting Patrick
Stewart in the lead role.

"Bond's Shakespeare was an unforgettable portrait of the artist as an old
man, confronting his ineffectualness in mitigating the world's cruelty",
added Billington.

When Billington asked if he saw this reflecting his own work, Bond
replied: "All I can do is write the best plays I can and keep describing
reality as I see it."

This honesty continued to be his greatest artistic weapon, but arguably
also his sharpest career vice.

Arguments with institutions, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, saw
him walk out over the standard of rehearsals for the 1985 imagining of The
War Plays.

"The men who run the National and the RSC - I call them the floating
dead," he raged.

The Royal Court's artistic director, Max Stafford-Clark, would also call
him "the most difficult person I have worked with" in a very public spat.

Whatever his personal faults, the fiery stage genius remains undeniable.

Alongside his stage work, Bond also worked on a number of screenplays,
including Blow Up, Laughter In The Dark and Walkabout.

Edward Bond: I still get letters written in blood