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It was a single scene in the play Saved by Edward Bond that brought its author “fame, blame, infamy, censorship” (in David Tuaillon’s words): a scene in which a baby is stoned to death. For that reason alone, Saved was banned by the Lord Chamberlain’s office. When the Royal Court in London staged it privately in 1965, they were prosecuted (on a technicality) and found guilty (but let off with a conditional discharge). The next time the Royal Court (again, privately) staged a Bond play – Early Morning, in 1968, in which Queen Victoria kills Prince Albert and rapes Florence Nightingale – Bond became the last playwright to have a work given an outright ban under legislation that was to be repealed later that year.
Regularly hailed as Britain’s greatest living playwright, Bond has written fifty-two plays since Saved: the majority have been premiered in France. Saved is a…
