Edward Bond is one of the great British playwrights of the twentieth/twenty-first centuries. In 1965 his grim portrait of urban violence, Saved, in which a baby is stoned in its pram, aroused much admiration as well as a ban from the Lord Chamberlain. His provocative plays including Early Morning (1969), Lear (1971), The Sea (1973), The Fool (1975), Restoration (1981), Summer (1982), The War Plays (1985) and Olly's Prison (1992)] continue to arouse extreme responses from critics and audiences.

'Bond's greatest (and biggest) play ... it is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication' The Times