Edward Bond

Edward Bond (born 18 July 1934) is an English playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Saved (1965), the production of which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. Bond is broadly considered one among the major living dramatists 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

Edward Bond was born on 18 July 1934 into a lower-working-class family in Holloway, North London. As a child during World War II he was evacuated to the countryside but was present during the bombings on London in 1940 and 1944. 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.

His first contact with theatre was music-hall, where his sister used to be sawn in two in a conjuror's sideshow. 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.

Edward Bond (disambiguation)

Edward Bond (born 1934) is a British playwright.

Edward Bond may also refer to:

Edward Bond (politician)

Edward Bond (October 1844 – 18 August 1920) was a Conservative Party politician in England.

He unsuccessfully contested the 1892 general election in Southwark West, and at the 1895 general election he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Nottingham East. He was re-elected in 1900, but at the 1906 general election he was defeated by the Liberal Party candidate, Henry John Stedman Cotton.

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