Lear

Edward Bond's version of Lear's story embraces myth, superstition and reality to reveal the endemic violence of a rancorous society. Setting his play around the symbolic building of a great wall, Bond exposes false morality as the source of the aggressive tension which may ultimately destroy society

"In a play where blindness becomes a dramatic metaphor for insight, Bond has made it yet more gruesome than Shakespeare by stripping the scene of passion and framing it in a cool medical context" ~ The Times

This volume contains expert notes on the author's life and work, historical and political background to the play

"Bond's greatest (and biggest) play ... It is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication with the twenty-first century's approach" ~ The Times