Our future depends on the state of our imaginations. Drama becomes more important as the world changes. Plays young people write, act in and watch are the blueprints of the world they will have to live in. Edward Bond has chosen in recent years to focus much of his work on plays for young people, arguing that drama helps children "to know themselves and their world and their relation to it". This book discusses some of his important plays for young people and offers case studies of various productions of them. Contributors examine how the plays have been used by teachers and theatre companies with young people and they explore the demands of acting and staging Bond. Contributors include Tony Coult, Chris Cooper, Katie Katafiasz, John Doona, Tony Grady and Bill Roper. One chapter is taken from the notes of Geoff Gillham, and one is written by Edward Bond. The book will be of interest to those who work in drama with young people, whether in theatre, community work or in schools.

Edward Bond has been, since his controversial arrival on the theatrical scene in 1965, one of Britain's most distinctive and important theatre writers. This study examines his work, from The Pope's Wedding (1962) to Coffee (1995). It gives an overview of the development of his distinctive dramatic language and style, and looks at his experiments with various theatrical forms and genres. It examines, too, the ways in which Bond's insistence upon the necessity of the drama as an agent of social evolution have determined his development as a dramatist. There are sections which situate Bond's work within its wider theatrical and political contexts, and which explore his concerns with issues such as violence, technology and social evolution, as they are expressed in plays such as Saved (1965), and Lear (1971). The study also deals with Bond's continual dialogue with our cultural history - with the ways in which he rewrites classic plays and plunders familiar theatrical genres in order to demythologize the past.

Over 50 years after his first appearance on the theatre scene, Edward Bond remains a hugely significant figure in the history of modern British playwriting. His plays are the subject of much debate and frequent misinterpretation, with his extensive use of allegory and metaphor to comment on the state of society and humanity in general leading to many academics, theatre practitioners and students trying - and often failing - to make sense of his plays over the years. In this unique collection, David Tuaillon puts these pressing questions and mysteries to Edward Bond himself, provoking answers to some of his most elusive dramatic material, and covering an extraordinary range of plays and subjects with real clarity. With a particular focus on Bond's later plays, about which much less has been written, this book draws together very many questions and issues within a thematic structure, while observing chronology within that. Edward Bond: The Playwright Speaks is potentially the most comprehensive, precise and clear account of the playwright's work and time in the theatre to date, distilling years and schools of thought into one single volume. Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the first performance of Edward Bond's Saved at the Royal Court Theatre in 1965.

Edward Bond Letters, Volume IV, focuses on four significant areas of Edward Bond's work: education, imagination and the child; theatre-in-education; At the Inland Sea; language and imagery. The letters represent a coruscating attack on our present society, as well as offering insights into how the situation might be improved. Bond's letters attack modern education, arguing that "children are being educated to sell themselves" and suggesting that social problems are caused by an oppression of the imagination. Many letters refer directly to a play - for instance Tuesday, which presents an assessment of the many difficulties faced by contemporary society. The language and imagery of one of Bond's most recent plays, In the Company of Men, is animatedly discussed, and Bond reminds us in a final description that "the good image is always absent, because it is present in the mind.

First Published in 1997. Edward Bond Letters, Volume III, includes sections on the important areas of writing and translating as well as continuing to trace Bond's interest in productions of his work. Focusing on The Pope's Wedding and Saved, a radio production of The Fool (1990), In the Company of Men (1992) and the television plays – Olly's Prison (1993) and Tuesday (1993) – this lively and thought-provoking volume of Edward Bond's letters provides useful background information for both the student and the general reader.

In this book, Jenny Spencer presents an in-depth examination of Bond's work.

First Published in 1994. Edward Bond Letters, Volume V, contains over thirty letters and papers covering Bond's controversial views on violence and justice, plays, writers and directors, and a postscript that is Bond's discussion of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. The explosive content of these letters applies to Bond's plays and society as a whole; Bond believes that all violence is the manifestation of an unbalanced and dangerous society. As with the four preceding volumes in this collection, Edward Bond is critical of present theatre, but at the same time his observations are useful in indicating how theatre can be changed. Bond's illustrations provide accompaniment to the letters.