Saved by Edward Bond, which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in

November 1965. is an artaudian piece filled with kitchen sink realism about the
cultural poverty and frustration of a generation of young people on the dole and living
on council estates. In fact when the play was first performed in the 1960s the Lord
Chamberlin deemed it to brutal to be performed at all leading for it to get denied a
license and all who were involved in the production of the play to be prosecuted an
fined. However this was met with criticism towards the censorship office and was
pivotal in the lifting of theatre censorship a few years later in 1968.

I believe in order to recreate the haunting effects this piece had on its original
audiences, as an actor I would have to do as much mental preparation and rehearsals
along with influences of other actors in different shows and how they manage to
convincingly show the theme of youth violence and how the younger generation are
more prone to making irrational decisions that end up costing their life.

Last year, I watched a live production of “Heathers” on youtube. In this production

one of the main characters, JD, has had a very traumatic upbringing after losing his
mum in a building explosion caused by his dad. This leaves him in a very dangerous
mindset of just being numb and an inability to feel empathy, which leads him down
the path of being a ruthless murderer who is ready to blow up an entire school with his
peers inside which only leads to his downfall and death. This is similar in my opinion
to Fred’s stance in his baby’s murder in scene 6 as even though it is his flesh and
blood, he does not care at all for the baby and so is easily influenced by his friends to
participate in the killing which lands him in jail. To portray this as an actor I would
have a blunt tone whilst talking to Pam whilst I am talking to her about taking care of
the baby and during the killing I would be laughing with the rest of the gang showing
the ruthlessness of the killing as nobody decides to think in the slightest of the pain
they are putting another human through.