Saved

Edward Bond

Introduction
Edward Bond’s Saved, is a provocative and unflinching depiction of an alienated and disenfranchised South

London working class in the 1960s. It was first staged at the Royal Court Theatre under the direction of

William Gaskill on 3 November 1965. The play is inextricably connected to the theatre that first staged it.

Since 1955, the Royal Court and the English Stage Company under George Devine (and later Max Stafford

Clark) had gained a reputation for discovering and nurturing ‘hard-hitting, uncompromising writers’

that formed the new wave of British theatre in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a type of theatre that was

challenging audiences as much as the social and political establishment that existed in post-war Britain.

Although Bond had been nurtured by George Devine at the Royal Court, when he submitted Saved for

consideration in 1964, only one of his previous scripts, The Pope’s Wedding, had been staged as an actual

performance for one night only. Saved, however, remains one of the most controversial performances the

theatre has ever staged, causing an outrage amongst some critics of the day.

At this time, play scripts had to be licensed for performance after being scrutinised by the Lord

Chamberlain’s Office, the official censor for virtually all theatre performed in Britain. Bond’s depiction of

a listless group of youths, complete with hints of casual sex and a viscerally shocking scene of violence

featuring the murder of a baby in a pram, fell foul of the censor’s pen. Significant cuts and alterations

were demanded before a licence to perform would be issued. In response, and being no stranger to

challenging the establishment, the Royal Court declared itself a ‘private club’ and Saved was staged for

‘members only’ in its original, uncut form. The waves caused by the ensuing court case contributed to the

creation of the Theatres Act in 1968 and effectively brought to a close 231 years of theatre censorship.

Today, Bond is regarded by many as one of the country’s most influential modern playwrights. He has

written prolifically over the years and continues to explore our complex and challenging human conditions

with an unflinching and often uncompromising gaze.

Drama | Saved 1
 Saved
Edward Bond

A word from the author, Edward Bond, about Saved

Speaking in a rare interview in 2012, Bond discusses Saved.

When I started to write, it was about 20 years after the Second World War. You had Hiroshima behind

you, you had Auschwitz, you had the Soviet Union … you knew the world was in trouble and to write was

to commit yourself to that in some way, there was nothing else you could do. In a way, the problems were

behind us and therefore we could look at the future. The problem now is, the problems are in front of us

and our theatre is unable to deal with them.

Why did I write about a gang who stole a baby in a park? I don’t know of any incident when that had

happened. Why did I choose that specifically? I chose it for the contradictions that were in it…Why did

they kill the baby? They killed the baby in order to gain their self-respect…and that’s a contradiction and

I ask my society to understand it…When you create the extreme, the audience have then got to say ‘but is

it authentic?’…You put them (the audience) in an extreme situation and then they have to identify not the

situation, but themselves.

My plays are not commercial products. I don’t write for the market…I write for human salvation. Just to

put a name on it, drama is about justice, about social justice.

The Main Characters

In Saved, Edward Bond has created a famously bleak portrayal of young people who might seem beyond

redemption. But to do so and merely condemn the play as an attack against feckless young people, their

indifference and their lack of morality would be to miss the ultimate point of the play. Bond describes his

play as ‘almost irresponsibly optimistic’. His characters are a product of their time and their environment

and reflect a de-humanised society that has the potential to turn in on itself.

Len

Len is twenty-one and the central character in the play. Essentially a ‘good’ character, Len offers the

audience some hope in the bleakness of the world Bond shows us. We meet Len first with the audience

cast as uncomfortable voyeurs as he and Pam flirt explicitly around each other. Throughout the play,

Len seems to be searching for a reason to exist, to love and be loved. The very fact that he remains

Drama | Saved 2
 Saved
Edward Bond

lodging with Harry and Mary, despite being quickly rejected by Pam and humiliated by her promiscuity,

underscores his need to understand her and show his feelings of compassion and empathy towards her.

Of course, there are contradictions in his character. Len confesses to watching the murder of the baby.

Hot seating or thought tracking may encourage students to explore why he did not intervene as the

violence escalated.

One of the challenges for actors exploring the characters in the play lies firstly in getting to grips with the

fast-paced exchanges of language, and secondly in understanding the South London dialect complete with

its working-class phrases, idioms and innuendos. Students might experiment with Len’s initial bravado

and streetwise manner, basking confidently in Pam’s affection – ‘This is the life’ – and how this contrasts

with the later bitter arguments and recriminations – ‘Yer need a bloody good belting’.

Pam

Pam is twenty-three and lives uncomfortably with her feuding parents Harry and Mary. Provocative and

promiscuous, she seems to be looking to be saved from her mundane existence. It seems that Len might

be the one to do that before her affections turn towards Fred.

It is Pam’s child that is murdered in the park. As shocking as that scene of violence is, the neglect that

Pam demonstrates in Scenes Four and Five is worthy of exploration, able as she is to ignore the baby’s

constant crying and later refusing even to hold it. The child is never given a name and the only time we

see Pam showing it affection is when she wheels it away after the attack in the park. However, Bond

indicates that as she absentmindedly comforts the child, she doesn’t even bother looking in the pram.

Pam’s seeming lack of a maternal instinct is further highlighted by her willingness to forgive Fred, the

assumed father and convicted murderer of her child, ‘I ain’t blamin’ yer.’ Students might use hot seating

to explore this extremely challenging facet of her character as well as comparing her physicality, gestures

and facial expressions when being dominant with Len and submissive with Fred.

Drama | Saved 3
 Saved
Edward Bond

Fred

Fred is twenty-one and elusively exists beyond Pam and Len’s insular world that they share with Mary and

Harry. It is perhaps this element of escapism that so fascinates Pam. Although he is cocky, confident and

absolutely self-assured, he lacks the strength to stand up to the gang as they start to attack the baby in

the park, choosing to throw the first stone. Fred seems to show no remorse for his crime, angered instead

at the baying crowds who spit on him as he attends court. On his release, Pam looks to him to ‘save’ her

from Len, but he now has the experience of prison behind him. He has become even more a product of

his environment, threatening to ‘land yer so bloody ’ard they’ll put me back for life’.

Exploring relationships between these characters by using Max Stafford Clarke’s status games to encourage

actors to experiment with proxemics would be an interesting starting point. As would exploring intentions

and objectives physically using actioning language and transitive verbs, ‘I tease you …I mock you…I beg

you…’.

Harry

Harry, at sixty-eight, is the oldest character and is described as ‘grey’ by Bond, as if the life has been

sucked out of him. His dogged tenaciousness at remaining in a seemingly loveless marriage with Mary is

matched only by Len’s insistence on staying to support Pam. Harry has experienced war and the taking

of a life, which has given him ‘a sense of perspective’. His scene of domestic violence with Mary is stark

but comedic, hit on the head with a teapot. Once again it is Len who is there to comfort, ‘Yer’ll ‘ave t’ wash

that cut. It’s got tea leaves in it.’ Harry’s quiet, often silent demeanour is in sharp contrast to the fast-paced

action and conflict around him.

Mary

Mary is fifty-three and was reputedly a challenging character to cast in Gaskill’s original 1965 production,

partly due to the stocking-sewing sequence in Scene Nine. Laced with innuendo and sexual references,

Len stitches a run in Mary’s stockings and, reminiscent of the opening scene with Pam, is interrupted by a

silent Harry. Students might want to consider the Oedipal connotations – Mary is by her own admission ‘old

enough t’ be yer mother’. Although the act is not consummated, Len is evidently aroused by the encounter.

Drama | Saved 4
 Saved
Edward Bond

The gang
The gang – Harry, Pete, Colin, Mike and Barry. Bond’s character descriptions would be an interesting

place to start exploring the physicality and emotional make-up of these individuals before looking at how

they operate as a group. Scene Six provides actors with the challenge of identifying the relationships

of the characters to each other and how to depict the rising action leading to the horrific climax of the

scene. Experimenting with rhythm, proxemics and moments of stillness that mark the moments as they

collectively make their decisions would be useful in exploring the brutal indifference of the act. This might

also help the actors to consider how the extreme nature of the violence could be presented on stage.

Themes
Violence

It is absolutely true that Saved contains a scene of terrible violence that has done much to define the

play since its first performance in 1965. Perhaps much of the power of Scene Six is that the violence is

not a single, instant action but extends over a significant period of stage time, building as it does to the

horrific stoning of Pam’s baby. Bond suggests that he was attempting to ‘illuminate’ violence, and learners

might wish to explore the dramatic action of this scene in different ways. Are Fred and the gang caught

up in a rapture of escalating violence, or is there more truth in a casual, uncaring and clinical depiction of

this extreme act? Is Bond exploring the concept of de-individualism (the loss of self-awareness and self-

restraint when in a group), and what does he mean when he says that the gang are trying to gain their

‘self-respect’ through killing the baby?

Interviewed in The Guardian in 2011, Tony Selby from the original cast recalls a discussion with Bond

during rehearsals for the 1965 performance:

Now 73, he (Selby) recalls Bond saying to him during rehearsals: ‘You obviously understand this play.’

The actor explains: ‘I understood it intuitively, because I came from a working-class background. Saved is

about ignoring young life. The baby is a sacrifice. In actual fact, the baby is saved. It’s saved from a non-

existent life.’ He had seen bored, neglected kids in nearby Battersea park hurling stones at squirrels: from

there to killing the baby, he argues, takes ‘only one little leap of the imagination.’

Drama | Saved 5
 Saved
Edward Bond

On a purely practical theatrical level, the image of stones being hurled into the pram is extremely effective

as the audience is left to imagine the injuries inflicted on the baby, enhanced by the lurid, crude descriptions

from the gang. It is important to note that the child is not seen and not named. Its anonymous humiliation

and murder goes unseen (or so we believe) and unheard. Bond describes the child’s death as ‘a negligible

atrocity’ when considered against the causalities of warfare and the Holocaust. The reference to another

unnamed child’s death, Harry and Mary’s son, killed in a park by a bomb during the Blitz, makes another

link to the violence of World War II, Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Bond is asserting that humanity’s capacity

for violence should not be considered solely as historical events but is woven into the everyday lives and

fabric of British society. It also manifests itself in extreme acts from an alienated and culturally poverty-

stricken underclass. “I wanted to show that we are destructive of human values,” he says. “The people who are

killing the baby are doing it to gain their self-respect, because they want to assert human values.”

There are other moments of violence in the play and students might wish to explore Harry and Mary

coming to blows, Len and Harry wrestling with the knife, and Harry’s account of shooting someone during

WWII, ‘I shot ’im. ‘E fell down. Like a coat fallin’ off a hanger, I always say.’

Loneliness, alienation and goodness

The characters in Saved all seem to suffer alienation from the world in which they exist, from each other

and from society as a whole. They seem to be divorced from accepted societal codes and operate in a

vacuum defined by worthless jobs and dysfunctional relationships. There is a sense of loneliness and

acceptance of their fate leading to an underlying despair. Len, however, offers hope. It would be easy for

him to leave his lodgings and Pam’s family, but he remains. He attempts to reconcile and forgive at every

turn and does not turn away from the characters that need him. Although the play ends in a ‘silent social

stalemate’, Len’s act of staying is in itself an act of optimism. Things can get better, and Len has a purpose

– binding the family together.

Drama | Saved 6
 Saved
Edward Bond

Sex and sexuality

Mary: It’s in every man. It ‘as t’come out.

Controversial at the time, some critics railed against the sexually suggestive episodes in the play and

the innuendo-laden language that runs throughout. The frank depiction of seemingly loveless and

promiscuous sexuality is utterly in keeping with Bond’s characters who seem to be responding to this

very basic of human needs.

There is a much-discussed Oedipal strand to the plot, and students might wish to explore mapping the

Greek tragedy to various scenes, including Scene Nine where Len darns the stockings of Mary as she wears

them. Despite Mary saying, ‘I’m old enough t’ be yer mother’, there is evidently a sexual attraction between

them that does not go unobserved by Harry. Len, though, does not completely play out his Oedipal role.

Instead, bedding his mother and killing his father turns the ensuing conflict into something of a comedy.

As Bond says in his introduction:

There is a quarrel and even a struggle with a knife – but Len continues to try to understand and help. The

next scene starts with him stretched on the floor with the knife in his hand and the old man comes in

dressed as a ghost. But neither of them is dead. The only sensible object in defeating an enemy is to make

him your friend.

Critical response / productions

‘It is not often in that hardened audience you hear the cry “Revolting” and “Dreadful” and the smack of

seats vacated, but you did last night.’ Daily Mail

As previously discussed, Saved was first staged at the Royal Court Theatre, London in 1965 as a ‘members

only’ private performance. William Gaskill’s direction focused on ensuring that the detail and ‘delicacy’ in

Bond’s script was absolutely adhered to. The play would have to wait until 1984 before being revived in

London, once again at the Royal Court, directed by Danny Boyle – a performance that Bond disliked: ‘They

didn’t understand it at all, how it’s structured, how it works, what it’s saying.’ Over the years, Bond has

Drama | Saved 7
 Saved
Edward Bond

developed a reputation for being challenging to collaborate with. The Court’s then artistic director, Max

Stafford-Clark, described him as ‘simply the most difficult person I have worked with in 40 years’.

The next major revival of Saved in London was

at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in November

2011, directed by Sean Holmes. The riots that

had recently taken place in August certainly

chimed with the disturbing images of violence

and disaffected youth in Saved. “Even before

the events of August, the way the play looks at

society and what the play saw in society in 1965

is even more prevalent and obvious now. There’s

a deep contemporariness in Saved which I think is another good reason for doing it.” (Sean Holmes).

The Independent commented, ‘…the progression of scenes, performed against a stark white backdrop

with the actors as stage hands, has a patience and deliberation that grants each of them an equal weight.

The episode in which a gang of youths stone an abandoned baby in its pram is presented here with an

extraordinary feel for the sickening rhythms whereby puerile joshing escalates to frenzied nihilism.’

Stark, minimalist staging seems to have been

the successful formula for staging Saved over the

years. Suggestions of rooms, brick walls, a park

bench and a marooned wooden rowing boat

and abandoned pram set on a bare stage add an

austere visual imagery that is in keeping with the

bleakness of the lives of the characters. Directors

and actors should experiment with the use of

stage space to explore proxemics and different

audience relationships. For example, Gaskill’s original performance at the Royal Court imaginatively

placed Len and Fred standing downstage, casting their fishing rods over the front of the stage and out

into the audience.

Drama | Saved 8
 Saved
Edward Bond

Saved is considered by many as one of the most important plays in British theatrical history. Some might

consider this ironic, bearing in mind the relatively few times it has been staged. Perhaps this is where its

importance lies. Saved’s visceral, brutal poetic beauty has not been over exposed; it still feels as if it has

something to say fifty years on.

“Saved is not a play for children but it is for grown-ups, and the grown-ups of this country should have the

courage to look at it”, Sir Laurence Olivier.

First steps into the text…

Below are some ideas related to key scenes in the play Saved. These are intended to inspire exploration

and are in no way prescriptive. Detailed practical approaches to the text can be found in the ‘Eduqas

Drama and Theatre A Level Guide’.

Each element – i.e. acting, directing and designing – can be covered simultaneously in the study and

practical exploration of scenes from the play. This will enable learners to have prepared ideas for all the

elements which will appear in Section A or B of the examination.

Context

The knowledge of the genre, practitioners to apply, as well as social, economic and historical context will

apply to all answers to some degree in the examination. If learners relate them closely to the text, their

relevance is heightened.

The historical context of the play gives learners an insight into the morally bereft environment

of the characters. In a post War UK, where atrocities have been experienced over a prolonged time,

a desensitisation has taken over. The physical deprivation of War has led to a cultural and emotional

neglect witnessed in the behaviour of the characters. This does not excuse the behaviour and atrocities

perpetrated by the characters but perhaps goes some way in providing context for them. The contrast of

the generations and emergence of the teenager as a separate individual might lead learners to consider

what the world holds for this new generation?

Drama | Saved 9
 Saved
Edward Bond

The play’s 13 episodic scenes take place chronologically between a small number of different locations

in the park, the living room of Harry and Mary’s house, Len’s bedroom, a cell and a café. By placing the

scene of extreme violence in the middle of the play (Scene Six), this act does not become the climax of the

play. The audience have to re-immerse themselves back into the lives of the characters after this terrible

crime. Bond chooses to end the play with a scene played out in near silence. Reportedly during rehearsals

in 1965, Gaskill approached Bond to write the words for the scene because he thought it wasn’t finished.

Bond insisted that the scene had to be silent, Len’s act of remaining with the family and rebuilding the

chair becoming the optimistic coda of the play. Learners might explore the structure of the play in terms

of how this effect might be created.

Acting
• Practical exploration of the text will help learners to form their own opinions about the

characters at different stages in the play.

• The specific rehearsal techniques used by practitioners and theatre companies the learners

are familiar with can be used to explore acting style, subtext and the motivation of the characters.

For example, the ‘objective’ of the character of Len might be considered. He doesn’t choose to

break out of his world but chooses to stay in the life he has. The exploration of the characters

of Mary and Harry through improvisation. Perhaps learners might improvise stages of their

relationship from its beginning to the time of the play to establish how it has ended up as it

appears in the play.

• Physical and vocal experimentation in the building of a role and relationships can be

influenced by live theatre productions seen during the course. This will help learners to develop

opinions and personal responses to the performance demands of any text, including Saved. The

language used by the characters clearly identifies their social and economic background – learners

might explore how to achieve this. The lack of genuine affection between characters might also

affect decisions learners make about the use of physical skills.

• Close text work from Saved to prepare monologue or duologue technique and performance

skills will give learners the opportunity to use subject specific vocabulary about vocal and physical

Drama | Saved 10
 Saved
Edward Bond

performance skills. Familiarity with and use of this vocabulary is expected in the written responses

in the examination. The quick-fire, short and dense language exchanges are as challenging

for performers as getting to grips with the psychological interpretation of their characters. In

the dialogue, phrases and images loop and shoot off in tangents, questions go unanswered or

avoided, and the dramatic action can appear domestic, capturing the nondescript trivia of day to

day life. Learners might explore how the pacing of the short sentences used by Bond might be

delivered.

• Live theatre productions, seen as part of the course, will provide helpful examples of acting

skills at work, which can be referred to by learners in Section B. These observations also help

learners to make similar or different creative choices throughout their study of the text.

Directing

For the purposes of the examination, directing refers to the work done with actors in terms of movement

and positioning in the space, in rehearsal and in performance.

• Performance style. This might refer to the original style of performance or one that learners

have applied to the text in their own experimentation with it. For example, learners might choose

to highlight the violence of the scenes by the actors adopting an exaggerated and Artaudian

influence to their performance and what meaning and impact this might have on an audience.

• Movement and positioning in the performance space. As well as the placement of actors

in relation to one another, this might also cover where they enter and exit the stage and the

characters’ relationship with the audience. There are many stage directions in the play, and

often actions take place without dialogue. For example, learners might explore the movement

and action of Mary in Scene Four (P34-35), where she moves in and out of the scene and her

adjustment of the TV. Scene Thirteen has no dialogue but stage directions focusing on Len fixing

the chair. Learners might consider why this scene is in silence and how these actions should be

performed.

Drama | Saved 11
 Saved
Edward Bond

• Interactions between characters through reaction and response in the space. The pacing

and rhythm of the scene might be considered in conveying this relationship, as well as the reaction

to the arrival of new characters and how they change the dynamic of a scene. The physical

interactions that take place are forced or violent in some way, so learners might want to consider

the impact of these moments and how this is conveyed to an audience.

• Rehearsal techniques. These should refer closely to the technique used, its reason and intention,

and the success of its use in achieving the aim. For example, the action of Scene Six (P63- 72)

builds in intensity and violence. Learners may choose to explore the positioning of the characters

and the moments that trigger and intensify their violence through the use of physical theatre

techniques.

• Live theatre productions, seen as part of the course, will provide helpful examples of directing

skills at work, which can be referred to by learners in Section B. These observations also help

learners to make similar or different creative choices throughout their study of the text.

Design

The Design element covers set and props, hair and make-up, costume, lighting and sound. The questions

in the examination will clearly state which skill area(s) are required in the response.

• Production Style. Reference to the original production style and context will inform the learners’

ideas. In some cases, this will be a faithful rendition of the style, their own ideas or a different

style completely. In both cases, justification of this concept in terms of their wider knowledge of

the play, themes, relevance and intended impact upon a contemporary audience are required. In

Section B, the influence of live theatre must be referred to in justification of their ideas.

• Hair and Make-up. Ideas might include the use of colour and make-up and hair techniques to

convey the period, age and status of the character(s). The use of techniques in the creation of

prostheses and elaborate hair pieces and wigs, body make-up and light reacting colours might be

explored. Learners will need to give reasons for the choices of these ideas and connection to the

given / chosen scene(s) is essential. In Section B, the influence of live theatre must be referred to

Drama | Saved 12
 Saved
Edward Bond

in justification of their ideas. The detail of hair and make-up may contrast with the condition of

the locations in which they live. Learners might use the fashion of ‘Mods’, for example, to identify

a gang.

• Costume. Reference to the original performance and other productions might provide a starting

point for costume ideas. The techniques a costume designer might use to create character, status,

age and to convey meaning to an audience should be explored. This might be achieved by the

choice of historical period, use of fabric texture, colour, silhouette of the design and the intended

use by the actor in the given/chosen scene(s). In Section B, the influence of live theatre must be

referred to in justification of their ideas.

• Set and props. This refers to the study and discussion of various performance spaces and their

suitability for the text and how other productions have been designed for their chosen space.

The production style, location, mood and atmosphere of the given / chosen scene(s) might be

created through the use of levels, positioning of exits and entrances, the proximity of the set

to the audience, and whether set pieces are fixed or able to be moved automatically or by the

actors. Learners will consider the use of large props to dress the scene, and the colour, period and

significance of these in terms of the scene and in conveying a meaning to the audience. Learners

might choose to locate the play in a non-specific dystopian world to highlight the lack of hope and

aspiration felt by the characters. The set might be very minimal in a multi-use stage space littered

with rubbish and the detritus of life. In Section B, the influence of live theatre must be referred to

in justification of their ideas.

• Lighting design. The techniques used by a lighting designer to convey location, mood, atmosphere

and meaning to an audience might include the use of colour, different types of lighting, positioning

of lights and their intensity, use of effects lights, and length of the lighting cue. The use of

technology through projection and animated visual effects are considered part of the creation

of this visual element. Learners might consider how the escalating violence of Scene Six could be

achieved or enhanced through the use of lighting or projection. For example, learners might use

moving visual images of war and cruelty that merge into a blend of various colours that appear to

incite the group’s anger and violence. In Section B, the influence of live theatre must be referred

Drama | Saved 13
 Saved
Edward Bond

to in justification of their ideas.

• Sound design. The techniques used by a sound designer to convey location, mood and

atmosphere, change in dynamics and rhythm of a scene, and their impact upon an audience

might include the use of different types of sound, placement of speakers, intensity, length of the

cue and changes between sound states, manipulation of sound through software, and the looping

of sound in performance. Learners might consider the noise of the TV, what type of programmes

are being watched and how can they be cued and manipulated to add meaning to the audience.

For example, in Scene Eleven, learners might use canned laughter from the TV when Harry trips

over the chair or when Mary ‘empties his cup on the floor’. The use of sound effects here breaks the

tension by the exaggerating the ridiculousness of their passive aggressive behaviour. In Section B,

the influence of live theatre must be referred to in justification of their ideas.

Drama | Saved 14
 Saved
Edward Bond

Acknowledgements

Header & page 8: ©Alastair Muir

Page 8: ©Donald Cooper/Photostage

Drama | Saved 15