Saved (Modern Classics)

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In Len’s case, we cannot readily propose that a situational factor or a nervous system response played roles in his inaction since we have no evidence for either factor. Certainly, the Times's Irving Wardle retracted his criticisms in 1966, admitting: "What really got to me was that these people spoke like urban cavemen. After a little while they become more aware of Fred’s presence, who, though one of the gang, is also known to be the child’s father. Yet, Freud finds key links between religion, civilization, and violence which help us to better understand Saved.

Bond as playwright, Selby as actor, and Len as character, all focus on distinct aspects of the doomed child. Len’s courage is not visible during the park incident but surfaces instead in his daily persistence to make things better, – “I’m tryin’ t’ ‘elp!The revival cast included: Malcolm Tierney (as Len), Kenneth Cranham (as Fred), Patricia Franklin (as Pam), Queenie Watts (as Mary), Tom Chadbon, Peter Blythe, John Barrett and William Gaskill was the director.

A deprived society offers no future and bad parenting offers no protection and bad governments don’t care. Len feels a sexual attraction to Mary, Pam's mother, and flirts with her; she is flattered, but doesn't act on it. We are pre-warned in Scene 3 that at least one of the play’s characters is capable of violence against children and, at the time, his friends treat this as joke material. Bond’s primary objective in this scene was not particularly to communicate a sense of horror, but to show the easy escalation with which violence can occur, and for this to work on stage the audience must experience some form of genuine alarm.

Watching Holmes rehearse the play, what's striking is the vivid modernity of the characters' voices. The audience are invited to surmise that the male characters are stymied by the lack of opportunity on the labour market, but the reason for the female characters’ malaise is less clear. Photograph: Copyright Zoe Dominic Shocking … (back row from left) Dennis Waterman, Ronald Pickup and Tony Selby in the original production of Edward Bond's Saved.