Your Morality is Violence

Abstract

Edward Bond made the following entry dated 2 July 1970 in his notebook: ‘In a capitalist society, crime makes an honest man of you’ (Bond, 2000c, p. 106). In this chapter I shall explore a series of plays spanning from 1971 to 1981, through which Bond revisited aspects of Britain’s social, cultural and political past. It is possible that Bond aimed to investigate and expose the political conflicts and sea change of what was a tumultuous period of social and economic upheaval. This is not, however, to offer a deductive and narrowly singular reading of these complex and important plays. The four plays that constitute the narrative spine of this chapter therefore are, in chronological order, Lear (1971), Bingo: Scenes of Money and Death (1973), The Fool: Scenes of Bread and Love (1975) and Restoration (1981).