Bond Plays: 3

This collected volume contains three plays which continue Edward Bond's exploration of themes from Shakespeare and other classical authors. Bingo puts Shakespeare himself on stage in a critical account of the writer and Stratford landowner's final days. The Fool is based on the life and madness of the 19th-century working-class poet John Clare and The Woman is set at the end of the Trojan War with Hecuba as a main character, but instead of offering a resolution its Tempest-like second half defines the nature of social conflict. All three plays deal with the origins of the tensions of the modern world. Also included is Stone, a one-act parable of oppression.

Edward Bond is "a great playwright - many, particularly in continental Europe, would say the greatest living English playwright" (Independent)