which Edgar's main contribution was The End, presented as a Cold War Game in the great hall at Bradford University in March 1972. On the stage, scenes in a nuclear submarine were being played out while in the hall itself Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marchers and various political figures including John F. Kennedy, Hugh Gaitskell and Bertrand Russell, are spending the night in a school hall during their march to Aldermaston. Meanwhile, computer monitors permitted the audience to contribute to the action and the ending varied each evening according to the decisions made by the spectators. During the early 1970s, Bradford had what The Guardian called a "burgeoning fringe scene" which included theatre companies with names like the John Bull Puncture Repair Kit and The Welfare State. Edgar was co-founder of such a group that took the name The General Will Theatre Company which specialised in a "crude and cartoonish" style of political commentary presented with generous dollops of music hall and burlesque for comedic effect. General Will took several of Edgar's works on tour including The National Interest (1971), a series of sketches showing how the mythical concept of 'The National Interest' can be used to justify sacrifices by the many on behalf of the self-interested few; The Rupert Show (1971) a one-act play set in a church during a service conducted by among others a vicar who also plays Superman, Lord Longford and Judge Argyle, the judge in the Oz obscenity trial, which the title mocks, and State of Emergency (1972), which toured with General Will and also appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, all in 1972, was a one-act documentary with songs about industrial resistance to the Conservative government. General Will came to a halt when the only gay member of the company took exception to the heterosexual slant of the material and went on strike in mid-performance. They did, however, lead to Edgar's first foreign premiere. Shortly after the Bloody Sunday shootings in 1972, Edgar collaborated with six friends (Tony Bicat, Brian Clark, Howard Brenton, Francis Fuchs, David Hare and Snoo Wilson) who pretended to be on a walking holiday and booked an isolated country cottage for a week where they sat down and wrote a play together. They took what later came to be termed the "firing squad" approach to playwriting. In a firing squad one member of the