our time." In 1987, Ray Loynd of Los Angeles Times wrote, "The play’s ending may not chasten you (as intended) but its bleak vision is not easily dismissed." Actor Paul Freeman stated in 1994, "Seeing Saved and Lear changed my life. They said something directly about my world - [Bond's] world too - of surburban London." In a 2001 article for The New York Times, Nightingale lauded the work as "grimly imaginative". Lyn Gardner of The Guardian awarded Jonathan Kent's 2005 production a full five stars, praising the "dazzling directness of Bond's writing" and stating that the production "restores Bond to his place as the greatest of post-war British playwrights." Lynne Walker of The Independent wrote that "Bond's glittering and brittle dialogue is searing in its intensity." Dominic Cavendish argued in The Daily Telegraph that Kent "can't hide the monotonous rhythm of some of the writing, which often steamrollers characters into flattened mouthpieces, but the bleak, barbed comedy is all there". The critic also said that "after a while, we become inured to the grisly spectacle, and more and more aware of the moral force of Bond's writing." Charles Spencer lauded one sequence as an "improvement" on Shakespeare's original sequence due to a "revoltingly ingenious" addition. The Independent's Paul Taylor dubbed Lear a "mighty riposte to Shakespeare's tragedy". References 1971 plays Plays by Edward Bond Plays and musicals based on King Lear