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1 item from 2011

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Saved; The Phoenix of Madrid; Iphigenia – review

14 October 2011 11:00 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Lyric Hammersmith, London; Theatre Royal Bath

People go to Saved thinking they know what they will see. They've been told often enough. A baby is stoned to death in a park by a group of youths; a middle-aged woman has her stocking provocatively darned (she's inside it: 'You watch where yer pokin') by her daughter's young admirer. These are the scenes that caused Edward Bond's play to be banned by the Lord Chamberlain in 1965; these are the scenes that have made it famous.

Yet in Sean Holmes's superb production, the play looks less simply confrontational and rebarbative than the stoning suggests. It is intricate, far-reaching and believable. Intervening history – the killing of James Bulger, the Baby P case – may have added to its credibility, but its real force isn't adventitious. The horror begins to look inevitable.

The action uncurls with a series of terrible small blows. A young mother »

- Susannah Clapp

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1 item from 2011

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