Sierz notes "the key play" of this season being "Blasted" by Sarah Kane. Sierz says that "one of the lynchpin moments of the 1990s was the script meeting The Royal Court that decided to stage Sarah Kane’s "Blasted". Although promoting new writing was a deliberate policy, this meeting might have chosen to pass on "Blasted", and the history of the rest of the decade might have been so very different." When "Blasted" premiered some critics were so offended by the play's depiction of horrors (including physical violence, defecation, rape and cannibalism) that they contacted news outlets to voice their outrage. This caused a media frenzy which resulted in the play being at "the centre of the biggest scandal to theatre since Mary Whitehouse tried to close Howard Brenton’s "The Romans in Britain" in 1981." Sierz says that "Within days after its opening […] "Blasted" became the most talked about play for years, the hottest show in town. Pretty soon, it became clear that it would be the most notorious play of the decade". Sierz also states that "the resulting media furore of the shocking content and unsettling form of the play put British new writing on the map", with the controversy becoming a "significant cultural moment" and that with "Blasted" "a new exciting sensibility arrived". While away "on a fundraising trip to New-York" Daldry was called back to England "to appear on Newsnight and The World at One" to defend the play amid the controversy. Sierz says that with this "Daldry realised his new role. When he defended , he was also defending himself and rediscovering the Court's mission. The noise of controversy told him that provocation was the right method: as well as brining in new audiences, it renewed his sense of identity. As the Court rediscovered its roots as a controversial theatre, Daldry became the impresario if in-yer-face drama."