The extraordinary tale of the slave who freed himself – in Scotland

In this Black History Month, the National Theatre of Scotland, in co-production with Pitlochry Festival Theatre, premieres Enough of Him, May Sumbwanyambe’s play about Joseph Knight, the West African slave who freed himself in the 1770s. Following an initial defeat in a lower court, Knight won his appeal at the Sheriff Court in Perth, which established that slavery had no basis in Scots law.

Set at Ballindean – the Perthshire mansion of Knight’s “owner” Sir John Wedderburn, whose fortune was made in the sugar plantations of Jamaica – this is a powerful and pungent 80 minutes of drama. Sumbwanyambe is simultaneously sophisticated and direct in his characterisation, not only of Knight and Wedderburn, but also of Wedderburn’s wife, Margaret, and of Annie Thompson, the servant at Ballindean who would become Knight’s lover and, ultimately, his wife. Through a succession of brilliantly wrought, interlocking scenes between all four characters, we see just how profoundly the two men have been affected by their experience of the brutal slave-owning society in the Caribbean.

Knight’s desire to be free is stronger than his residual sense of loyalty to his nominal “master”, while Wedderburn’s craving for an heir to his fortune is complicated by his inability to overcome the sexual sadism of his relations with enslaved African women (or “bed-warmers”, as he calls them) in Jamaica. The emotional and psychological implications of this are expressed brilliantly in a remarkable scene in which Wedderburn is persuaded by his wife to explain his inability to perform his conjugal duties. This extraordinary passage – which combines the unflinching clarity of the historian CLR James with the bold sexual expression of filmmaker David Lynch – is typical of the play’s captivating potency.

Omar Austin’s beautifully balanced Knight (haunted, witty, clever and sympathetic) is matched by an equally complex Wedderburn (played with a fragile sense of entitlement and a self-destroying rage by Matthew Pidgeon). Rachael-Rose McLaren’s Margaret Wedderburn, meanwhile, is appropriately severe-yet-tentative, though Cartriona Faint’s Annie Thompson has all the bitterness, but too little of the warmth that her character requires.

Director Orla O’Loughlin’s drum-tight production boasts minimalist design by Fred Meller. The set is dominated by a Scottish landscape painting that can, when required, radiate the horror of slavery in Jamaica: through technical ingenuity, the picture is transformed from naturalistic pastoralism to a glowing red abstraction. Composer John Pfumojena’s music draws upon the sounds of African percussion, most notably in a memorable arrangement of the famous Scottish folk song, The Parting Glass. 

All in all, Enough of Him is a work of searing theatrical imagination and undeniable humanism. It marks a high point in Scottish historical playwriting.

At Pitlochry Festival Theatre until Oct 29, then touring. Tickets: 01796 484 626; pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com