EnoughOfHim is being produced as Part of the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights Black History Month 2020 programme. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Building into the characterisation an additional form of entrapment and servitude for Wedderburn’s wife, Margaret, and of House Servant Annie Thompson find themselves; make no mistake, this is Knight’s tale, but the players who find themselves casualties of this game take no inconsequential part.

Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Knight has formed an enduring friendship with his master, which is not to the liking of Wedderburn’s young wife, who feels increasingly neglected. Encircling on Knight, whose struggle with owner Wedderburn went on to stamp legal history when Knight won his freedom: but freedom is more complex than physical bondage.Assistant Professor May Sumbwanyambe, who teaches on the Creative Writing MA and English Literature and Creative Writing BA (Hons) courses at Northumbria, said: “As a country, we are educated on the part we played towards ending slavery, but we aren’t always taught about how we contributed to its existence. To learn more about this, please read our Privacy Policy , which applies to our use of your personal data, and our Privacy Policy for Contacts , which applies to the use of your personal data by the owner of the newsroom you follow.

A confrontational, intelligent, and harrowing openness to engage and preserve weaves Knight’s history so deftly through the remainder of the cast without diluting the intensity or rhythm of the script and is mesmeric to watch – both in its discomfort and moments of exultant solace. He also reached the final round of Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award (2011) and won the BBC’s inaugural Scriptroom competition (2012). All information (whether in text or photographs) is supplied in good faith but should not be relied upon as being a statement of representation or fact. And both the BBC and The Times have named the play in their lists of shows you won’t want to miss in 2020/Cultural Highlights of the year to come. And though tremendous amounts are conveyed with Pidgeon’s fragile, yet powerfully repulsive presence, John Pfumojena’s design makes full use of its minimalism; there is no escape for those finding despair.Whilst in Scotland, Knight falls in love with Annie, a young Scottish servant working in the household. 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). The corrupting impact of slavery extends to the housemaid Annie (Catriona Faint), whose status in this fraught household is lower than that of Knight, her future husband. Enough Of Him is just one of a suite of plays Sumbwanyambe has in mind about Scotland’s forgotten history. Excellently staged and directed, it focuses on the emotional connections and struggles of the main characters.

The play explores the true story of Joseph Knight, an African man who famously freed himself through the Scottish courts in the late 18th century after being enslaved by a plantation owner in Scotland. In 1778, Joseph Knight persuaded the courts he should be free to leave the employment of John Wedderburn. The thing that has shocked me is it’s been relatively easy to chart out the stories of black men and their allyship with white working-class women, because they are there in the archives, but with black women, their lives haven’t appeared to be important enough even to record.Omar Austin brings a degree of stature and pride to the role of Joseph, with Matthew Pidgeon lording it around in a range of emotions as Sir John. It is discussed in the Oxford Companion to Black British History (2007), while Joseph Knight has gained an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. I don’t believe human beings have changed so much that there wouldn’t have been some kind of post trauma. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Their intimacy makes you wonder whether it accounts for Wedderburn’s sexual dysfunction with his exasperated wife, Margaret (Rachael-Rose McLaren).

It makes use of the Pitlochry Studio gallery, taking the painstaking time to ensure Austin the ability to wander his eye throughout the ‘court’ as the onlookers, both audience and jury in some respects, make their choice where to look; but the least they can do is hold Austin’s gaze. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Read more about the condition New: An item that is still in its original shrink wrap from the manufacturer and the original manufacturer’s seal (if applicable) has not been removed. Enough of Him received the award for Best New Play at the 2023 UK Theatre Awards as well as both Best Production and Best New Play at the 2023 Critic’s Award for Theatre in Scotland.Join us for a special screening of the National Theatre of Scotland’s performance of the award-winning play Enough of Him. The National Theatre of Scotland has described the play as a compelling domestic drama and a thrilling exploration of the dynamics of power: between slaves and free men, servants and masters, and husbands and wives. They will explore the lives of Black people in Scotland during the period 1919 – 1939 as well as working class white women – both of whom are fighting against patriarchal structures. Instead, his National Theatre Of Scotland play Enough Of Him brings together four people in an uneasy status game.