The Tobacco Merchant's Lawyer

In his chamber on Virginia Street in late 18th century Glasgow, sits an aging lawyer. Dressed in his nightgown and cap, Enoch Dalmellington begins his gently comic monologue – a ramble through Scottish history, predictions of modernity and his own misfortune.

But Dalmellington is an unreliable narrator. His story is one of blind, bumbling foolishness which leads him to fall firstly under the spell of, then more seriously, into the debt of a wicked tobacco merchant – yet it is told with the confident vanity of the ignoramus. This is a character who cannot see the light for his own pomposity. But Dalmellington is much darker than his subservient fawning and gentle wit would suggest – indeed, his actions as events progress speak to an altogether more villanous disposition. His pursuit of his own self-interest with little care or even acknowledgement of the consequences borders on evil.

Where this production really falls down is in its failure to address these moral implications. As Dalmellington becomes darker, he is conveyed with as much sympathy and joiviality as when he was merely a pathetic victim of circumstance. His villany is banal and played for laughs rather than subjected to any sort of examination and thus The Tobacco Merchant's Lawyer feels flimsy and throwaway. Whether this is the product of John Bett's cuddly performance, or a script a little too satisfied with its lyrical density, this production of Iain Heggie's satire seems to have little to say. Unfortunately, it's a little too staid and, crucially, insufficiently funny to get away with it.