New play honours music hall hero from Victorian era
Following the success of last year’s critically acclaimed Mr Corvan’s Music Hall, and the London and Newcastle Theatre Royal sell-out hit Hadaway Harry, it’s now the turn of Joe Wilson to be celebrated on stage by North East playwright Ed Waugh.
During his illustrious career as a concert hall superstar in the region, Joe Wilson was a hero on Wearside and would regularly perform in front of 4,000 people at the Wear Music Hall in Sunderland.
One of Wilson’s songs, The Lads of the Wear, celebrated Sunderland’s achievements and was written to support striking engineers in 1871 as shipbuilders and iron workers fought successfully for a nine-hour working day.
It’s one of a number of songs by Wilson that will be performed in The Great Joe Wilson, which deals with his rise to regional superstar fame via the famed Balmbra’s music hall in Newcastle in December 1864 to his death through TB in 1875, aged only 33.
A prolific lyricist, Wilson left behind 360 great poems and songs.
Ed explained: “Joe Wilson, who was known as ‘The Bard of Tyneside’, lived a fascinating life. Like Ned Corvan before him, Joe wrote about working class life. And like Dylan, Paul Weller, Ray Davies and Alan Hull, he could encapsulate a fantastic story is a few verses.”
Another of his popular songs was The Sunderland Trip.
A superstar in the burgeoning in- dustrial centres of the North East in the late-1860s, he was a regular at The WearinDruryLane(offHighStreetEast) throughout his illustrious career. Reports say he played to capacity crowds and was constantly encored.
“Imagine playing in a venue that held twice as many people as today’s Sunderland Empire, and with no amplification!” said Ed.
The Great Joe Wilson, a play with songs, is a co-production with the 1,000-seat Hippodrome Theatre in Darlington and will tour from Thursday, September 6, until Saturday, September 15, calling at Sage Gateshead, Playhouse Whitley Bay, the Alun Armstrong Theatre, Stanley, and the Westovian Theatre, South Shields.
For dates and ticket information visit: www.wisecrackproductions.co.uk