AN exhibition telling of the early days of music hall theatre in Darlington has opened ahead of a guided historical walk around the town and a world premiere of a show about a North-East music hall legend.

The exhibition shows how variety entertainment was top of the pops in late Victorian times, and Darlington had several spit and sawdust venues in the back rooms of pubs and in marquees and barns before proper theatres were built. On Tuesday, a guided walk will wander around the town centre, looking at some of those venues and telling some of the stories of those rowdy times.

Joe Wilson was a classic music hall act. He was known in the 1870s as “the Bard of Tyneside”, and the world premiere of a show about his life is held at the Darlington Hippodrome next Thursday.

“He was extremely popular right across the North-East – he was famous in Stockton, Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor as well as Tyneside,” says Lynda Winstanley, who has curated the new exhibition at the Darlington Hippodrome.

“He rose from humble beginnings to become a superstar of his day, and his lyrics dealt with the social issues of his time – domestic violence, the relationships between workers and industrialists – which are still relevant today.

“However, music hall acts weren’t very well paid, and it was customary for them to end their stay in a town with a benefit night where they kept the takings on the door.

“When Joe played Bishop Auckland in 1865, the theatre proprietors made off with all the proceeds of his benefit night.”

Music hall acts were helped on the road to stardom by the growth of the railway network which enabled them to tour, and Wilson played at Darlington’s Theatre Royal in Northgate several times in the late 1860s.

His final appearance in the town was in a barn theatre on the Green Tree Fields behind Skinnergate in 1874 a few months before his death from TB at the early age of 33 in Newcastle.

His story has been brought to life by playwright Ed Waugh, who is perhaps best known for his show about the West Auckland World Cup winners, Alf Ramsay Knew My Grandfather.

The opening night of The Great Joe Wilson will be attended by Wilson’s great-grand-daughter, Kasandra van Keith, who is coming from Canada for the occasion.

Tuesday’s walk will meet at 6.45pm on the corner of Skinnergate and Blackwellgate. It has been organised by Darlington Culture Volunteers, and will be led by the Echo’s historian, Chris Lloyd. Folk musician Dave Myers will play a couple of Wilson’s songs, and it will end at the Hippodrome with a chance to meet the cast of the show and to see the new exhibition.. The cost is £4.50.

The Great Joe Wilson runs at the Hippodrome from Thursday, September 6 to Saturday, September 8, before going to Playhouse Whitley Bay (Sept 11), Sage Gateshead (Sept 12), Alun Armstrong Theatre (formerly Stanley Civic Hall) (Sept 13) and the Westovian Theatre, South Shields (Sept 14 and 15).

Tickets for the Darlington show start at £12. For further details visit darlingtonhippodrome.co.uk or call 01325-405405.

l Don’t miss Echo Memories on Saturday for more on the great Joe Wilson and one of his appearances in Darlington.