Eccentric Mole with strange tunnel vision

Jul 18 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

WHAT sort of man was Joseph Williamson, the 19th-century eccentric who employed men to build a series of pointless tunnels under the streets of Liverpool?

It is a question due to be answered at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre tomorrow when a new production of Liverpool writer Karen Brown’s drama The King of Edge Hill goes on stage.

The drama was first staged five years ago at the Unity but has been revived by First Break, the theatre company from the Kensington area of Liverpool which gives writers and performers their first break.

Two of the original cast – familiar television faces Sean McKee and Julie Glover – are back in this production directed by actress/ director Sylvie Gattrell.

It is a new venture for the company which usually presents original work with new writers (Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels’ writer Dave Kirby was one).

“It is the first time we have done anything on this scale,” says Ms Gattrell. “It is a period drama with 30 scenes and covers 20 years of Williamson’s life after his marriage to Elizabeth Tate.”

Williamson – also known as The Mole of Edge Hill – was a working-class man who inherited his well-to-do wife’s money and used some of it to employ men returning from the Napoleonic Wars to dig tunnels.

Williamson’s life was nothing if not colourful, explains Ms Gattrell. “He came from humble beginnings and his mother was a whore, who did not charge, apparently.

“Williamson’s marriage was not consummated and his friend Milton seduced Elizabeth on his own wedding day. Williamson also had a whore throughout most of his marriage.

“Today he would be termed a manic depressive, and probably on medication, but in those days when you were rich and powerful you could be as eccentric as you liked. He was generous but could not bear people getting something for nothing, which is why he had them building these tunnels.

“Originally, his workers worshipped him but they ended up terrified of him, thinking that the way he was digging down and down meant that he was in league with the devil.”

Sean McKee, one of Jimmy McGovern’s favourite actors, is playing Williamson, while Julie Glover is his well-born wife, Elizabeth Tate.

Among those getting breaks in the show are Jane Radley, playing Elizabeth’s friend Mary, and Shaun Mason as Williamson’s smarmy friend Milton. However, both will be playing other characters, too. “This is a production which will allow them to show off their full range,” says Ms Gattrell.

Mason was in Brookside. “But TV can put you in one box and a play like this in which he also plays a hilarious vicar and a member of the hunting set will allow him to show just what he can do.”

THE King of Edge Lane opens at the Unity Theatre tomorrow, at 8pm, and runs until Saturday.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk