Set in west Hull’s Hessle Road fishing community in the early 1950s, the Earl de Grey: a Hull Folk Opera tells the story of Rita Scarr, her husband Jack and how their precarious lives become intertwined with Ezra, who works at Hull’s infamous house of ill repute, the Earl de Grey.

The folk opera jumps back and forth in time, anchoring in Hull’s post-industrial present before returning to its heady and capricious maritime heyday. Chris Wilson fuses narrative poetry with original song.

The derelict Earl de Grey pub in Chris’s native Hull, Yorkshire, is infamous for its reputation in providing “all a sailor could wish for” and, to quote the legendary singer and war veteran Jim Radford, for once being run by “Hull’s most notorious homosexual gangster”. Built in Georgian times, it has become a local landmark and many Hull families and sailors will still “grin in knowing, in mention of the Grey”.

Doors 7pm, performance 7.30pm-10pm. Bar open afterwards.

Under-18s welcome but the show is not suitable for under-14s. A limited number of concessionary tickets are available for under-16s, OAPs, fulltime students and unemployed people.

Original music and lyrics: Chris Wilson and the London Sea Shanty Collective

Includes original music by Rosie and John Butler of the Hull Folk Collective, and James Eagle and Jess Foster of the London Sea Shanty Collective

Performed by the London Sea Shanty Collective with special guests Rosie and John Butler