Hull Freedom Festival returns with extended nine-day run

The festival features both indoor and outdoor events with something for "all to enjoy"

An arts festival which celebrates Hull's links with anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce begins later.

The Freedom Festival offers a programme of ticketed and free street theatre, art and music at indoor and outdoor locations across the city.

Artistic director Mikey Martin said the festival was the "perfect way" to bring people back together again.

Extended to nine days the event runs until 4 September.

Mr Martin said the festival offered a chance for people "to experience extraordinary world class and unique performances, exhibitions, discussions about what really matters, it really is a festival like no other".

"It's been a tricky couple of years for all, and we believe a festival like ours with so many different experiences, access points and ways on enjoying this kind of programme is truly for all to enjoy," he added.

Over 350 individual performers, artists, musicians, and creatives will perform across the festival.

This year's line-up includes artists such as Australia's Gravity and Other Myths, Cie L'Homme Debout from France and a collaborative performance with Portishead's Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp's Will Gregory.

Local artists performing include gig-theatre group Middle Child and post-punk rockers LIFE.

The festival was first established in 2007 to mark the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 which prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire.

Originally a two-day event it was extended to five-days in 2019. Coronavirus restrictions saw the 2020 event cancelled and replaced with an online event.