A mysterious painting inside a cupboard door in an old pub has inspired a play which builds on its spooky story.

Felix Grainger, one of the writers, who also performs in the dark comedy, said he learned about it while on a ghost tour of Shrewsbury two years ago.

He described the painting in the Nag’s Head as “basically a naked man with a trident standing on some form of fish monster,” but said it was also “quite terrifying”.

The play tells the story of three siblings who inherit the pub and decide to use the painting to bring in customers, with unexpected consequences.

Mr Grainger, from the Make it Beautiful Theatre Company, said the painting which is in a room that used to be reserved for guests at the inn, has “a lot of mystery about it”.

He said no-one knows who painted it, when they painted it, what it depicts or how it came to be at the pub.

He also said: “You can’t stop looking at his hollowed-out eyes, it’s really freaky.”

Mr Grainger said there were stories of “terrible things” happening to guests who had stayed in the room and that it was a “great source for a play”.

He wrote “The Nags Head” with Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson, who also went on that ghost tour of the town two years ago.

Mr Grainger said they found every pub in the town had its own ghost story and the play is inspired by what they learned at the Nag’s Head.

It explores the relationship between the three siblings when they are reunited at their father’s funeral.

The pub is left to them in his will and they try to turn around its fortunes by using the story of the painting to bring in customers.

But Mr Grainger said they find their relationship “unravelling through terror of the painting”.

“I think the painting is so terrifying the story writes itself,” he said.

The play, which was first performed in London in 2023, is coming back to its spiritual home and will be performed at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury 16 to 18 July.

Mark Elliott & Johnty O’Donnell
BBC Radio Shropshire