MIF LIVE continues this week with Re:Creating Europe, an exploration of Europe through the words that have defined its history, directed by prolific theatre director Ivo van Hove. It will be streamed on MIF’s YouTube channel on Friday 1 May, 7.30pm, introduced with a piece specially recorded for this online presentation, written and read by Michael Morpurgo.

Re: Creating Europe weaves together a multi-layered tapestry of words from artists, thinkers and political leaders – from Shakespeare to Goethe, Churchill to Obama – to explore the essence of Europe, and inviting audiences to consider its  past, present and future. This thought-provoking production was originally presented at the Festival in July 2019, with a cast that included Adjoa Andoh, Christopher Eccleston, Lemn Sissay, Juliet Stevenson and Michael Morpurgo, appearing alongside van Hove’s Internationaal Theater Amsterdam on stage at The Lowry in Salford.

Michael Morpurgo says: “I have lived my life in the shadow and aftermath of great European wars, and in the hope and expectation of a new Europe that was rising out of the ashes of war and suffering. I belong to a family of nations learning to work together, trade together, to be together, a family determined to turn swords into ploughshares, suspicion and hate into understanding and goodwill. To have been part of Manchester International Festival’s Re:Creating Europe means a great deal to me, as a Belgian, as an Englishman, as a European.”

Re:Creating Europe is an Internationaal Theater Amsterdam–De Balie production, presented by Manchester International Festival and supported by the Forum on European Culture.

Also this week is the next in the MIF Encounters series of talks and discussions. How Do We Reclaim Our Planet, from MIF19’s Utopia Now summit, is chaired by VICE’s Zing Tsjeng, and features climate justice champion Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in conversation with human rights lawyer Tessa Khan, who has spent a decade building movements for social and economic equality, justice and peace. The discussion will be streamed on Thursday 30 April at 12.30pm.

Supported by MIF’s new artist fund for creative practitioners whose livelihoods are affected by the COVID-19 crisis, the MIF LIVE programme also features a reimagined version of the micro-festival series, Festival in My House. This week is Paying Attention! (Wednesday 29 April, 7.30pm), an online queer literature festival featuring readings from six queer writers in Manchester, working across all forms from poetry to performance and from fiction to theatre. Teaming up in pairs across the course of the evening, poets Frankie Blaus and Roma Havers, writer-performers Mandla Rae and Ella Otomewo, and novelists Okechukwu Nzelu and Rosie Garland will be reading from their work and discussing their practice.

All MIF LIVE shows are being streamed via our YouTube channel.