AS Britons vote on EU membership, a festival in Birmingham will celebrate the best of European theatre.

The BE FESTIVAL will return to the city from June 21 to June 25, and organisers are promising "over twenty electrifying performances from ten European countries, plus live music, exhibitions, workshops, discussions and delicious food".

The spokesman added: "With the European referendum happening in the middle of the festival on June 23, BE FESTIVAL offers an adventurous programme celebrating all that is great about Europe.

"The week-long festival brings together daring and unforgettable new theatre, dance and circus performances from Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany and Slovenia among others." Taking place in the vast set construction workshops at Birmingham Repertory Theatre and other locations in the city, each night of the festival features four short performances and an interval dinner where audiences and artists mingle and eat together.

Festival highlights include a super-sized painting inspired by Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan and created by Spanish artist An Wei on the floor of the city’s Centenary Square; Massive Battleships – a large scale outdoor version of the classic naval guessing game, and Things Easily Forgotten – Xavier Bobés "intimate and sensory journey into Spanish history".

The spokesman added: "Highlights in the main evening theatre programme include the hypnotic and tribalistic In Girum Imus Nocte (Et Consuminur Igni) – which translates as We Go Around At Night Consumed By Fire – by Italian choreographer Roberto Castello and dance company Aldes, and Vacuum by leading Swiss contemporary dance company, Cie Philippe Saire – a piece that generates impossible images and fantastic paintings as bodies appear and disappear between black holes and dazzling lights."

Further information on 0121 236 4455 at at Online Booking: www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

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