Ballet and heavy metal may not be an obvious pairing, but that's the mash-up fans will be getting when Black Sabbath - The Ballet opens later this year.
The brainchild of Birmingham Royal Ballet director Carlos Acosta and the band's Tony Iommi, the ballet will premiere in Birmingham in September.
It will feature eight Black Sabbath tracks plus new music inspired by them.
Iommi told Radio 4's Today he hopes the "rags to riches" tale will attract "both our fans and ballet fans".
Acosta told the programme he had been a big fan of the band since a friend introduced him to their music around the year 2000.
I'm not sure if this is terrible idea (the Sabbath tracks will be reorchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia) but Black Sabbath - The Ballet is a terrible name. Why not just Black Sabbath?
This full-evening ballet promises to be a unique undertaking with three composers and three choreographers, led by renowned Choreographer Pontus Lidberg (whose work has been performed by the Swedish Royal Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet) and Composer Chris Austin (whose work includes orchestrating the White Stripes music for Wayne McGregor’s Chroma) working alongside award-winning writer Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer, The Opera) to create an extraordinary metal symphony over three acts. Black Sabbath themselves have been closely involved in developing this unique collaboration.
Three composers and three choreographers sounds to me like a hot mess. But we'll see. Pontus Lidberg is a potentially interesting choice.
The company have also recently announced the launch of BRB2.
BRB2 is a new initiative where BRB pro-actively seeks out some of the best young ballet graduates from around the world to join a two-year performance programme, providing vital employment for the next generation of exceptional ballet dancers (aged 18-22) to transition from training into jobs at BRB or other leading ballet companies, impacting the dance sector worldwide.
This fundamentally seems like a terrific idea but it seems a shame that the programme for their inaugural tour is an Acosta-selected (naturally, it is literally his job) mixed bag of (mostly) classical set pieces - pas de deux etc. There looks to be around ten pieces in the programme, which is a horrible idea (in my opinion). A curate's egg, anyone?
Neither show is coming to Manchester / Salford, by the way.