Black Sabbath perform the last song of the band's final tour
Black Sabbath: The Ballet writer Richard Thomas has lifted the lid on the show, which is set to begin at London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre on Wednesday, in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk.
Featuring participation from Ozzy’s wife Sharon Osbourne and input from his guitarist bandmate Tony Iommi, the show will tell of the group’s career through a mixture of ballet dance, spoken word and of course Black Sabbath music – but sadly, viewers won’t see any bat-biting antics during the show.
Richard confessed: “I think it’s been a source of annoyance with Black Sabbath members that we didn’t include the biting the head off the bat!
“[However, the incident] happened after Black Sabbath, so we have no bat-biting incidents whatsoever. There’s no reference to bats!”
He added that some of the members had told him the jaw-dropping real-life moment by Ozzy is “often cited as a Black Sabbath incident when it wasn’t really”.
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In fact, it took place back in the 1980s on Ozzy’s own Diary of a Madman tour, just weeks before guitarist Randy Rhoads died in a tragic plane crash in Florida.
The moment, which went down in heavy metal history, left Ozzy, now 74, requiring rabies shots after allegedly feeling the bat twitch in his mouth.
“Somebody threw a bat onstage and I thought it was one of these toy bats, so I picked it up, bit the thing’s head off and suddenly everybody is freaking out,” he cringed to David Letterman afterwards, as he relived the mishap.
“I can assure you the rabies shots I went through afterwards aren’t fun.”
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Although that would be one of the well-known moments in Black Sabbath history, Richard insists that London theatre-goers “won’t really miss it” this week as “some of the [other] stories are so great”.
He revealed: “There are whole sections [of the ballet] that are devoted to the band, when they went down the world of the rabbit hole of alcohol and drugs, resulting in Ozzy getting sacked.”
Ozzy’s verdict, delivered in his trademark blunt style, was damning: “That’s a s*** idea! Ballet? Black Sabbath? It’s s***!”
Yet while he might not have been too enthused by the pairing of metal and classic ballet, Sharon – who had once trained as a dancer in her youth – “loved it”.
In fact, she features in the show herself, with Richard explaining: “[The plot] is a mixture of archive footage, and then present day Sharon talking about [Ozzy and the band]… audiences seem to really be loving it.”
Sharon was present at opening night in Birmingham last month, and while there’s no news on whether she’ll be attending the London premiere too, Richard has no doubt that she’s a huge fan of what he, director Carlos Acosta and the other team members have created.
Commenting that Sharon trained to be a dancer in times gone by herself, he exclaimed: “She acted in [the ballet], and she stole the show and absolutely loved it.”
Richard also raved about the input of Tony Iommi, whose heart-stopping moment of losing his fingertips in an industrial accident was also covered in the story, branding him “hugely important” in bringing the show to life.
“Getting the rights to use some of those iconic Black Sabbath hits was a huge achievement in itself!” he exclaimed.
Black Sabbath: The Ballet’s London premiere can be seen on Wednesday October 18, at Sadler’s Wells Theatre.
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