Tony Iommi plays 'Paranoid' at opening night of Black Sabbath: The Ballet – photos & video

Black Sabbath - The Ballet launched at the Birmingham Hippodrome on Saturday night (23rd September) with a surprise guest appearance from Tony Iommi.

To the delight of the 1,850 in attendance at the Birmingham Hippodrome, Tony Iommi walked on stage alongside the ballet dancers during the finale and played guitar to Black Sabbath’s seminal 1970 anthem ‘Paranoid.’

"Thanks to everyone who supported us at the Ballet, we had a great premiere last night,” Iommi wrote on Sunday. “I’m honoured to be involved with these talented dancers. I’m afraid I won’t be joining every performance.”

Earlier in the night, Tony Iommi was joined on the purple carpet by Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant and ELO co-founder Bev Bevan.

Iommi’s Black Sabbath band mate Geezer Butler also walked the purple carpet, and Ozzy Osbourne’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne was in attendance too.

Black Sabbath - The Ballet launches in Birmingham:

Speaking to Birmingham World prior to the performance, Tony Iommi said: "I'm looking at our music differently now with this, because it is being interpreted in a different way.

"It's still got the basic things, but then it did have in the different orchestral things coming in. And then I never thought for a minute we would have people dancing to Black Sabbath and War Pigs and Iron Man. But here we are, you know."

Watch Tony Iommi perform 'Paranoid' at Black Sabbath: The Ballet:

Black Sabbath – The Ballet is the brainchild of Birmingham Royal Ballet director Carlos Acosta and it runs at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday 30th September.

It then visits Theatre Royal Plymouth from Thursday 12th to Saturday 14th October, and London Sadler's Wells Theatre from Wednesday 18th to Sunday 21st October. Tickets are all sold out.

The full-length, three-act show features eight seminal early Black Sabbath tracks from the band’s first five studio albums – ‘Paranoid’ (1970), ‘Iron Man’ (1970), ‘War Pigs’ (1970), ‘Black Sabbath’ (1970), ‘Solitude’ (1971), ‘Orchid’ (1971) ‘Laguna Sunrise’ (1972) and ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ (1973).

Each seminal track will be re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia with new songs inspired by Black Sabbath also performed live by the orchestra. There will also be on-stage guitar and drums during the performance for that added heavy metal hit.

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• Black Sabbath
• Tony Iommi
• Geezer Butler
• Ozzy Osbourne