Star takes barbs for Passion play

As people relaxed at Easter weekend, Michael Sheen endured incarceration in a police cell, slept rough up a mountain and was crucified, then resurrected in front of hundreds of onlookers.

The actor, best known for his on-screen portrayals of Brian Clough, David Frost and Tony Blair, played the lead role in The Passion, a three-day reinterpretation of the Biblical Passion story, which was staged around the south Wales seaside town of Port Talbot.

Sheen has to take some responsibility for his discomfort given that he also directed the play.

His nightmare began on Friday, when he was "baptised" in icy waves at the local beach. He slept rough on a mountain overlooking the town, staying in character throughout.

He had a last supper sandwich buffet at Port Talbot's Seaside Social and Labour Club, where, while watching the Manic Street Preachers perform, he was "arrested" and spent the night in a police cell.

Yesterday, he wore a crown of barbed wire and was "crucified" near a roundabout on the seafront.

The bedraggled protagonist was then brought back to life, looking forward to a shower. Sheen was born in Newport in 1969 but brought up in Port Talbot.

- INDEPENDENT