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Agadir Crisis

The Agadir Crisis, Agadir Incident, or Second Moroccan Crisis was a brief crisis sparked by the deployment of a substantial force of French troops in the interior of Morocco in July 1911 and the deployment of the German gunboat SMS Panther to Agadir, a Moroccan Atlantic port. Germany did not object to France's expansion but wanted territorial compensation for itself. Berlin threatened warfare, sent a gunboat, and stirred up German nationalists. Negotiations between Berlin and Paris resolved the crisis on 4 November 1911: France took over Morocco as a protectorate in exchange for territorial concessions to German Cameroon from the French Congo.

In Britain, David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a dramatic "Mansion House" speech on 21 July 1911 – with the consent of prime minister H. H. Asquith and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, bypassing the non-interventionist majority in the Cabinet – that denounced the German move as an intolerable humiliation. There was talk of war and Germany backed down; relations between Berlin and London worsened and the British moved closer to France. Berlin felt humiliated and began to realize that it was operating with no allies against multiple adversaries.

Background
France's pre-eminence in Morocco had been upheld by the 1906 Algeciras Conference, following the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905–06. France and Germany agreed on 9 February 1909 that while France would have exclusive political control, the two nations would uphold each other's economic interests in Morocco. In 1911 they forced the sultan to sign a new treaty wherein he promised not to sign any other treaties without French approval, arguably violating the earlier made agreements.

Germany's move was aimed at testing the relationship between Britain and France, and possibly intimidating Britain into an alliance with Germany. Germany was also enforcing compensation claims for acceptance of effective French control of Morocco.

Moroccan Rebellion
In 1911, a rebellion broke out in Morocco against Sultan Abd al-Hafid. The French – after forcing the Sultan to request their assistance – prepared to send troops to help put down the rebellion under the pretext of protecting European lives and property in Fèz. Actual danger to European communities was remote: the rebellion broke out deep in the interior. They dispatched a flying column at the end of April. On 5 June, the Spanish deployed troops to occupy Larache and Ksar el-Kebir, fearing a French annexation of the country.

German naval intervention
Joseph Caillaux, then minister for Finance, assured German diplomats in May 1911 that 'France would be prepared, if the Germans recognized its vital interest in Morocco, to make concessions elsewhere'. On 20 June, France agreed to start negotiations. After ten days, they still had not responded. It was then that Kiderlen-Waechter, the German Foreign Minister, asked Kaiser Wilhelm II for permission to send a gunboat, having rejected the need to send two ships out of belief that French would be quickly willing to negotiate.

On 1 July, the German gunboat SMS Panther arrived at the port of Agadir, under the pretext of protecting German trade interests. The larger Bremen-class cruiser SMS Berlin came days later, replacing the gunboat. A German civilian, Hermann Wilberg, 110 km to the north, was sent south to Agadir to provide a pretext for the arrival of the Panther, but he only reached Agadir three days after the ship had arrived. There was an immediate reaction from the French and the British.

German financial crisis
In the midst of this crisis, Germany was hit by financial turmoil. The stock market plunged by 30 percent in a single day, the public started cashing in currency notes for gold, and there was a run on the banks. The Reichsbank lost a fifth of its gold reserves in one month. It was rumored that the French finance minister had orchestrated this crisis. Faced with the possibility of being driven off the gold standard, the Kaiser backed down and let the French take over most of Morocco.

Negotiations
On 7 July, the German ambassador in Paris informed the French government that Germany had no territorial aspirations in Morocco, and would negotiate for a French protectorate on the basis of "compensation" for Germany in the French Congo region and the safeguarding of her economic interests in Morocco. The German terms, as presented on 15 July, while containing an offer to cede the northern part of Kamerun and Togoland, demanded from France the whole of the French Congo from the Sangha River to the sea, to which was later added the transfer of France's right to the preemption of the Belgian Congo.

On 21 July, David Lloyd George delivered a speech at the Mansion House, London in which he declared that national honour was more precious than peace: "If Britain is treated badly where her interests are vitally affected, as if she is of no account in the cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure." The speech was interpreted by Germany as a warning that she could not impose an unreasonable settlement on France.

On 4 November, secret Franco-German negotiations between Caillaux and the Germans led to a convention referred to as the Franco-German Accord, under which Germany accepted France's position in Morocco in return for territory in the French Equatorial African colony of Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo), as outlined in the Morocco-Congo Treaty. This 275,000 km2 territory, known as Neukamerun, became part of the German colony of Kamerun. The area is partly marshland (where sleeping sickness was widespread) but gave Germany an outlet on the Congo River. Germany ceded to the French colony of Tchad a small area of territory to the southeast of Fort Lamy (now part of Chad).

French premier Caillaux's negotiations with the Germans were leaked, causing him to fall from office on 21 January 1912, after a term of only seven months. In Germany, the Franco-German accord was also criticised – especially by the nationalist press – for giving Germany too little.

British involvement
The initial reaction in London was cautious: the Liberal government in Cabinet felt that France was largely responsible for triggering the crisis and ought therefore be urged to give ground. The British government attempted to restrain France from adopting hasty measures and to dissuade her from sending troops. In April, the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey wrote: "what the French contemplate doing is not wise, but we cannot under our agreement interfere". When Cabinet authorised Grey to inform the French that Britain might accept a German presence in Morocco on 19 July, the French government replied angrily that any such acceptance would breach the 1904 Anglo-French Agreement.

The prospect of a German naval port on the Atlantic, however, allowed Grey to secure Cabinet's approval on 21 July to inform the German ambassador that Britain would respond forcefully to defend its interests. Britain sent battleships to Morocco, in case war broke out. As in the First Moroccan Crisis, British support of France showed the strength of the Entente Cordiale.

Divisions, however, became clear between the supports of the entente (Grey, Lloyd George, and Asquith especially) and the non-interventionists (who made up a majority on the Cabinet). Lloyd George delivered the Mansion House speech on 21 July 1911, bypassing the Liberal non-interventionists in Cabinet. Viscount Morley, secretary of state for India, denounced the speech as an 'unwarranted and unfortunate provocation to Germany'; Lord Loreburn, the Lord Chancellor, entreated Grey to take a non-interventionist stance and disavow the speech. Later in the year, there was a backbench revolt against Grey, which was unsuccessful.

Aftermath

One consequence of the crisis was that the French viewed German policy as motivated by bluff: Raymond Poincaré, the premier succeeding Caillaux in early 1912, observed that 'whenever we have adopted a conciliatory approach to Germany... she has abused it; on the other hand, on each occasion when we have shown firmness, she has yielded', drawing the conclusion that Berlin would only understand a forceful response. Kissinger labels the risk-taking in this crisis used to appease the nationalism-inclined journalists and agitated public while disregarding the true interests at stake elsewhere as "strategic frivolity". American historian Raymond James Sontag argued in 1933 that it was a comedy of errors that became a tragic prelude to the First World War:
 * The crisis seems comic – its obscure origin, the questions at stake, the conduct of the actors – indeed was comic. But the results were tragic. Tensions between France and Germany and between Germany and England have been increased; the armaments race received new impetus; the conviction that an early war was inevitable spread through the governing class of Europe.

With Abd al-Hafid's capitulation and signing of the Treaty of Fes (30 March 1912), France established a full protectorate over Morocco, ending what remained of that country's formal independence. British backing of France during the crisis reinforced the Entente between the two countries (and with Russia as well), increasing Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions which would culminate in the First World War.

This incident led Britain's Home Secretary Winston Churchill to conclude the Royal Navy must convert its power source from coal to oil, to preserve its supremacy. Until then, the locally abundant coal was favoured over imported oil (mostly from Persia), but the speed and efficiency offered by oil convinced him that "Mastery itself was the prize of the venture." Subsequently, Churchill was asked by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to become First Lord of the Admiralty, which he accepted.

The crisis led Britain and France to conclude a secret naval agreement by which the Royal Navy promised to protect the northern coast of France from German Navy attack, while France concentrated her fleet in the western Mediterranean and agreed to defend British interests there. France was thus able to guard her communications with her North African colonies, and Britain to concentrate more force in home waters to oppose the German High Seas Fleet. Britain also formed a Railway Executive Committee in order to rapidly mobilize in the event of a continental war.

German world historian Oswald Spengler was inspired by the episode to write his The Decline of the West. "The Agadir crisis of 1911, which suddenly raised the specter of a general European war and strikingly revealed the danger of Germany's encirclement by the Entente, crystallized Spengler's nascent vision of the future international political transformation of the West."

During the First World War, in 1916, Neukamerun returned to France. The territory today forms part of Chad, Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon. Established in 1912, the French protectorate in Morocco lasted until 1956.

title: Agadir Crisis


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Bangalore torpedo

A Bangalore torpedo is an explosive charge placed within one or several connected tubes. It is used by combat engineers to clear obstacles that would otherwise require them to approach directly, possibly under fire. It is sometimes colloquially referred to as a "Bangalore mine", "banger" or simply "Bangalore" as well as a pole charge.

Per United States Army Field Manual 5-250 section 1–14, page 1–12 "b. Use. The primary use of the torpedo is clearing paths through wire obstacles and heavy undergrowth. It will clear a 3- to 4-metre wide path through wire obstacles."

Overview

The Bangalore torpedo was devised by Captain R. L. McClintock of the Royal Engineers while attached to the Madras Sappers and Miners unit of the Indian Army at Bangalore, India, in 1912. He invented it as a means of blowing up booby traps and barricades left over from the Second Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. The Bangalore torpedo could be exploded over a mine, without a sapper having to approach closer than about 3 m.

Bangalore torpedoes were manufactured until 2017 by Mondial Defence Systems of Poole, UK, for the UK and US armed forces. An improved version called the Advanced Performance Bangalore Torpedo (APBT) was developed by Chemring Energetics UK, part of the Chemring Group, in response to a British Ministry of Defence (MOD) requirement issued in 2008. The APBT was chosen by the MOD following competitive performance trials and is used by the militaries of Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. They were used during the Afghanistan War for actions such as clearing mines or razor wire.

In World War I
In World War I the Bangalore torpedo was primarily used for clearing barbed wire before an attack. It could be used while under fire, from a protected position in a trench. The torpedo was standardized to consist of a number of externally identical 1.5 m lengths of threaded pipe, one of which contained the explosive charge. The pipes would be screwed together using connecting sleeves to make a longer pipe of the required length, somewhat like a chimney brush or drain clearing rod.

A smooth nose cone was screwed on the end to prevent snagging on the ground. It was pushed forward from a protected position and detonated, to clear a 1.5 m wide hole through barbed wire. During the 1917 Battle of Cambrai, British Royal Engineers used them as diversions to distract the enemy from where the real battle was to be fought.

In World War II

The Bangalore torpedo was used in the British offensive on Bardia during the Western Desert Campaign, on 3 January 1941.

The Bangalore torpedo was later adopted by the U.S. Army during World War II, as the "M1A1 Bangalore torpedo". Bangalore torpedoes were packed in wooden crates that contained 10 torpedo sections, 10 connecting sleeves, and 1 nose sleeve. The total weight of a crate was 176 lb. Each torpedo section was 5 ft long, 2.125 in in diameter, and weighed 13 lb.

Each end of the torpedo was filled with 4 in of TNT booster, while the middle section contained an 80–20 amatol mixture. The explosive charge weighed about 9 lb. Each end of the torpedo had a recess to accommodate a standard Corps of Engineers blasting cap. Torpedo sections could be attached together via spring clip-equipped connecting sleeves. A blunt nose sleeve was provided so that the assembled torpedoes could be pushed through obstacles or across terrain without getting stuck.

It was widely used by the U.S. Army, notably during the D-Day landings. The Bangalore torpedo was obsolete in British use at the time of D-Day, having been replaced by rocket-launched Congers and Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) vehicles equipped with a 40 lb explosive charge for bunker clearing.

Post–World War II development

The U.S. Army and the People's Army of Vietnam used the Bangalore torpedo during the Vietnam War.

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Bangalore torpedoes were used by the Israelis to clear paths through Syrian minefields.

Bangalore torpedoes continue to be used today in the little-changed M1A2 and M1A3 versions of the United States Armed Forces, and the modified Advanced Performance Bangalore Torpedo version of the British Armed Forces and Australian Defence Force, under the L26A1 designation which is also used by Chemring,  primarily to breach wire obstacles.

Combat engineers have been known to construct similar field versions of the Bangalore by assembling segments of metal picket posts and filling the concave portion with plastic explosive (PE). The PE is then primed with detonating cord and a detonator, and pickets are taped or wired together to make a long torpedo, producing fragments (aka "shrapnel") that cut the wire when detonated. This method produces results similar to the standard-issue Bangalore, and can be assembled to the desired length by adding picket segments.

Newer Bangalore variants include the Alford Technologies Bangalore Blade and the Chemring Advanced Performance Bangalore Torpedo (APBT), with both developed in the United Kingdom. The Bangalore Blade is made from lightweight aluminium and is configured as a linear explosively formed projectile (EFP) array capable of cutting wire obstacles, which earlier Bangalore variants were incapable of breaching effectively. The improvements introduced with the Bangalore Blade give the charge a cutting action as well as a blasting effect.

In a test detonation conducted on the television show Future Weapons, the Bangalore Blade blasted a gap roughly five meters wide in concertina wire, and created a trench deep enough to detonate most nearby anti-personnel mines. Alford Technologies' web page for the Bangalore Blade cites additional trial detonations involving two identical triple-razor wire entanglements erected between steel pickets. A Bangalore torpedo conforming to the original design cleared a three-metre path, while the Bangalore Blade cleared a ten-metre path.

The Advanced Performance Bangalore Torpedo uses an aluminium body and is filled with two kilograms of DPX1 high density pressed explosive. A unique and patented design feature is incorporated which, in combination with the DPX1 explosive, provides enhanced blast and fragmentation effects which provide an enhanced cutting capability against both simple and complex wire entanglements. The APBT is capable of cutting through up to six millimetres of steel plating.

Up to eight APBTs can be combined with one another, with the resulting assembly capable of defeating obstacles that are up to eight metres in length. The quick-turn thread used for this purpose has been designed for ease of assembly when contaminated with sand, soil, or mud while being strong enough to ensure reliable deployment of connected charges without inadvertent decoupling. The APBT has an improved Insensitive Munition signature compared to preceding in-service designs.

Other recent path-clearing devices
The U.S. Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS) is being brought into service as a replacement to the Bangalore for path-clearing due to its ease of use, effectiveness, and flexibility – it can clear a path several times longer than the Bangalore torpedo.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bangalore torpedo


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The Newgate Calendar

The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors' Bloody Register, was a popular collection of moralising stories about sin, crime, and criminals who commit them in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally a monthly bulletin of executions, produced by the Keeper of Newgate Prison in London, the Calendar's title was appropriated by other publishers, who put out biographical chapbooks about notorious criminals such as Sawney Bean, Dick Turpin, and Moll Cutpurse.

Overview

Collected editions of these stories began to appear in the mid-18th century, and in 1774 a five-volume bound edition became the standard version. While many of its accounts are highly embellished and/or drawn uncritically from other sources, they are lively and full of incident, and often refer to contemporary events and social issues. Along with the Bible and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, the Calendar was famously in the top three works most likely to be found in the average home.

The entries editorialise strongly against their subjects, including Catholicism, The Protectorate and Commonwealth, any political enemies of Britain (such as the French), drunkenness, prostitution ("Women of abandoned character"), gambling, "dissipation" in general and other "vices", while eulogising Protestantism, the Church of England, the English monarchy and legal system, the Common Law and Bloody Code, with some rare exceptions. One edition contained an introduction suggesting that swindling be made (another) capital offence.

A new edition in four volumes was published in 1824-26 by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, two lawyers, and a further edition in 1826, under the title, The New Newgate Calendar.

A penny dreadful edition of The New Newgate Calendar appeared between 1863 and 1866.

Influence and legacy
The Newgate Calendar had a lasting legacy on early 19th-century crime fiction. Critics believed that the Calendars' publication would inspire copycat criminals and romanticize crime culture.

There was a communal and social element to the stories. According to Henry Mayhew, orphans in common lodging-houses would read the stories out loud in groups.

Spoofs were dubbed "Newgate novels" of the "Newgate school" of literature in a derogatory manner. Oliver Twist, which mentions the Calendar twice, was designated as such by Dickens' contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, much to Dickens' chagrin.

Tom Cringle in Michael Scott's novel Tom Cringle's Log apologises for interrupting the pirate smuggler Obed's confessional story, saying "It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your Newgate Calendar, Obed--beg pardon, your story I mean; no offence now, none in the world--eh?"

Thomas Carlyle wrote, in his Life of Friedrich Schiller: "Look at the biography of authors! Except the Newgate Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the history of man."

title: The Newgate Calendar


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Gwen Shamblin Lara

Gwendolyn Henley Shamblin Lara (February 18, 1955 – May 29, 2021) was the founder of the Remnant Fellowship Cult, founder of the Christian diet program The Weigh Down Workshop, and an American author.

She is the subject of the 2021 HBO Max docuseries, The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin. She is portrayed by actress Jennifer Grey in the Lifetime movie, Starving for Salvation.

Early life
Lara earned an undergraduate degree in dietetics and a master's degree in food and nutrition with an emphasis in biochemistry from University of Tennessee, in Knoxville. She was a registered dietitian, consultant and a faculty member at Memphis State University for five years. She also worked in the city's Tennessee Department of Health for five years.

Lara was raised in a Church of Christ family.

She had two children and seven grandchildren.

Weigh Down Workshop
Lara began a weight control consulting practice in 1980. She had struggled with her weight in college. She counseled that genetics, metabolism, and behavior modification did not explain why some people were thin while others were overweight. Lara founded the Weigh Down Workshop, a weight-loss program with no food restrictions, exercise regimens, weigh-ins, or calorie-counting in 1986.

Some experts expressed concern because the program eliminated exercise and guidance on food selection as recommended by the American Dietetic Association.

Lara developed Weigh Down Workshop while working on her master's degree at Memphis State University. As part of a counseling center, Lara hosted the first class in a mall in Memphis, Tennessee. The program was offered as small classes in retail and non-religious settings. She began hosting the program at Bellevue Baptist Church near Memphis in the 1990s. The program consisted of 12-week seminars guided by video and audio tapes featuring Lara.

The program was offered in about 600 churches in 35 U.S. states by 1994. The program was in more than 1,000 churches in 49 states, Great Britain and Canada by January 1995. The program had grown to about 5,000 churches, with about 10 percent located in Lara's home state of Tennessee, by July 1996. Approximately eight churches in Britain were hosting workshops in December 1996. Some participants in the U.S. hosted meetings in their homes.

In 1996, Weigh Down Workshop had a staff of 40 and built a headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, and Lara began hosting an annual summer convention, Desert Oasis, in the Nashville area.

Weigh Down Workshop hosted more than 21,000 classes with more than 250,000 participants worldwide by August 1998. Classes were hosted in every U.S. state and in Canada and Europe.

Lara was criticized for using the Christianity label while building her business. In 2001, Nashville CBS affiliate WTVF investigated how Weigh Down Workshop leaders spent money. Lara said half the proceeds from Weigh Down Workshop were paid as taxes and the other half were put back into the program.

Remnant Fellowship Church
Shamblin founded the Remnant Fellowship Church in Franklin, Tennessee in 1999. The church's building was completed in 2004 on 40 acres Lara purchased in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Shamblin had preached that members should give their money to the Remnant Fellowship church, the only true church, and that all other churches were fraudulent. Upon her death in 2021, it was found that Shamblin's will left none of her multimillion-dollar fortune to the church. One reporter noted the irony of this, mentioning that less than four weeks before her death, Shamblin had made a video in which she warned others about greed."'Most of the world has abandoned true religion and are now converts to building up their own pocket books. Yet God is a god of justice, and he will not be mocked.'"

Writings
Shamblin published The Weigh Down Diet, a book that advised readers to use spirituality to avoid overeating, in 1997. The book sold more than 1.2 million copies. The Weigh Down Diet teaches the love of food should be transferred to a love of God, and to cut food portions in half and eat only when hungry. Shamblin wrote multiple books after that.

Shamblin sent an email to her followers saying that she believed that the doctrine of the Trinity was not biblical on August 10, 2000. In response, some evangelical churches dropped her program, Thomas Nelson Publishers canceled the publication of her next book, she was removed from the Women of Faith website, and some employees left her staff.

Accusations of abuse
A 2021 HBO Max 5-part docuseries The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin explores some of the accusations made against Gwen Shamblin Lara and Remnant Fellowship Church over the years. These accusations include claims that Lara promoted corporal punishment as a means for parents to keep their children obedient and submissive.

Joseph and Sonya Smith were adherents of Shamblin and had an eight-year-old son, Josef. Sonya and Joseph routinely disciplined Josef by beating him with foot-long glue sticks, belts, and heated coat hangers; locking him in confined spaces for extended periods of time; and tying his hands with rope. Mrs. Smith told police that she “normally” gave the children their whippings in increments of ten blows each, and that Josef had gotten several of those whipping sessions on the day of his death. The police reported that the Smiths locked Josef in his room to pray to a picture of Jesus on the ceiling and in a closet for days and even weeks. He was given only a bucket for a toilet. An older son sometimes held Josef down while the parents beat him with implements.

During the day on October 8, 2003, Joseph beat Josef several times, striking him repeatedly with a glue stick. County medical examiners concluded that eight-year-old Josef Smith died as a result of "acute and chronic" abuse. Members of the Remnant Church led by Shamblin paid for the legal defense of the Smiths. They were convicted in Georgia v. Smith. The Smiths were sentenced on March 27, 2007, to life plus 30 years in prison (the maximum punishment) by Cobb County Superior Court Judge James Bodiford. Another child in this family, Milek Smith, had died 11 weeks before Josef's death, with the cause of death being variously reported as either pneumonia or SIDS.

Personal life
In 1978 she married David Shamblin, with whom she would have two children. In 2018 Shamblin filed for divorce and married Joe Lara.

Lara lived with her husband in Ashlawn, a historic mansion in Brentwood, Tennessee that was built in 1838.

Death
Joe Lara was the sole pilot of an airplane that crashed bound for Palm Beach, Florida. The accident killed all onboard including Lara, her son-in-law Brandon Hannah, and two other couples when Gwen’s 1982 Cessna Citation 501 private jet crashed into Percy Priest Lake near Smyrna, Tennessee, shortly after takeoff on May 29, 2021.

The NTSB final report found that the airplane crash was a result of pilot error, and that pilot Joe Lara had spatial disorientation.

title: Gwen Shamblin Lara


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Michael Sheen

Michael Christopher Sheen (born 5 February 1969) is a Welsh actor. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s with stage roles in Romeo and Juliet (1992), Don't Fool with Love (1993), Peer Gynt (1994), The Seagull (1995), The Homecoming (1997), and Henry V (1997). His performances in Amadeus at the Old Vic and Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a third Olivier Award for his performance in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse.

Early this century Sheen began screen acting, focusing on biographical films. For writer Peter Morgan, he starred in a trilogy of films as UK prime minister Tony Blair—the television film The Deal in 2003, The Queen (2006), and The Special Relationship (2010)—earning him nominations for both a BAFTA Award and an Emmy. He was also nominated for a BAFTA as the troubled comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's 2006 Fantabulosa!, and was nominated for a fourth Olivier Award in 2006 for portraying the broadcaster David Frost in Frost/Nixon, a role he revisited in the 2008 film adaptation of the play. He starred as the controversial football manager Brian Clough in The Damned United (2009).

Since 2009 Sheen has had a wider variety of roles. In 2009, he appeared in two fantasy films, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and in 2010, he made a four-episode guest appearance in the NBC comedy 30 Rock. He appeared in the science-fiction film Tron: Legacy (2010) and Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011). He directed and starred in National Theatre Wales's The Passion. From late 2011 until early 2012, he played the title role in Hamlet at the Young Vic. He played a lead role in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 in 2012. In 2013, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Showtime's television drama Masters of Sex.

Sheen played an incarcerated serial killer surgeon in Fox's drama series Prodigal Son (2019–2021), Aziraphale in the BBC/Amazon Studios fantasy comedy series Good Omens (2019–present), and appeared as Chris Tarrant in Quiz (2020). He played himself in the quarantine comedy show Staged (2020–2022) with his friend and Good Omens co-star David Tennant throughout the COVID-19 lockdown. Sheen is politically engaged, and in 2017 he renounced being an OBE after conducting research on Wales's relationship with England.

Early life
Sheen was born on 5 February 1969 in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, the son of Irene, a secretary, and Meyrick, a British Steel Corporation personnel manager. He has one younger sister, Joanne. The family had already been living in Llanmartin for seven years prior to his birth. When he was five, the family moved to Wallasey for work, but settled in his parents' home town of Port Talbot, Glamorgan, three years later.

Director Sam Mendes has described Sheen as "a stage creature" and attributed that to the actor's Welsh roots: "I'm serious. He's Welsh in the tradition of Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton: fiery, mercurial, unpredictable." A keen footballer, Sheen was scouted and offered a place on Arsenal's youth team at the age of 12, but his family was unwilling to relocate to London. He later said he was "grateful" for his parents' decision, as the chances of forging a professional football career were "so slim".

Sheen was raised in a theatrical family; his parents were both involved in local amateur operatics and musicals and, later in life, his father worked as a part-time professional Jack Nicholson lookalike. In his teenage years, Sheen was involved with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre and, later, the National Youth Theatre of Wales. "It was a brilliant youth theatre", Sheen has said, "and it taught me not only a lot about acting, but also about work ethic; it was very disciplined." He was influenced by the performances of Laurence Olivier and the writings of theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, saying "the combination of those two things kind of blew my head off." Sheen was educated at Blaenbaglan Primary School, Glan Afan Comprehensive School and, finally, Neath Port Talbot College where he sat A-levels in English, Drama and Sociology. He considered studying English at university but instead decided to attend drama school. He moved to London in 1988 to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), having spent the previous year working in a Welsh fast-food restaurant called Burger Master to earn money. Sheen was granted the Laurence Olivier Bursary by the Society of London Theatre in his second year at RADA. He graduated in 1991 with a BA in Acting.

Classical stage roles (1991–2001)
Sheen worked predominantly in theatre in the 1990s and has since remarked that he will always feel "slightly more at home" on stage. "It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you." His first professional role, while still in his third and final year at RADA, was in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991. He later described the role as "a big break. One day, I was at RADA doing a movement class, the next I was at a read-through with Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour." Milton Shulman of the Evening Standard praised an "excellent" performance while The Observer wrote of "a notable West End debut". In 1992, Sheen's performance in Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Exchange received a MEN Theatre Award nomination and led theatre critic Michael Coveney to declare him "the most exciting young actor of his generation ... a volatile, electrifying and technically fearless performer". His 1993 turn as Perdican in Alfred de Musset's Don't Fool With Love at the Donmar Warehouse was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. and was described by The Independent as "quite thrilling". Also in 1993, Sheen appeared in the world premiere of Harold Pinter's Moonlight at the Almeida Theatre and made his television debut in the 1993 BBC mini-series Gallowglass.

Sheen played the title role in Peer Gynt in 1994. The Yukio Ninagawa production was staged in Oslo, Tokyo and at the Barbican Centre, London. The Times praised Sheen's "astonishing vitality" while The Independent found him "sensationally good" and noted that "the Norwegian press were grudgingly captivated by the mercurial Welsh boyo". In other 1994 work, Sheen appeared in Le Livre de Spencer at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Paris and starred in the cross-dressing farce Charley's Aunt at the Royal Exchange. In 1995, he appeared opposite Kate Beckinsale in a production of The Seagull at the Theatre Royal, Bath and, with the encouragement of Thelma Holt, directed and starred in The Dresser at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. In addition, Sheen made his film debut that year, appearing opposite Kenneth Branagh in Othello. 1996 saw Sheen at the National Theatre for The Ends of the Earth, an original play by David Lan. A minor role in Mary Reilly marked the first of three film collaborations with director Stephen Frears. Sheen's most significant appearance of 1997 was the title role in Henry V, staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at their Stratford-upon-Avon theatre, which earned him a second Ian Charleson Award nomination. The Times praised "a blisteringly intelligent performance". Also in 1997, he appeared in a revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the National Theatre, directed by Roger Michell, and directed Badfinger, starring Rhys Ifans, at the Donmar Warehouse. The latter was staged by the Thin Language Theatre Company, which Sheen had co-founded in 1991, aiming to further Welsh theatre. He then appeared in the biographical film Wilde, playing Robbie Ross to Stephen Fry's Oscar Wilde. In early 1998 Sheen formed a production company, The Foundry, with Helen McCrory and Robert Delamere to promote the work of emerging playwrights, and produced A Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse, which gave Colin Farrell his West End debut.

From 1998 to 1999 Sheen starred as Mozart in a successful revival of Amadeus. The Peter Hall-directed production was staged at the Old Vic, London, and later transferred to the Music Box on Broadway. Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic for The New York Times, was particularly vocal in his praise. He noted that "Mr. Sheen elicits a real poetry from the role" and felt that, while watching him, "you start to appreciate the derivation of the term star. This actor is so luminous it's scary!" The Independent found him "quite stunning as Mozart. His fantastically physical performance convinces you of his character's genius and the play catches fire whenever he's on stage." Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor. In 1999, Sheen explored the role of Jimmy Porter in the National Theatre's production of Look Back in Anger. In 2003, Sheen described the production as "the most enjoyable thing I've ever done ... everything came together". "Sheen has cornered the market in explosive energy", said The Independent, "but this thrilling performance is his finest yet." The Financial Times noted: "As Jimmy Porter, a role of staggering difficulty in every way, Michael Sheen gives surely the best performance London has yet seen from him ... You hang on every word he utters ... This is a dazzlingly through-the-body performance." He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor.

The Deal, The Queen, and Fantabulosa (2002–2006)
At this point in his career Sheen began to devote more time to film work. Heartlands, a little-seen 2002 film about a naive man's road trip in the Midlands, was his first leading film role. While The Guardian dismissed the "cloying bittersweet-regional-lottery-Britfilm", it noted that "Sheen himself has a childlike, Frank Spencer-ish charm". "It was great to do something that was so different", Sheen has said of the role. "I usually play very extreme characters." Also in 2002, he had a minor role in the action-adventure film The Four Feathers. In 2003, Sheen appeared in Bright Young Things, the directorial debut of his Wilde co-star, Stephen Fry. An adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, the film followed high society partygoers in decadent, pre-war London. Sheen played a gay aristocrat in an ensemble cast which included James McAvoy, Emily Mortimer, David Tennant, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent and Peter O'Toole. While the Los Angeles Times said he "shone", The Guardian felt the role "drastically under-uses his talents". Sheen described his character as "possibly the campest man in cinema history" and relished a scene "where I do drugs with [a then 95-year-old] Sir John Mills." In other 2003 film work, Sheen portrayed the werewolf leader Lucian in Underworld and made a brief appearance in the sci-fi film Timeline.

Sheen returned to the stage in 2003 to play the title role in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Grandage. It was the first of just three stage appearances during the 2000s; his young daughter was now based in Los Angeles which made more frequent stage runs in Britain impractical. The Independent's critic declared it "one of the most thrilling and searching performances I have ever witnessed" and The Daily Telegraph described him as an "outrageously charismatic actor" with "an astonishing physical presence". The Times praised a "riveting performance" and The Guardian found him "highly impressive ... at one point he attacks his court poet with a single hair-raising leap across a chair and table". Sheen won an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor, and was again nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor.

Sheen's breakthrough role was as British politician Tony Blair in 2003's The Deal. The Channel 4 film explored the so-called Granita pact made by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown prior to the 1994 Labour Party leadership election, and was the actor's first collaboration with screenwriter Peter Morgan. Director Stephen Frears cast him because "he was in Mary Reilly and I knew he was brilliant." Filmed while he was playing Caligula nightly on stage, Sheen has remarked, "It's interesting that in searching for monsters to play, you often end up playing leaders." The Daily Telegraph praised his "earnest, yet steely, portrayal" while The Guardian found him "excellent. This is intelligent and honest casting." In 2004, Sheen starred in ITV's Dirty Filthy Love, a comic film about a man dealing with OCD and Tourette's after a marital separation. Sheen spoke of "treading a fine line" because "a lot of the symptoms are intrinsically comical". He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Television Actor and a RTS Best Actor Award. Also in 2004, Sheen played a pompous rock star in the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction and produced and starred in The Banker, which won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film.

In 2005 Sheen starred in the National Theatre's production of The UN Inspector, a David Farr adaptation of The Government Inspector. The Times wrote of "a scathingly brilliant and inventive performance" while Variety noted that the actor "adds comic finesse to his apparently ceaseless repertoire". The Evening Standard, while conceding that the performance was "technically brilliant", expressed bemusement as to why "one of the most mercurial and inspiring actors we have seems set on impersonating Rik Mayall throughout". Also that year, he took part in the Old Vic's 24 Hour Play, in which The Daily Telegraph felt he "dazzled". In 2005 film work, Sheen starred in Dead Long Enough, a small-budget Welsh/Irish film, with his longtime friend, Jason Hughes. In addition, he had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, made a cameo appearance in The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse and starred in the short film The Open Doors.

Sheen came to international attention in 2006 for his portrayal of Tony Blair in The Queen. The film focused on the differing reactions of the British Royal Family and the newly appointed Prime Minister following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997; it was Sheen's third collaboration with director Stephen Frears and his second with screenwriter Peter Morgan. He enjoyed reprising his role because Blair, at this point in his career, had "a weight to him that he didn't have before". When asked to discuss his personal opinion of Blair, Sheen admitted that the more time he spent working on the character, the "less opinion" he has of the politician: "Now when I watch him on TV or hear his voice, it's sort of like a cross between a family member, a friend and seeing a really old embarrassing video of yourself." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised "a sensational performance, alert and nuanced" while Empire spoke of an "uncanny, insightful performance". Sheen was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His second film appearance of 2006 was a supporting role in Blood Diamond as an unscrupulous diamond dealer.

Also in 2006 Sheen starred as the troubled English comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's Fantabulosa! In preparation for the role, he lost two and a half stone (approx. 35 lbs), studied archival footage and read Williams' published diaries. Sheen has said he is "fascinated by finding the private side of the public face". The Times found his performance "mesmerising" while The Observer described it as "a characterisation for which the description tour-de-force is, frankly, pretty faint praise". He won a RTS Award for Best Actor, and received his second BAFTA nomination of 2006, for Best Television Actor. Sheen starred in two other BBC television productions in 2006, playing H. G. Wells in H. G. Wells: War with the World and Nero in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire.

Frost/Nixon and The Damned United (2007–2009)
From 2006 to 2007 Sheen starred as the television broadcaster David Frost in Frost/Nixon at both the Donmar Warehouse and Gielgud Theatre in London and the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway. The play, written by Peter Morgan, directed by Michael Grandage and co-starring Frank Langella, was a critical and commercial success but Sheen initially accepted the role as a favour to his friends and "never thought it was going anywhere". The Guardian said the actor "exactly captures Frost's verbal tics and mannerisms while suggesting a nervousness behind the self-assurance". "He's got the voice, the mannerisms, the blaze," said the Financial Times, "but, more than that, Sheen – as viscerally exciting an actor as any in Britain today – shows us the hunger of Frost's ambition .. and fox-like instinct for the hunt and the kill." Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and a Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance. Sheen next appeared in the 2007 film Music Within as a political activist with cerebral palsy. He spoke of having a "responsibility" to accurately portray the condition. Variety said his performance was "remarkable.. utterly convincing", USA Today found him "outstanding" while the Los Angeles Times felt he was "reminiscent of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, bringing a vibrancy and wit to the role". Also that year, Sheen starred in the short film Airlock, or How To Say Goodbye in Space with Derek Jacobi and was invited to join the actors' branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Sheen reprised the role of David Frost in 2008's Frost/Nixon, a film dramatisation of The Nixon Interviews of 1977. Despite appearing in the original stage production in a part written for him by Peter Morgan, Sheen was surprised to have been cast in the film: "Peter said he'd only be prepared to give the rights to someone who would cast me as Frost, which was very nice, but when the studios get their hands on something... Right up until we started filming I was prepared to be disappointed". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times asserted that Sheen embodied his character in a "compelling, intense" performance while The Wall Street Journal felt he was "a brilliant actor" who "grows his character from a bright-eyed social butterfly to a gimlet-eyed interrogator". However, The New York Times felt "the likable, watchable Mr. Sheen has been pitted against a scene-stealer" in Frank Langella's Nixon. Frost himself later said it was "a wonderful performance". Sheen was the recipient of the Variety Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2008., while Langella was nominated for an Academy Award.

In 2009, portrayed another public figure; he starred in The Damned United as the outspoken football manager Brian Clough. The Tom Hooper-directed film focused on Clough's disastrous 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United and marked Sheen's fifth collaboration with writer Peter Morgan. He said Clough is the real-life character he enjoyed playing most. The Guardian, writing in 2009, declared it the "best performance of his big-screen career" while The Times found him "magnificent". Entertainment Weekly asserted that, despite American audiences' unfamiliarity with Clough, "what's lost in translation is recovered easily enough in Michael Sheen's astonishing performance". Variety noted that his "typically scrupulous channelling of Clough gets the tics and mannerisms right, but also carves a moving portrait of a braggart suddenly out of his depth". Also in 2009, Sheen reprised his role as a werewolf in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, a prequel to the original film. Of his decision to take part, Sheen has said: "My rule of thumb is that I want to do things I'd like to go and see myself." The New York Times felt he was "the movie's greatest asset ... [taking] a lively break from his usual high-crust duties to bring wit, actual acting and some unexpected musculature to the goth-horror flick". Variety said he hit "all the right notes in a star-powered performance that will amuse, if not amaze, anyone who only knows the actor as Tony Blair or David Frost" while Richard Corliss of Time noted that he "tries bravely to keep a straight face"

Sheen had a supporting role in 2009's The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the second film in the highly popular vampire series. In its review, Rolling Stone said: "Late in the film, a real actor, Michael Sheen, shows up as the mind-reading Aro, of the Italian Volturi vampires, and sparks things up. You can almost hear the young cast thinking, 'Is that acting? It looks hard.' So Sheen is quickly ushered out." While The New York Times said he "preens with plausible menace", USA Today felt he "plays the character with more high-pitched giddiness than menace". He was named Actor of the Year at GQ magazine's annual Men of the Year ceremony. Sheen made two one-off stage appearances in 2009; he performed a scene from Betrayal as part of a Harold Pinter tribute evening at the National Theatre and performed improvisational comedy as part of The Groundlings' Crazy Joe Show in Los Angeles.

Hamlet and Masters of Sex (2010–2018)
In 2010 Sheen had a supporting role in the science fiction sequel Tron: Legacy. Referring to his David Bowie-esque character, Sheen has said, "I was paid to show off basically". The Wall Street Journal found little fun in the movie "except for a gleefully campy turn by Michael Sheen" while The New York Times said he "shows up to deliver the closest thing to a performance in the movie". The Daily Telegraph felt his "lively hamming as a cane-swishing nightclub owner merely underlines how impersonal—how inhuman—much else here is". However, USA Today felt his "scenery-chewing performance ... is meant as comic relief, but this movie thunders along so seriously that the attempt at humor feels jarring". In other 2010 film work, Sheen voiced Nivens McTwisp, the White Rabbit, in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Dr. Griffiths in Disney's Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue and appeared as a terrorist in Unthinkable. On television, Sheen's performance in the third instalment of Peter Morgan's Blair trilogy, The Special Relationship, was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or Movie. The HBO film examined the "special relationship" between the US and the UK in the political era of Blair and Bill Clinton. It was the sixth collaboration between Sheen and Peter Morgan; both parties have since said they will not work together again "for the foreseeable future". Sheen also made a guest appearance in four episodes of NBC's 30 Rock as Wesley Snipes, a love interest for Tina Fey's Liz Lemon. Fey, the sitcom's star and creator, has said that "he was so funny and delightful to work with". In November 2010, Sheen received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year.

In 2011 Sheen starred in and was creative director of National Theatre Wales's The Passion, a 72-hour secular passion play staged in his hometown of Port Talbot, Wales. In addition to a professional cast, over one thousand local amateurs took part in the performance and as many more volunteers from local charity and community groups were involved in preparations in the months leading up to the play. The event was the subject of both a BBC documentary and The Gospel of Us, a film by director Dave McKean. Sheen has described it as "the most meaningful experience" of his career. The Observer declared it "one of the outstanding theatrical events not only of this year, but of the decade". The Independent's critic described it as "the most extraordinary piece of community-specific theatre I've ever beheld". While The Daily Telegraph bemoaned the large-scale production's logistical problems, "overall I found it touching, transformative and, in its own wayward way, a triumph." The Guardian felt it was "so much more than just an epic piece of street theatre..transforming and uplifting". Sheen and co-director Bill Mitchell were jointly honoured as Best Director at the Theatre Awards UK 2011. In 2013, Sheen won Best Actor at Welsh BAFTA for the production.

Sheen's most notable film appearance of 2011 was a supporting role in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Allen noted that "Michael had to do the pseudo-intellectual, the genuine intellectual, the pedant, and he came in and nailed it from the start". Sheen enjoyed playing "someone who's just absolutely got no sense that he's overstepping the mark or that he's being a bore." The film opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and became Allen's highest-grossing film to date. Also in 2011, Sheen starred in Beautiful Boy, an independent drama focusing on the aftermath of a school shooting, voiced the enigmatic and mysterious villain House in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife" written by his friend Neil Gaiman and made cameo appearances in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Resistance. In 2012 film work, Sheen starred opposite Toni Collette in the independent comedy Jesus Henry Christ and reprised his role as the vampire Aro in the final instalment of The Twilight Saga.

Sheen played the title role in Hamlet at the Young Vic in late 2011 and early 2012, a role he first explored in a 1999 BBC Radio 3 production. While there had been tentative plans over the years for both Peter Hall and Michael Grandage to direct Sheen in the play,  he eventually asked Ian Rickson. Rickson's production was set in the secure wing of a psychiatric hospital and featured original music by PJ Harvey. The Evening Standard declared Sheen's performance "an audacious achievement" that "will live in the memory" while The Independent praised "a recklessly brilliant and bravura performance." The Daily Telegraph felt that Sheen "could be right up there among the great Hamlets", were it not for Rickson's "mindlessly modish" staging, while The Times found him "unbearably moving". The Guardian described him as "fascinating to watch ... intelligent, inventive and full of insights ... [he] delivers the "What a piece of work is a man" passage with a beautiful consciousness of human potential." The Observer declared him an actor "always worth crossing a principality to see and hear" whose To be, or not to be' is a marvel."

In 2013 Sheen appeared in a supporting role as the boyfriend of Tina Fey in the comedy Admission, with Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice describing the character as "a whiskery, elfin academic who chuckles to himself as he reads the Canterbury Tales prologue aloud in bed, in Middle English, no less. (Sheen is scarily good at this.)" In 2014, he starred in the fantasy children's film Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box. R. Kurt Osenlund of Slant Magazine said "the ever-versatile Sheen brings an artful hamminess to his role" but Matt Pais of RedEye found him "insufficiently zany" in "a part that Robert Downey Jr. would nail but never accept." His second film role of 2014 was a minor role in the political thriller Kill the Messenger. Also in 2014, he starred in IFC's six-episode The Spoils of Babylon, a television parody of classic, sweeping miniseries, in which he played the husband of Kristen Wiig's character.

In 2015 Sheen starred opposite Carey Mulligan in the romantic drama Far from the Madding Crowd as prosperous bachelor William Boldwood. His performance was well received. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker remarked: "How you prevent such a fellow, crushed by his own decency, from sagging into a bearded Ashley Wilkes is no easy task, yet Sheen succeeds, and Boldwood's brave smile grows dreadful to behold." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club found the character "pitiful, and sometimes downright painful to watch. He's not Hardy's Boldwood, but he's a Boldwood. The only sad, genuine moment of the film belongs to him." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian remarked that Sheen's face "is etched with agony and an awful kind of abject adoration, forever trying to find ways to forgive the loved one in advance for rejection. When Sheen's Boldwood confides to Oak that he feels "grief" you really can feel his pain." Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice also referred to the scene where Boldwood expressed his grief, commenting: "Sheen's performance is fine-grained, and the pure Englishness of his understatement is heartrending." Also in 2015, Sheen had well-received comedic television performances in Comedy Bang! Bang!, The Spoils Before Dying    and 7 Days in Hell. Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times said his television host in 7 Days in Hell was "played with damp lechery and cigarette-ash mastery." Liz Shannon Miller of Indiewire said he may have "stolen the show" while John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter described him as the "scene-stealer of the bunch".

On February 2015 Sheen joined The Great Comic Relief Bake Off – the charity version of The Great British Bake Off, and won the title "Star Baker" of the episode.

Between 2013 and 2016 Sheen starred in and produced Showtime's Masters of Sex. He and Lizzy Caplan portrayed the 1960s human sexuality pioneers Masters and Johnson; the series chronicled "their unusual lives, romance and pop culture trajectory, which saw them go from a Midwestern teaching hospital to the cover of Time magazine and Johnny Carson's couch". David Sims of The Atlantic described Sheen's portrayal of Masters as "an intensely honest and unsympathetic one" while Sonia Saraiya of The A.V. Club said Sheen played the role "so seamlessly it's hard to remember that there's a British actor there who has played flamboyant news personalities and prime ministers." Sean T. Collins of The Observer described Masters as "a singularly unappealing figure": "It's not that Michael Sheen is bad in the role. On the contrary! Sheen's skill in playing Masters as an asshole who oscillates between headache-inducing self-repression and volcanic rage renders him unpleasant to spend more than two minutes with at a time." Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter remarked: "Masters has never been very likable. In fact, it's a testament to Sheen's performance— and Caplan's nuanced Johnson offsetting Masters—that anyone still cares what happens to Masters on a personal level." He received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in late 2013.

In 2016 Sheen had supporting roles in the dramas Nocturnal Animals and Norman, and the science fiction romance Passengers. He also reprised his role as the White Rabbit in the fantasy adventure Alice Through the Looking Glass. Sheen also starred in BBC Wales documentary Michael Sheen: The Fight For My Steel Town and won Welsh BAFTA Award for News and Current Affairs. In 2017, he had supporting roles in the dramatic comedies Brad's Status and Home Again. In 2018, Sheen was cast as unconventional lawyer Roland Blum in season 3 of television series The Good Fight.

Good Omens, Staged and Best Interests (2019–2023)
In May 2019 Sheen starred alongside David Tennant in Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and was cast as Chris Tarrant in the TV adaptation of James Graham's stage play Quiz. From September 2019 through May 2021, Sheen played the role of Martin Whitly in the American television series Prodigal Son on Fox. In April 2020, Quiz was shown on ITV. On 14 April, when the ITV channel broadcast the second instalment, the continuity announcer introduced him as "Martin Sheen", a different actor. Sheen reacted to this by changing his Twitter handle to "Martin Sheen". In June 2020, Sheen starred alongside David Tennant again in a six-part television lockdown comedy entitled Staged, which was made using video-conferencing software. A second eight-episode series started airing in January 2021. In June 2021, Sheen returned to the London stage, after its protracted period of Covid-19 shutdown, in Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood in the Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre. A new production of Amadeus, scheduled for December 2022 at the Sydney Opera House, was announced in July 2022 with Sheen as Salieri. Sheen won Best Performer in a Play at the 2023 BroadwayWorld Australia – Sydney Awards for his performance.

Continuing Sheen's professional partnership with Tennant, a third six-episode series of Staged aired in its entirely on 14 November 2022, while a second six-episode series of Good Omens premiered on 28 July 2023. In June 2023, Sheen starred in BBC One's Best Interests, which won him Best Actor in International Competition at the 2023 Series Mania. In November 2023, Sheen was cast as Prince Andrew, Duke of York for a limited series entitled A Very Royal Scandal.

The Way and Nye (2024–present)
From 19 February to 4 March 2024 Sheen directed and starred in a three-part television series called The Way on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. From February to June 2024, Sheen performed on stage as Aneurin Bevan in Nye, a play written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris. The play ran in the Royal National Theatre from 24 February until 11 May, and at the Wales Millennium Centre from 18 May to 1 June. In April 2024, Sheen guested on BBC's The Assembly for Autism Acceptance Week, and was praised for his "heartwarming" interaction with neurodiverse journalists. In June 2024, Sheen joined the BBC Radio 4's environmental documentary podcast Buried Series 2: The Last Witness as the hearsay witness who recorded dead witness Douglas Gowan's final testimony.

Charity work
Sheen is honorary president of Wales Council for Voluntary Action, the lead national body for the voluntary sector in Wales. Accepting the role he explained, "I plan to use my role to actively challenge and support WCVA in their impact and role in supporting the community and keeping us focused on what matters locally as well as the need for national leadership". He is also an ambassador for TREAT Trust Wales, and is the Welsh ambassador of Into Film, a charity which offers after-school film clubs to state primary and secondary schools in an effort to improve literacy levels. He is also an ambassador of the environmental charity Keep Wales Tidy.

Sheen is a patron of British charities, including Scene & Heard, NSPCC's Child's Voice Appeal, Healing the Wounds, The Relationships Centre, WGCADA (West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse) and Adferiad Recovery, a new organisation providing support for vulnerable people in Wales and their families and carers. He has taken part in a number of charity football matches, including captaining the winning Soccer Aid 2010 team at Wembley Stadium, as well as appearing in the 2012 and 2014 matches. He is a patron of the British Independent Film Awards, an ambassador for the Dylan Thomas Prize and vice-president of Port Talbot Town F.C. In October 2018, Sheen sponsored a women's football team in Wales.

In 2014 Sheen designed a Shakespeare-themed Paddington Bear statue. Placed outside Shakespeare's Globe, it was one of fifty statues of Paddington located around London prior to the release of the film Paddington, which were auctioned to raise funds for the NSPCC. In 2017, Sheen founded the End High Cost Credit Alliance working to promote more affordable ways to borrow money. That same year Sheen became a Patron of Social Enterprise UK, a charity which supports social projects which benefit local, environmental and co-operative causes. In October 2018, Sheen and Natasha Kaplinsky became vice-presidents (an ambassadorial role) of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). Sheen is a fundraising partner with the non-profit organization, The White Curl, which supports Welsh charities. In December 2021, Sheen announced that he would be giving all of his future earnings to charities, declaring himself a "not-for-profit actor".

Political and social activism
Sheen is known for political and social activism. Examples include campaigning against high-cost credit agreements, crises in local journalism and describing himself as a not-for-profit actor due to his contributions to social causes.

He has made calls for discussions about Welsh independence  and has made comments about the institution of the "Prince of Wales" title. In 2024, Sheen showed support to a cross-party campaign of Plaid Cymru and Welsh Labour focused on devolving the Crown Estate to Wales.

Personal life
Sheen was in a relationship with English actress Kate Beckinsale from 1995 until 2003. They met when cast in a touring production of The Seagull in early 1995, and began living together shortly afterwards. Their daughter Lily Mo was born in 1999 in London. Their relationship ended in January 2003, soon after the couple moved to Los Angeles. Beckinsale had persuaded director Len Wiseman to cast Sheen in Underworld; but while on set, she and Wiseman fell in love, and subsequently married in 2004.

Sheen had a long-distance relationship with English ballet dancer Lorraine Stewart from late 2004 until mid-2010. He dated Canadian actress Rachel McAdams from autumn 2010 to early 2013, American actress Caitlin FitzGerald from 2013 to 2014 and American comedian and actress Sarah Silverman from early 2014 to early 2018.

Sheen now lives in Port Talbot, Wales, with the Swedish actress Anna Lundberg. The couple have two daughters together, born September 2019 and May 2022.

He is a supporter of Swansea City A.F.C.

Theatre awards

 * M.E.N. Theatre Award for Best Actor (1992)—nominated for Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Exchange, Manchester
 * Ian Charleson Award (1993)—nominated for Don't Fool with Love at the Donmar Warehouse, London
 * Ian Charleson Award (1997)—nominated for Henry V at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon
 * Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance (1998)—nominated for Amadeus at the Old Vic, London
 * Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor (1999)—nominated for Amadeus at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway
 * Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor (1999)—nominated for Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre, Chandigarh
 * Evening Standard Award for Best Actor (1999)—nominated for Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre, London
 * Evening Standard Award for Best Actor (2003)—win for Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse, London
 * Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor (2003)—win for Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse, London
 * Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor (2003)—nominated for Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse, London
 * Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor (2006)—nominated for Frost/Nixon at the Donmar Warehouse, London
 * Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance (2007)—nominated for Frost/Nixon at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, Broadway
 * Theatre Award UK for Best Director (2011)—win for The Passion, a site-specific performance in Port Talbot, Wales
 * BroadwayWorld Australia – Sydney Awards for Best Performer in a Play (2023)—win for Amadeus at Sydney Opera House

Screen awards

 * Royal Television Society Award for Best Actor (2004)—nominated for Dirty Filthy Love
 * British Academy Television Award for Best Actor (2005)—nominated for Dirty Filthy Love
 * Royal Television Society Award for Best Actor (2006)—win for Fantabulosa!
 * BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (2006)—nominated for The Queen
 * Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (2006)—nominated for The Queen
 * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (2006)—win for The Queen
 * New York Film Critics Online (2006)—win for The Queen
 * Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor (2006)—win for The Queen
 * Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (2006)—win for The Queen
 * Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (2006)—win for The Queen
 * International Cinephile Society Award for Best Supporting Actor (2007)—win for The Queen
 * British Academy Television Award for Best Actor (2007)—nominated for Fantabulosa!
 * St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (2007)—nominated for Music Within
 * Welsh BAFTA Tlws Siân Phillips Award (2007)—win
 * Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor (2008)—win for Frost/Nixon
 * London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the Year (2008)—nominated for Frost/Nixon
 * Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (2008)—nominated for Frost/Nixon
 * Variety Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2008—win
 * Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films for Best Actor (2009)—win for Frost/Nixon
 * GQ Magazine's Actor of the Year (2009)—win
 * Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture (2009)—nominated for The Damned United
 * Digital Spy Movie Award for Actor Of The Year (2009)—win
 * Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie (2010)—nominated for The Special Relationship
 * OFTA Television Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture or Limited Series (2010)—nominated for The Special Relationship
 * OFTA Television Award for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (2010)—nominated for 30 Rock
 * BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year (2010)—win
 * Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (2012)—nominated for Midnight in Paris
 * Welsh BAFTA Award for Best Actor (2013)—win for The Gospel of Us
 * Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama (2013)—nominated for Masters of Sex
 * Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series (2014)—nominated for Masters of Sex
 * Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama (2014)—nominated for Masters of Sex
 * Welsh BAFTA Award for Best Actor (2017)—nominated for Aberfan: The Green Hollow
 * Welsh BAFTA Award for News and Current Affairs (2017)—win for Michael Sheen: The Fight For My Steel Town
 * Fright Meter Award for Best Supporting Actor (2018)—nominated for Apostle
 * Welsh BAFTA Award for Best Actor (2019)—nominated for Apostle
 * Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor in Streaming Presentation (2019)—nominated for Good Omens
 * Tell-Tale TV Award for Favorite Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie (2020)—nominated for Good Omens
 * OFTA Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture or Limited Series (2020)—nominated for Quiz
 * Welsh BAFTA Award for Best Actor (2021)—nominated for Quiz
 * British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor (2021)—nominated for Quiz
 * Series Mania for Best Actor in International Competition (2023)—win for Best Interests
 * TV Choice Award for Best Actor (2024)—nominated for Best Interests
 * Tell-Tale TV Award for Favorite Performer in a Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror Series (2024)—win for Good Omens
 * TV Choice Award for Best Actor (2024)—nominated for Best Interests
 * Tell-Tale TV Award for Favorite Performer in a Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror Series (2024)—win for Good Omens

Philanthropy awards

 * St David Awards for International Award (2015)
 * St David's Society of New York Award for William R. Hopkins Bronze Medal (2015)
 * It's My Shout Award for Inspiration Award (2016)
 * Royal Society for Public Health Award for Outstanding Contribution to Championing the Public's Health (2017)
 * Welsh Housing Award for Outstanding Contribution to Housing (2019)
 * Beard Liberation Front Award for Beard of the Year (2020)
 * Beard Liberation Front Award for Lifetime Achievement Award (2021)
 * Worshipful Livery Company of Wales Award for Outstanding Achievement Award (2021)

Return of OBE
Sheen was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for his services to drama. In 2020, Sheen revealed, during an online interview with Owen Jones, that he had "handed back" the medal after doing research for a lecture on the relationship between Wales and the British state, saying "I didn't mean any disrespect but I just realised I'd be a hypocrite if I said the things I was going to say in the lecture about the nature of the relationship between Wales and the British state". Individuals who voluntarily renounce an honour continue to legally hold it unless it is annulled by the monarch.

Other honours
He was awarded the freedom of the borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales in 2008 for his services in the field of the dramatic arts. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Newport, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Swansea University, Aberystwyth University and Swansea Metropolitan University, and has been awarded the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin. Sheen was given an Honorary Doctorate as Doctor of Arts by University of Wales in 2013.

List of performances
In addition to theatre, film and television credits, Sheen has also appeared in many radio productions, particularly in the early years of his career. Notable radio play appearances include Strangers on a Train (1994) opposite Bill Nighy, The Importance of Being Earnest (1995) opposite Judi Dench, Romeo and Juliet (1997) opposite Kate Beckinsale, Troy (1998) and The Pretenders (2004) both opposite Paul Scofield. He has narrated six novels for BBC Radio 4 and Naxos AudioBooks: Crime and Punishment (1994), The Idiot (1995), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1995), A White Merc With Fins (1997), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013). In 2010, he starred as a chess player in the music video for the Manic Street Preachers' single "(It's Not War) Just the End of Love", alongside actress Anna Friel.

title: Michael Sheen


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Black Sabbath (album)

Black Sabbath is the debut studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath, released on 13 February 1970 by Vertigo Records in the United Kingdom and on 1 June 1970 by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. The album is widely regarded as the first true heavy metal album, and the opening track, "Black Sabbath", has been referred to as the first doom metal song.

Black Sabbath received generally negative reviews from critics upon its release but was a commercial success, reaching number eight on the UK Albums Charts and number 23 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart. It has retrospectively garnered reappraisal as one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time. Black Sabbath is included in Robert Dimery's 2005 musical reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Recording
According to Black Sabbath's guitarist and founding member Tony Iommi, the group's debut album was recorded in a single twelve-hour session on 16 October 1969. Iommi said: "We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland." Aside from the bells, thunder and rain sound effects added to the beginning of the opening track and the double-tracked guitar solos on "N.I.B." and "Sleeping Village", there were virtually no overdubs added to the album. Iommi recalls recording live: "We thought, 'We have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.' So we played live. Ozzy was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff."

The key to the band's new sound on the album was Iommi's distinctive playing style that he developed after an accident at a sheet metal factory where he was working at the age of 17 in which the tips of the middle fingers of his fretting hand were severed. Iommi created a pair of false fingertips using plastic from a dish detergent bottle and tuned the strings on his guitar down to make it easier for him to bend the strings, creating a massive, heavy sound. "I'd play a load of chords and I'd have to play fifths because I couldn't play fourths because of my fingers," Iommi explained to Phil Alexander in Mojo in 2013. "That helped me develop my style of playing, bending the strings and hitting the open string at the same time just to make the sound wilder." In the same article bassist Geezer Butler added, "Back then the bass player was supposed to do all these melodic runs, but I didn't know how to do that because I'd been a guitarist, so all I did was follow Tony's riff. That made the sound heavier."

Iommi began recording the album with a white Fender Stratocaster, his guitar of choice at the time, but a malfunctioning pickup forced him to finish recording with a Gibson SG, a guitar he had recently purchased as a backup but had "never really played". The SG was a right-handed model which the left-handed Iommi played upside down. Soon after recording the album, he met a right-handed guitarist who was playing a left-handed SG upside down, and the two agreed to swap guitars; this is the SG that Iommi modified and later "put out to pasture" at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne has always spoken fondly of the recording of the band's debut album, stating in his autobiography I Am Ozzy, "Once we'd finished, we spent a couple of hours double-tracking some of the guitar and vocals, and that was that. Done. We were in the pub in time for last orders. It can't have taken any longer than twelve hours in total. That's how albums should be made, in my opinion." Drummer Bill Ward agrees, telling Guitar World in 2001, "I think the first album is just absolutely incredible. It's naïve, and there's an absolute sense of unity – it's not contrived in any way, shape or form. We weren't old enough to be clever. I love it all, including the mistakes!" In an interview for the Classic Albums series in 2010 Butler added, "It was literally live in the studio. I mean, (producer) Rodger Bain, I think he's a genius the way he captured the band in such a short time." In his autobiography Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath, Iommi plays down the producer's role, insisting, "We didn't choose to work with Rodger Bain, he was chosen for us... He was good to have around, but we didn't really get a lot of advice from him. He maybe suggested a couple of things, but the songs were already fairly structured and sorted."

Genre
On release, a writer for The Boston Globe described the music of Black Sabbath as "hard blues-rock". In retrospect, AllMusic's Steve Huey feels that Black Sabbath marks "the birth of heavy metal as we now know it". In his opinion, the album "transcends its clear roots in blues-rock and psychedelia to become something more". He ascribes its "sonic ugliness" as a reflection of "the bleak industrial nightmare" of the group's hometown, Birmingham, England. Huey notes the first side's allusions to themes characteristic of heavy metal, including evil, paganism, and the occult, "as filtered through horror films and the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and Dennis Wheatley." He characterises side two as "given over to loose blues-rock jamming learned through" the English rock band Cream.

In the opinion of the author and former Metal Maniacs magazine editor Jeff Wagner, Black Sabbath is the "generally accepted starting point" when heavy metal "became distinct from rock and roll". In his opinion, the album represented a transition from blues rock into "something uglier", and that this sound "found deeper gravity via mournful singing and a sinister rhythmic pulse". According to Rolling Stone magazine, "the album that arguably invented heavy metal was built on thunderous blues-rock". Sputnikmusic's Mike Stagno notes that Black Sabbath's combined elements of rock, jazz and blues, with heavy distortion created one of the most influential albums in the history of heavy metal. In retrospect, Black Sabbath has been lauded as perhaps the first true heavy metal album. It has also been credited as the first record in the stoner rock genre. Taking a broader perspective, Pete Prown of Vintage Guitar says, "The debut Black Sabbath album of 1970 was a watershed moment in heavy rock, but it was part of a larger trend of artists, producers, and engineers already moving towards the sound we now call hard rock and heavy metal."

Music and lyrics
Black Sabbath music and lyrics were quite dark for the time. The opening track is based almost entirely on a tritone interval played at slow tempo on the electric guitar. In the 2010 Classic Albums documentary on the making of the band's second album Paranoid, bassist Geezer Butler claims the riff was inspired by "Mars, the Bringer of War", a movement in Gustav Holst's The Planets. Iommi reinterpreted the riff slightly and redefined the band's direction. Ward told Classic Albums, "When Oz sang 'What is this that stands before me?' it became completely different...this was a different lyric now, this was a different feel. I was playing drums to the words." The song's lyrics concern a "figure in black" which Geezer Butler claims to have seen after waking up from a nightmare. In the liner notes to the band's 1998 live album Reunion the bassist remembers: "I'd been raised a Catholic so I totally believed in the Devil. There was a weekly magazine called Man, Myth and Magic that I started reading which was all about Satan and stuff. That and books by Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley, especially The Devil Rides Out ... I'd moved into this flat I'd painted black with inverted crosses everywhere. Ozzy gave me this 16th Century book about magic that he'd stolen from somewhere. I put it in the airing cupboard because I wasn't sure about it. Later that night I woke up and saw this black shadow at the end of the bed. It was a horrible presence that frightened the life out of me! I ran to the airing cupboard to throw the book out, but the book had disappeared. After that I gave up all that stuff. It scared me shitless."

Similarly, the lyrics of the song "N.I.B." are written from the point of view of Lucifer, who falls in love with a human woman and "becomes a better person" according to lyricist Butler. Contrary to popular belief, the name of that song is not an abbreviation for "Nativity in Black;" according to Osbourne's autobiography it is merely a reference to drummer Bill Ward's pointed goatee at the time, which was shaped as a fountain pen-nib. The lyrics of two other songs on the album were written about stories with mythological themes. "Behind the Wall of Sleep" is a reference to the H. P. Lovecraft short story "Beyond the Wall of Sleep," while "The Wizard" was inspired by the character of Gandalf from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The latter includes harmonica playing by Osbourne. The band also recorded a cover of "Evil Woman," a song that had been an American hit for the band Crow. In his autobiography, Iommi admits the band reluctantly agreed to do the song at the behest of their manager Jim Simpson, who insisted they record something commercial.

Artwork
The cover photograph was shot at Mapledurham Watermill, situated on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, by photographer Keith Stuart Macmillan (credited as Keef), who was in charge of the overall design. Standing in front of the watermill is a figure dressed in a black cloak, portrayed by model Louisa Livingstone, whose identity was not widely known until 2020. "I'm sure (McMillan) said it was for Black Sabbath, but I don't know if that meant anything much to me at the time," Livingstone recalled, adding that it had been "freezing cold" during the shoot. "I had to get up at about 4 o'clock in the morning. Keith was rushing around with dry ice, throwing it into the water. It didn't seem to be working very well, so he ended up using a smoke machine," said the model.

According to McMillan, Livingstone was wearing nothing underneath the black cloak, and some experimentation was done involving some "slightly more risqué" photographs taken at the session. "We decided none of that worked," McMillan said. "Any kind of sexuality took away from the more foreboding mood. But she was a terrific model. She had amazing courage and understanding of what I was trying to do."

The inner gatefold sleeve of the original release featured an inverted cross containing a poem written by Roger Brown, McMillan's photography assistant. The band were reportedly upset when they discovered this, as it fuelled allegations that they were satanists or occultists; however, in Osbourne's memoirs, he says that to the best of his knowledge nobody was upset with the inclusion. Iommi's recollection is somewhat different: "Suddenly we had all these crazy people turning up at shows," he told Mojo magazine in 2013. "I think Alex Sanders (high priest of the Wiccan religion) turned up at a gig once. It was all quite strange, really." The liner notes to the 1998 Reunion album state "Unbeknownst to the band, Black Sabbath was launched in the U.S. with a party with the head of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, presiding over the proceedings... All of a sudden Sabbath were Satan's Right Hand Men."

In the years since the iconic cover photo was shot, Livingstone has released electronic music under the name Indreba.

Release and reception
Black Sabbath was recorded for Fontana Records, but prior to release the record company elected to switch the band to another of their labels, Vertigo Records, which housed the company's more progressive acts. Released on Friday the 13th February 1970 by Vertigo Records, Black Sabbath reached number eight on the UK Albums Charts. Following its United States release in June 1970 by Warner Bros. Records, the album reached number 23 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, where it remained for more than a year and sold one million copies.

Black Sabbath received generally negative reviews from contemporary critics. Rolling Stone Lester Bangs described the band as, "just like Cream! But worse", and he dismissed the album as "a shuck – despite the murky songtitles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés". Robert Christgau, writing for The Village Voice, panned the album as "bullshit necromancy". He later described it as a reflection of "the worst of the counterculture", including "drug-impaired reaction time" and "long solos".

Retrospective reviews and legacy
Retrospective reviews of Black Sabbath have been positive. AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey said it was a highly innovative debut album with several classic metal songs, including the title track, which he felt had the "most definitive heavy metal riffs of all time". Huey was also impressed by how the band's "slowed-down, murky guitar rock bludgeons the listener in an almost hallucinatory fashion, reveling in its own dazed, druggy state of consciousness". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), journalist Scott Seward highlighted Bain's grandiose production on "an album that eats hippies for breakfast." In the opinion of Mike Stagno of Sputnikmusic, "both fans of blues influenced hard rock and heavy metal of all sorts should find something they like on the album." BBC Music's Pete Marsh referred to Black Sabbath as an "album that changed the face of rock music." In Mick Wall's book Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe, Butler reflects, "The London press absolutely hated us when we made it 'cos they'd never written an article about us, they didn't know of us. When our first album, the first week, went straight into the charts, the London press went, like, what the hell's going on here? And they've hated us ever since."

In 1989, Kerrang! ranked Black Sabbath number 31 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". In 1994, it was ranked number 12 in Colin Larkin's Top 50 Heavy Metal Albums. Larkin praised the album's "crushing atmosphere of doom", which he described as "intense and relentless". In 2000, Q magazine included Black Sabbath in their list of the "Best Metal Albums of All Time", stating: "[This album] was to prove so influential it remains a template for metal bands three decades on." In 2003, it was ranked number 241 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 243 in a 2012 revised list, and 355 in a 2020 revised list. Rolling Stone ranked Black Sabbath number 44 in their list of the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time, describing the title track as the song that "would define the sound of a thousand bands". Additionally, in 2017, the magazine ranked it 5th on their list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Track listing
All songs written by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne, except where noted.

North American edition
The original North American Warner Bros. Records pressings of Black Sabbath list incorrect running times for "Wicked World" and the "Warning" medley (4:30 and 14:32, respectively), and also credit the album's original songs using the band members' given names (Anthony Iommi, John Osbourne, Terence Butler, and William Ward). The Castle Communications edition of 1986 also featured a live version of "Tomorrow's Dream" as a bonus track.

Disc two of the Deluxe Editions contains "N.I.B. (studio out-take)" with vocals, that was incorrectly listed as "N.I.B. (instrumental)".

Black Sabbath

 * Ozzy Osbourne – lead vocals, harmonica on "The Wizard", tambourine
 * Tony Iommi – guitar
 * Geezer Butler – bass
 * Bill Ward – drums

Production

 * Rodger Bain – production, Jew's harp on "Sleeping Village"
 * Tom Allom – engineering
 * Barry Sheffield – engineering
 * Marcus Keef – graphic design, photography

title: Black Sabbath (album)