Hollywood brought a timely reminder of the Easter message to a beach in South Wales as Michael Sheen embarked on a 72-hour live performance.
The actor returned to his home town of Port Talbot to play a Christ-like character in a marathon National Theatre Wales production of The Passion.
Sheen, whose films include Frost/Nixon and the Twilight saga, is "living the story" and has immersed himself completely in the role for the weekend.
He was sleeping rough on a mountain tonight before spending Saturday night in a police cell and concluding the play on Easter Sunday by being "crucified" on a roundabout overlooking Port Talbot bay.
More than 1,000 local residents are also taking part in the production, which is being performed at venues across the industrial seaside town including the beach, a shopping centre and a working men's club.
The play began at 5.30am on Friday with a scene on the seafront inspired by John the Baptist's baptism of Jesus, which was watched by several hundred people who had heard about it by word of mouth.
By 3pm, when the first main part of the play was performed on Aberavon Beach under an overcast but warm sky, there were thousands of spectators on the damp sands and along the promenade craning their necks for a glimpse of the star.
Sheen provoked gasps when he emerged from the crowd sporting a scruffy beard and shaggy hair and wearing a blue hooded top with a red blanket wrapped round him. After a powerful speech which moved one woman to tears, he melted back into the audience and walked off down the beach in the direction of Port Talbot's imposing steelworks.
"There's episodes of the story over the three days, and in between those official episodes there's other stuff going on but you just have to go and look for it," he said. "It's a story that is absolutely about the town now, but it is underpinned by the story of the last week of Jesus."
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Sheen, who is also co-director and creative director of the play, was inspired to put on the ambitious drama - which was two years in the planning and is the finale to National Theatre Wales's launch year - by watching performances of Passion plays in Port Talbot when he was a child.
