Published: Monday, 7th July, 2008 5:00pm

The Beast is on its way...

by Rose Harland

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MOVE over Beast of Bodmin and the Loch Ness Monster - there's a new mysterious creature who is about to hit the headlines.

Festivalgoers enjoying a night-time parade at the forthcoming Big Day Out might get a little more than they bargained for when they encounter the 15 foot tall ‘Beast of Bracknell'.

The towering creature, which is made entirely out of recycled materials, will be part of a performance at the festival in South Hill Park, Ringmead, and is one of the many green events going on over the course of the musical spectacular.

Festival co-ordinator at South Hill Park, William Trevelyan, said: "The Beast of Bracknell has really been a lovely linking project of this year's festival.

"It is thematically right in tune with the festival's spirit. Our beast is based around Bracknell mythology, our beautiful forest and how that relates to the present."

Taking a month to build, and costing more than £12,000 with funding from the re-cycling unit at Bracknell Forest Council, South Hill Park and The Arts Council, the beast is fully made from re-cycled materials, including a boat trailer used as a base for transporting it, found at the Re3 waste dump in Bracknell.

Its creators are staying quiet about just what the beast will look like but it will rise out of the forest at around 10.15pm on Saturday, July 12, as part of a spectacular performance called ‘Rag'n'Bone's Pandemonium summons The Beast of Bracknell Forest'.

The beast has even inspired Bracknell school children to enter a competition to build their own creatures out of recycled waste and cardboard in a bid to teach them more about the environment.

Mr Trevelyan said: "The beast may be here to tell us that we're all under threat ecologically,

"Even if in Bracknell it appears right now all lovely, leafy and unchanging, at the rate we're going, this is not going to be the case forever."