The Brazen Bull was allegedly created by Perillos of Athens, a bronze worker in the 6th century BC, for Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas in Sicily. The life-sized bull was cast entirely in bronze, hollow, with a door on the side for the victim to be forced inside and roasted.
My version was commissioned in 2013 by a production company for a Heston Blumenthall television programme. It was made to demonstrate how to spit roast a large piece of beef, and is a hybrid of the cockney idiom ‘cock n bull’ , a rotisserie, and a brazen bull. The tail could be turned to rotate the meat, and a car jack allowed the charoal brazier to be raised to the correct height.
According to legend, Perillos was the first person to be roasted in his own contraption. I was unable to attend the filming day, so survived. The sculpture is apparently now in a pub called The Cock and Bull somewhere in Ireland.
