A star is brown on eve of Glastonbury

The 17-year-old’s giant puddle slide was becoming the festival’s first cult hit the day before the main acts take to the Pyramid Stage.

Egged on by his mates, student Tom, from Kent, performed headlong dives on demand to cheer up arrivals trudging through the sodden 900-acre site.

Countless efforts left him caked in mud from head to toe, with dairy farm sludge stuck in the braces on his teeth. But, he declared with a grin: “If I run out of clothes, I’ll just do it naked.”

His dives received roars of approval from hundreds of onlookers along with the group of friends he was camping with.

Best friend Callum Burgess, also 17, said: “I’m supposed to share a tent with him but he can sleep outside. Look at the state of him.”

Crowds are continuing to swell at Pilton – despite a second day of torrential rain in the morning.

Every inch of Worthy Farm is becoming a sticky quagmire as the remainder of the 170,000-plus revellers pitch up their tents.

One forecaster said the best weather will not arrive until Sunday.

More than half of the ticket-holders for the sold-out event were expected to have squelched their way to the site yesterday. Campers hauling their bags and beers along the slippery thoroughfares were told to pitch tents on hills after some were flooded.

The first of the main acts takes to the Pyramid Stage today.___

This year’s event sees U2, Coldplay and Beyonce headline and the arrival of a new medieval bullring – Campo Pequeno.Other new elements include The Spirit of 71 stage, with acts that played at the festival 40 years ago.

Beyonce, who fell in love with the Somerset festival after watching husband Jay-Z perform three years ago, is believed to have cleared her diary to party in Pilton over three days.

Rapper Jay-Z is even money with bookmakers Ladbrokes to join his wife on stage this Sunday.