Stevie Starr
Leigh-on-Sea, England, United Kingdom
Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Stevie Starr will be the one performer that everyone will remember long past graduation. I do not exaggerate. If you stack up the music groups, comedians and hypnotists that are currently on the circuit and put them all up against Stevie Starr, it's no contest. Stevie Starr, the Regurgitator, is simply one of the most wonderfully bizarre performances that I have ever witnessed. No one I have ever brought onto campus has generated more buzz. Absolutely jaw-dropping.
Bill Bussey, Provost
Noble and Greenough School
- Bill Bussey, Provost
by Lauren Stokes
News Editor
Stevie Starr had one piece of advice for the assembled crowd: "Don't go home and tell your friends what you've seen, because they'll say 'No way, man, you're smashed out of your [freaking] head!'"
But four hundred other Swatties will back me up when I say that last Friday night, this campus was shocked and awed by the one and only man who can solve a Rubik's Cube with his stomach.
Starr swaggered onto the LPAC stage like a young David Bowie, wearing a silver jacket and extraordinarily tight black pants. We heard coins clink against each other in his stomach, gasped as he swallowed soap and proceeded to blow bubbles, and trembled as he gulped down cigarette smoke and an entire can of butane. Starr blew the butane into a soap bubble; a student volunteer used his lighter on the bubble and left the stage missing most of the hair on his right arm.
When Starr swallowed a billiard ball--joking meanwhile that he was "very popular with the Columbians"--he slapped his chest violently and made delightfully pneumatic noises to aid the ball on its way. He swallowed a balloon and a nail and let us hear him "pop" the balloon and also swallowed water and sugar before regurgitating dry sugar into a girl's hands. He swallowed a locked padlock, a key, and a ring and returned the ring locked onto the padlock.
With his extraordinary showmanship, Starr has turned a somewhat disgusting talent into a spectacular piece of entertainment. How did he discover his talent? According to his website, "I think I was about four when I started swallowing my pocket money... and then I tried other things like going out into the garden and swallowing a bumble bee and then bringing him back and letting him fly away."
Starr has clearly been cultivating his talent for several years, but the audience was ready to believe him when he told us that he could hypnotize a girl into swallowing a live goldfish. He gulped down twelve rings from women in the audience and told us that the last one to get her ring back would be his lucky assistant. He would swallow a fish, and then cough it straight into her mouth. "You're probably wondering, why does she have to swallow a little fish? Because it's FUNNY!"
We watched "his little tail go flicky-flicky" on the way down, but on the way up Starr confessed to the quaking volunteer that he was "only joking... I can't believe you had your mouth open to take the fish!" Amazingly, the fish flopped back into the tank as alive as ever.
As a finale, Starr swallowed a closed film canister and two small fish, and then returned the same canister with the fish inside. A group of girls near the front screamed and may even have fainted; the students behind me expressed a burning desire to "try this at home." On my way out, I heard a girl declaring that the act had been "too cool for Swarthmore."
I go to a lot of campus events, but Stevie Starr is the only performer I have ever seen receive a standing ovation.
- Swarthmore Daily Gazette
Sheena Smith, Staff Writer
Coins, key rings, cigarette smoke, soap, a billiard 8 ball, butane gas, jewelry, sugar and yes, three goldfish were among many things swallowed and brought back up with ease by the Regurgitator, Stevie Starr.
He not only swallows a variety of objects, he is truly an entertainer who had the audience laughing, ooing and ahhing all throughout the performance. He started the show swallowing a light bulb, then sucked coins down his throat one by one, only to follow it with soapy water. Whatever way the audience members requested the objects to be regurgitated, he granted them their wish.
One trick consisted of him smoking a cigarette, keeping the smoke in his stomach, then a few minutes later releasing the smoke into a bubble. Starr linked key rings together inside of his stomach, then amazingly brought them back up.
“You can feel absolutely everything down to a grain of sugar,” said Starr.
A student at the show, Summer Broeckelman, was a target for the Regurgitator. He swallowed a number of girls’ rings, then regurgitated hers last. That supposedly meant she was going to be hypnotized and had to swallow a goldfish. To her relief, he was only joking.
“I was a little worried I was going to have to swallow a fish, but I desperately hoped that he was kidding,” said Broeckelman.
Freshman Molly Shea noted that the fish were the most interesting part of the act.
“I liked it because it’s crazy for someone to be able to swallow a fish and make it come back out alive,” said Shea.
Kevin Deutsch, another student at the show, commented on his favorite part “When he swallowed the Rubik’s cube, and then twisted it around in his stomach before it came back up was cool,” said Deutsch.
Starr made fun of himself a number of times throughout the show, pointing out that he swallowed for a living. When someone yelled out that he was sick, he kept the right idea in mind.
“I may be sick, but I’m rich,” said Starr.
Starr, the only one of his kind, is from Scotland and has performed all over the world including making appearances on Jay Leno, David Letterman and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The Campus Activities Board brought him to campus to display his talent.
The Regurgitator commented on how he developed his odd capability during the show.
“I’ve had a misspent childhood. It’s amazing what you can do when you have a lot of time on your hands,” said Starr.
Overall, the show was a huge success bringing in the biggest turnout of the year for CAB. The Regurgitator made an appearance at Washburn in fall 2001. CAB’s variety director, Kipp Connell, agreed that he should come back.
“People had heard about him and his interesting act, so I thought it would be a great show to bring on campus,” said Connell.
CAB hopes to see more of a turnout like this happen again, as they continue to grow and bring other events to Washburn.
Sheena Smith is a freshman who is majoring in political science. She can be reached at sheena@washburnreview.org.
- Washburn Review
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Still working on that hot first release.
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A Scottish accented voice says "Good Evening", the crowd buzzes with eager anticipation, the man holds up a light bulb, pops it into his mouth and swallows it. The stunned silence erupts into deafening applause. It is the beginning of the most astonishing act you will ever see.
A bizarre phenomenon to the world of showbiz, this ginger haired, slightly built, forty-four year old baffles his audience by swallowing a variety of items and then bringing them up again, not only dry and clean, but.....TO ORDER!!
Whether it be large coins, Rubic's cubes, ladies rings or live goldfish, Stevie never fails to return them without injury to himself or the fish!
The idea may seem unbelievable, but after Stevie has smoked a cigarette without exhaling any smoke and then ingested and returned a billiard ball, all doubts give way to wonder, excitement and applause from an audience that cannot believe their eyes.
Just tell me when you'd like some smoke" says Stevie, "Would you like all or half of it? Or how about putting it in a soap bubble?"
Next to disappear down Stevie's throat is a miniature Rubic's cube and when he returns it - SURPRISE - all the rows have been turned.
Among the other amazing stunts Stevie performs is swallowing a bowl-full of dry sugar followed by a glass or two of water and then bringing the sugar back bone dry. Or how about swallowing a gentleman's ring followed by a locked padlock and the key and returning them with the ring locked inside the padlock!
Maybe the stunned audience would like a card trick (swallowed, of course) before Stevie swallows two live goldfish, only to return them unharmed at the end of the show (having drunk enough water to keep them swimming happily inside).
For television shows Stevie can swallow numbered coins and return whatever number the audience requests. From one to ten he produces the correct coin every time!
Stevie Starr spent the first eighteen years of his life in a children's home in Glasgow, and it was there that he discovered his own very special talent. "I think I was about four when I started swallowing my pocket money", says Stevie, "and then I tried other things like going out into the garden and swallowing a bumble bee and then bringing him back and letting him fly away." A stunt he repeated many years later on his second appearance on the American TV show 'That's Incredible'.
The resulting show is one of rare distinction and a delight to all ages. Paul Daniels described it as the most exciting act that he'd had on his show!
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