Regurgitator Stevie Starr swallowed many things Wednesday night at Pruis Hall. He swallowed rings. He swallowed a billiard ball. He swallowed a Rubik's Cube, and each time he brought them back up, most times dry as a bone.
At one point in his act, Starr had an audience member come up on stage and volunteer a ring. The performer then produced a lock and key.
The audience member secured the lock and handed it back to Starr. Then Starr swallowed the lock, the key and the ring separately. Slapping his chest and letting out a gutteral yowl, the performer brought up the lock with the ring fastened on the loop of the lock. Somehow, Starr managed to unlock and then lock it using his stomach.
"It's not vomiting," Starr's manager, Mike Malley said. "It's clean; it's selective regurgitation. "
Starr said he has been selectively regurgitating on stage for more than 20 years.
"I don't do it for the money," Starr said. "It's just as difficult as a nine-to-five, with all the travel and the hotels and everything it's basically like a day's shift."
Starr, who holds a Guinness World Record for regurgitation, said really no one else in the world does what he does the way that he does it.
"There's no competition," Starr said. "No one knows how it's done. Doctors don't even understand how to control and select what comes up."
At some point, Starr said he would like to explain the process of selective regurgitation but not any time soon.
Starr said he never would have pursued a career in showbusiness had it not been for his difficult childhood spent at Glenavon, a home for abandoned children in Glasgow, Scotland.
It was at Glenavon that Starr said he first began regurgitating.
"I used to swallow bees and then bring them back up in the classroom; they'd be out there, buzzing around," Starr said. "The teacher would get mad."
As a child, Starr said he would go to candy stores and swallow candy still in the wrapper, then take it back to school and sell it to kids at lunch.
"I got into a lot of trouble in school," Starr said.
Before becoming a professional regurgitator, Starr said he held a series of mild-mannered jobs including a stint as a chef. That all changed after he won a talent contest, moved to London and got a manager.
Starr said he has been performing at venues around the world including shows in the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Malta, Canada and the United States.
Starr Recently appeared in a Nokia advertizement in Scandanavia in which he swallows the phone and it rings in his stomache. He said he tries out the act on London's subway system.
"People don't do anything," Starr said. "They don't know what to say so they just stare."
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