Tulse Hill comedian and fundraiser to eat doughnuts without licking her lips to fundraise for stint at the Fringe Festival

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

It is a tough ask, but someone has to do it. One fundraiser is trying to bring in cash by eating as many doughnuts as possible in three minutes without licking her lips. It’s a real thing.

In the Guinness Book of Records. The weirdest thing is that more people do not attempt it.

The current best is six, is held by Steve McHugh (UK) who reached this landmark at the offices of Guinness World Records, on the Isle of Dogs, on June 28, 2002.

Millie Hunt, from Trinity Rise, Tulse Hill, is trying other ways to raise money for her comedy turn along with friend Carline Avis at the Brighton Fringe festival in May.

She is also planning to balance snails on her face in a bid to raise the £1,400 she needs to put on the show.

Which goes to show, even if some people run thousands of miles across parched deserts to raise money for the sick, the poor and the hungry, you can just as easily put yourself through hell much closer to home.

Millie said: “Apparently snails on the face is an expensive beauty treatment in a lot of countries. Lucky me?”

Millie, with Caroline, (pictured above) has devised a series of madcap challenges in return for sponsorship money for their Socially Awkward Theatre Company, formed after graduating from the acting course at the University of Northampton.

Caroline has agreed, if enough promises of cash come in, to drink a bottle of ketchup – without a chips chaser. All money raised will be used by their theatre company to stage their latest production, The Noise Maker, during the festival.

The show explore’s the misadventure of Kate and Robin, two dim-witted chums, as they try to put up with their noisy neighbour.

The only way to stop him is to embrace the psychedelic after-effects of a bag of M&Ms and choose between their head and their heart.

Turns out graduation isn’t as glamorous as they planned.

Millie, who discovered her love of performing at Rosendale Primary School, Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, said: “Our supporters have been amazing in the past.

“We now need help to raise the final payments for performing in the fringe venue, paying the box office, flyering, insurance, lighting equipment and a lot of fake blood.

“In order to make this a little bit more interesting, we wanted to ask supporters, how much would they pay for us to do something ridiculous?”

HOW TOUGH CAN IT BE?

Part of the reason why the challenge of eating a sugared jam doughnut without licking the lips is tough is that the brain works much quicker than willpower.

Lips are extremely sensitive so when one eats the doughnut, the sugar gets around our mouths. The natural moisture of our lips is lost as the sugar acts as an absorbant.

This leads the brain to instantly trigger a natural reaction of licking of the lips to restore the moisture.

It’s tough to simply ignore the sugar as it increases the chemical that controls how happy we feel – serotonin, giving us all a natural desire to eat sweet things.