Lucifire is Hot Stuff:

A real live wire Lucy eats fire, six-inch nails and glass for a living - she spoke to Alana Gallagher about the pitfalls of the job.

A twenty something performer who breathes fire, eats broken glass and six inch nails and uses angle grinders in her shows, Lucy is more than your average fire eater, she's more like a freak show. It's more theatrical than the average freak show with some physical theatre crossing over.

She trained as a dancer but admits to always being a bit of a pyromaniac. Isn't everyone? She asks. Yes, fire is thrilling but most of us accept that playing with the hot stuff will get us burnt her building in London has a flat roof. Imagine looking across a London sky and seeing Lucy practising flame throwing and swallowing! …makes you wonder what the neighbours must think?

"It's quite exciting, you can never completely control fire, you can predict it but you can never be 100% sure, that's quite exciting. There is an illusion of control, of power. It's nice to be seen in control of something so dangerous." She describes angle grinding as a human firework show, "except you've more control". She uses angle grinders to cut sheets of plate metal that she wears across her stomach and crotch. She controls and directs the sparks to keep time with the music. "It's more like a dance performance except the sparks are dancing!"

So does she really eat fire? "I try not to eat fire *too often* because of things like pleurisy. Fire-eaters tend to develop pleurisy and pneumonia, hazards of the job. Yet she has no problem eating glass - her dentist does however! The glass wears down your teeth, her dentist made a customised shield to protect her pearlies but she feels like a fraud using it on stage and relegates it to the bottom of her kit bag. When getting chatted up by guys she lies about her occupation. "I tell them I'm a student. I can't be bothered dealing with the same questions, asked over and over again. If I explain that I'm a performer it only feeds their fertile imaginations. People tend to think what I do is amazing and although I do enjoy it, it is a job!"

She's worked as a fire-eater in Manumission, Ibiza and several clubs in Greece and Croatia. Bringing equipment through airports is always hell, imagine the airport police's reaction to a case full of torches. "I don't bring my fuel on the plane with me." Very reassuring! Venue managers tend to despise her, she loves to use gallons of blood, paint, eats live crickets and maggots on stage. "I leave venues dripping in blood and infested with crickets and broken glass!"

Lucy, if you look closely, can be seen, in Playstation's Lara Croft, she admits to being a bit of a real-life Lara, "except I wouldn't be much of an archaeologist, although I wouldn't mind running around with big guns!" She also confesses to having appeared in several German beer commercials.

In the circles she moves, a sort of latter C20th circus ethic ensues, performers share tricks with each other…each performer will enact the trick in a different way. Sounds like one big happy family!

Alana Gallagher for In Dublin magazine