Queen of flame: how Limbo's Clara Fable fell in love with fire

As one member of the troupe in Limbo The Return at the Spiegeltent in Newcastle, she's a team player as well a stand-out in her own right. She sings, dances, does high-wire, and whipcracking.

And, she has a solo fire-breathing act in the show.

"My mother was a female drag queen and a go-go dancer in Sydney in the '80s, so I was always brought up under the influence of the stage, the lights, the costumes, the make-up, the hair," she says in an interview inside the Spiegeltent on Wednesday afternoon. "So I think I kind of fell into it, really."

Her earliest memory, which she occasionally switches on, is a video of her performing in a recital at age three or four. It's a jazz dance and the song is 100% Pure Love by Crystal Waters, a chart-topper in 1994.

Fable has a deep toolkit of talents - she sings, dances, writes music and performs music. While Limbo is closer to a circus, it has a burlesque flavour and burlesque means a lot to Fable.

"When I started burlesque I wanted to find as many sideshow elements that I could incorporate into my acts," she says. "My inspirations are film and music and TV, so when I think of whips I think Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns as Catwoman.

"So I remember being a baby burlesque performer and thinking, 'I want to know how to do that, just so I can do that act'. So getting to incorporate other elements of a sideshow, anything I do is really fun and important to me."

Burlesque as an art form is more than 400 years old, so, of course it has evolved.

"Burlesque is not what you think it is," Fable says. "Burlesque is so deep, has so many layers, so many things you can take from...

"For me burlesque is the art of comedy and seduction in one. So making people feel like, 'Wow', but also disgusted and turned on. All those things at once, if that makes sense. 'I don't know what I'm watching, it's incredible, it's horrific, it's exciting, it's sexy.' That, for me, is burlesque. I love taking my favourite films and turning them into acts.

"I have a Sweeney Todd act where I swallow razor blades, but then I striptease on a barber chair and I set myself on fire. There are just so many elements to burlesque that are so different and unique to other things I've done."

Fable's been working a fire act for a couple of years in her burlesque world, but Limbo is the first time she's incorporated fire breathing into an act. Her segment late in Limbo is a highlight of the show, full of tension and excitement as she is lit on fire, breathes fire and suffocates fire through her mouth in the routine.

The entire act is less than five minutes, but it's oh so memorable.

"Fire is hot," she says, so the less amount of time working with it is the best. "It's four to six minutes from prep to finish. But that's long time to be set on fire, manipulate fire and breathe fire. So I am very lucky and fortunate it is not longer than that."

The act stands out in the show - super daring and dangerous.

"It's just like a punch in the face 'Wham! Where are we?,' " Fable says.

"I love it," Fable says of her fire routine. "I think it's one of those things where you're paying to come to the circus to see things you haven't seen before, things that people don't normally do, like pushing the limits as a human is what I find so amazing and so incredible about circuses so I want to continue that."

Fable acknowledges she has a lot mental and physical prep for the routine, which is made more difficult because she's involved in several numbers as a singer and dancer with no time to focus on the fire act in advance.

What does fire taste like?

"Ouch. the more you do fire, the more your taste buds and your nerves, they become, I would say numb to the pain," she says. "So the more you do something, the more your body will get used to it.

"But the taste to fire, especially at the end, where I hold it really, really long right before the lights change, if I am holding it that little bit of couple of seconds too far, I completely lose taste and feeling for the next week - it's gone. Other times, it's kind of like an oooooooh, like a hot stone kind of feel really quickly and then that's it, if I'm lucky.

"I do like to keep the audience hanging on the edge of their seat so I kind of push my limits a little bit sometimes.

"I know the mouth is fast healing, I tell myself, it doesn't matter. It'll hurt, but it's worth it.

And what is the taste she treasures after the show?

"Ice cream. I've always got ice cream in the freezer no matter where we are staying, or at home, I've got like mochi ice cream or a tub of ice cream, cause that's like heaven, heaven after work."