I almost died a few years ago doing a suffocation act, I’m still not right Showman on his greatest ever mind games
KEITH Barry told how a neardeath experience has not deterred him from risking his life on stage for his latest hit show Insanity.
The illusionist revealed his wife Mairead is used to his crazy escapades and turns a blind eye.
The man famed for catching bullets in his mouth and his dangerous escapology acts has no fear of dying and is celebrating 20 years as Ireland’s leading mentalist.
Keith told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I almost died at the Olympia a few years back doing a suffocation act.
“I’m at the sports clinic every week because I have detached muscles in my rib cage as a result of a stunt that I did a year-and-a-half ago, I’m still not right.
“It’s like a bad rugby injury really. My wife is like, ‘whatever’, at this stage. She just looks at me and says, ‘Well that’s stupid’.
“She doesn’t tell me to stop or anything because she knows I’m just going to do it anyway.”
The self-confessed workaholic thrives on living on the edge and in his new show he goes one step further and gets electrocuted.
He explained: “The show is so theatrical, the first half I explore characters in history who’ve been deemed insane.
“Apparently, Rasputin the mad monk had supernatural powers, so I get the whole audience involved and give them supernatural abilities.
“Every night somebody comes up on stage and I get electrocuted in the head as part of the demonstration.
SHOCKED
“It’s about 10,000 volts that get rammed into my head, it’s quite a bit.
“The person on stage is thinking of a drawing that they’ve never drawn before and I need to get seriously shocked to activate my brain, so under that pressure I can visualise what they’re thinking of.
“We’ll have to see if it’ll affect me permanently, maybe it will.”
He said proving to the audience that the electrocution technique is no gimmick is crucial for the fear factor.
He added: “I prove it’s real by putting part of the electrical wand into my head, it’s like a cattle prod.
“I arc it into the leg of the table which is metal so they can see the electricity.
“A member of the audience is sitting in front of me at this stage and I ask them if they want to take a shot of electricity at the lowest voltage.
“I love doing the maddest, craziest s**t that people like, I don’t think it’s anything to do with sadism, I just love coming up with the craziest shows possible.”
Inspired by surrealist artist Salvador Dali, the 43-year-old admits he has audiences “freaked”.
He said: “I get somebody up on stage, give them a shot of absinthe and get them to hallucinate that
Salvador is infecting their body.
“It’s a bit like the Netflix show Stranger Things, it’s like the person on stage becomes possessed by Salvador and it gets crazy.” The audience has an option to wear a tinfoil hat, giving them immunity from the brain hacker.
Keith explained how the tables are turned on the audience in the second
half. He added: “I get them to think of the most insane things they’ve ever done by hacking into their brains.
“There was a guy who I revealed dropped the drug MDMA at a festival and then he woke up naked in the Aran Islands in a bath.
“Some of the stuff I can’t reveal on stage. One was about a guy who was in a high-speed car chase with a cop and rammed the cop car.
“I chose not to hack into his brain. I was too scared of who he was. If I hack into some brains and the stuff is too illegal or immoral, I won’t reveal it.”
The showman married his childhood sweetheart Mairead in 2006 but admits he’s no romantic.
ADVENTURE
He said: “It’s just not in my DNA. I love adventure instead of romance, I’d say come on let’s jump into the sea in the middle of winter.
“To keep the romance alive, we go away once every four months. That’s about it, heading off to a hotel or a break away from everything. Normal things like the cinema or a meal but we don’t get too much time for it.
“On February 14 I’ll be on stage somewhere. So I’m not even around for Valentines.”
The dad of two religiously spends every Sunday with his children Breanna, 11, and eight-year-old Braden.
He added: “I’m a workaholic, but in the same breath as a mind coach I’m always banging on to people to spend enough quality time with their family.
The majority of my work is with high-end business people and athletes KEITH BARRY YESTERDAY
I love doing the maddest, craziest s**t that people like.. the craziest shows KEITH BARRY YESTERDAY
I’ll juggle family stuff pretty well, but nobody’s perfect.”
Keith, who’s holding a seminar on the subconscious mind later this year, said he didn’t vote in the General Election and headed to the pub instead.
He revealed: “I got approached by politicians in the past to help them up their game, but not now. The majority of my work is with high-end business people and athletes. I’m very apolitical.
“I just don’t believe in the system that we have, there are no repercussions for politicians when they lie and that’s the biggest problem.” Insanity is running in theatres nationwide, including the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, from March 5 to 7. For more information go to keithbarry.com