After decades of creating large-scale ensemble works and touring internationally, Collaborator marks a significant moment for contemporary circus company, Ockham’s Razor. Showcasing its two founders, Charlotte Mooney and Alex Harvey, it brings the focus back to the essential creative relationship between these two artists. Quays Life meets Charlotte Mooney to find out more:
How has the launch of Collaborator left you feeling so far?
Charlotte: “Good, thanks. A bit knackered, but we’re okay. We just opened the show, so we did our first three performances on Thursday, Friday, Saturday in London, ahead of coming up to the Lowry. So yeah, it’s been full on, but it’s been good.
“We had three sold-out shows, lovely audiences, we’ve had some really nice reviews, so we’re feeling pretty happy”.
What can people expect from your performances?
Charlotte: “Me and my partner, Alex, we’ve been making circus theatre work for 24 years, touring around, using the movement of circus to tell stories, and this is kind of our last hurrah, so it’s the last show that we’re making together.
“It’s a combination of chatting to the audience, storytelling, and doubles trapeze, which is the movement that we do in the air. My partner is also my life partner, we have a child together, and the show is about what it’s like living and working with someone for 24 years, and all the dynamics that exist – the fights and the tensions, the ups and downs, and the trust.
“It should be very relatable and it’s quite funny in places. I think it’s quite moving, and we tell that story in different ways. Sometimes we tell it in movement – you might see a doubles trapeze routine that will hold within it some of the tenderness and some of the tensions, so it’s different ways of telling that story visually”.
What’s it been like doing this together for over 20 years!
Charlotte: “It’s quite stressful! Circus is slightly different from theatre – we will drive the van with all the equipment; we go into theatre and we build a structure and then perform on it, and then take it down, and load the van, before driving to the next place. The circus world is very hands-on. You pitch in and you work in a community, and you have to learn to negotiate, and take care of each other, and deal with quite stressful, difficult situations. So I think the fact that we’ve done that together for 24 years, has made us a much stronger partnership. The trust you have to have in circus, where you’re holding, like we do trapeze, so you’re literally holding the other person in your arms, and if you fall they’re going to drop and die, you have to have an extreme level of communication and trust, which I think is quite useful for life”.
What do you sort of hope people will gain from coming and watching your performances?
Charlotte: “The loveliest thing that happened was, we did the show on Friday night at The Palace in London, and in the bar afterwards, someone came up to me, and said:’I’m really moved by that, and it made me wish I’d been nicer to my wife. I’m going to go home now, I’m going to have a long conversation with her about all the years, and how I could have been nicer.’ I was like, what the heck, I’m happy with that, if people get that kind of revelation, and, joking aside, if people have said it has really moved them I’m really pleased.
“My concern when we made the show, was that it would feel a little bit too autobiographical, and would anyone care, and the thing that I’ve been really pleased about, as people have said, it’s really made them reflect on their own long-term relationships, and all the dynamics that are in there, and the stressful situations, how you deal with them, and they found it like a sort of space to think about that, and I think if people go away thinking more about their own long-term relationships, then I’m happy.
How did you get into the performing arts?
Charlotte: “Me and Alex got into it slightly differently. I was a ballet kid. I could do loads of dance as a kid, but then I stopped doing that as an adult and I went to university to study English literature. I wanted to be a poet, that was what I was really into. I saw a lot of physical theatre, I found it really exciting, especially storytelling with images. Then I heard about this school in Bristol called Circa Media. After my degree, everyone thought I was insane, because I was supposed to go and become a journalist, but I decide to go to circus school for a year instead. I was quite old for someone entering that profession. I went in and started training in circus and theatre, and just fell in love with it.
“My partner Alex did a fine art degree. He was an artist and he wanted to earn a bit of money to pursue his art, so what he thought he’d make a juggling street show, and busk. He thought, Oh there’s this school that trains you in circus, I’ll go there for a year, I’ll learn how to make the most killer street show in the world, then I’ll make a load of money, and it can support my artwork. And then we met at the circus school, we fell in love, and we vowed we’d never work together!”
What do you do to switch off?
Charlotte: “That’s a good question. I’ve got saunas and cold plunges, it’s like, everyone’s doing that, aren’t they? I’m also a bit of a nerd, I must confess, I really like bird watching. It’s a good time of year for bird watching. I don’t know if you noticed, but this is the week that all the birds start building their nests, like, spring starts for them super, super, super early, so if you go out, you’ll, you’ll start hearing them. They’ve all started singing this week and it’s like a little dart of hope that we all need some time. Even if February feels grey and grim, the birds are getting ready for spring”.
Collaborator is at Lowry, Salford from 5-7 February 2026 before continuning on tour.