Interview: Charlotte Mooney, Storyteller and Co-Artistic Director of Circus Company ‘Ockham’s Razor ’

Hi Charlotte! Before we get to talking about Collaborator, tell us about Ockham's Razor...

Twenty years ago I went to a circus school in Bristol, Circomedia, and I met someone called Alex Harvey there, who…I mean, it's kind of cheesy, but we fell in love! We started making work together and created a company which was really informed by that school; we were taught by Bim Mason, and it was a physical theatre school for circus performers, or a circus school for theatre performers, so the real focus of the school was using the movement of circus to tell stories.

The thing that we were always drawn to was that, especially in the extreme, aerial (and acrobatic) parts of circus, you’ll often have really strong physical relationships where you’re holding someone’s weight, and you are literally holding someone’s life in your hands, and it’s so charged - there’s already loads of stories there, and emotion, and vulnerability and tension, and it was a short hop for that to become really metaphorical, rich terrain.

Our starting point was looking at how you make stories out of the physicality of circus, and we've  been making shows for twenty years now; another thing that we were known for was creating pieces of equipment that weren’t traditional circus equipment - we made shows on giant hamster wheels, perspex towers, all different sorts of things so that they almost worked like sculptures and pieces of set in their own right, to fulfil the metaphor.

the name has haunted me…Ockham’s Razor is a philosophical principle from William of Ockham, from the 9th Century. His philosophy was called ‘the razor’ because if you have two arguments to explain something, the simpler one will generally be the best. We called the company that because we always wanted to cut out extraneous detail…not put tricks in for their own sake; everything we put on stage had a meaning, and was essential. So it’s a very convoluted way of saying ‘keep it simple!’

We’ve been directing shows for the last five years - we’re now both in our mid-forties, and we had a daughter together and didn’t want to tour all the time, so we ended up directing. We’ve now decided to come back and see how it was to perform together in the air, just the two of us (which was how we started) - this is the show that we’re making at the moment, Collaborator. 

For those of us who are uninitiated, how do you define 'circus'?

Yeah…that’s really hard. Circus suffers because you already have an idea in your head, and a picture that’s in a thousand children’s story books - you think animals, and a certain type of clown - and circus has evolved and it can be so many different things.

I think essentially it’s an incredibly extreme form of movement - it can be aerial, it can be acrobatic, it can be juggling - but it tends to always be about people exploring bodies or objects in extreme relationship to space. People tend to make their own work, so it tends to be self-created, and it historically happened on the fringes. [A circus] would rock up in a town and have its own space - often a tent - which was an amazing thing because it meant that it was beholden to no-one. It encompassed all the outcasts, and that element of circus is still there.

Even when we go into theatres (which we do with a lot of our work), I’m the Artistic Director so I will be there rigging, sweeping the stage, really involved. That element - that it’s a family and you work together - and the philosophy of the circus is still very important; it’s a philosophical place.

You trained in Bristol; what does the city mean to you?

So much - Bristol is one of the few ‘centres of circus', where it has really thrived, in England. It's where Circomedia was, and so it will always be in our hearts; there’s an amazing circus community there, with people making really interesting work that’s really on the edge. The thing about circus is that it’s a very very very broad church - you get really delightful cabaret, kids’ circus, burlesque, the avant-garde, you get the sort of contemporary circus we make looking at physical theatre - and in Bristol you get the full range.

 For many years, Bristol was one of the last places where you had places like The Invisible Circus; huge warehouse spaces in the city where work was being made and presented. There’s still a few around; it’s just about still possible in Bristol to get a warehouse and put on a show.

It’s also got the best pubs - in England, in my opinion…all the ones that play jazz! The Duke of York in St Werburgh’s, where you can play skittles! All the pubs in St Werburgh’s - you can’t go wrong!

What culture is calling you?

Well, because I’ve been deep in the pit of making, I’m now about to put my head above the parapet and find out what the hell is happening in theatre. I’m always called to dance, so my next port of call will be to see what’s happening at Sadler’s Wells - that’s where I find the most inspiration. There’s some amazing contemporary circus happening; Siddiq Ali has got a show called Tell Me, which is also at The Place with us, and is touring - that’s calling me very strongly.

I'm a proud Londoner; I’m from four Irish immigrant grandparents who came and settled in west London and were accepted, and made a home there. Controversially, I don’t always feel English, but I always feel like a Londoner. It’s my home, and I love the fact that it can still be proud to be a multicultural place with many different people living under that banner. I don’t feel Irish - and when I go back to Ireland, I’m definitely not Irish! - but I’m also definitely not English, but I do feel like a Londoner. 

I'm also a storyteller, and I’ve made a show called Comb; when I was eight, my grandad told me that he saw a banshee (a banshee is and Irish spirit - you see her as a wailing woman and if you hear her it means that you or someone close to you is going to die), but he would never tell me the whole story! Obviously it fascinated me, so I recently went searching in The Schools Collection (a digitized collection of folk stories from remote parts of Ireland) for ‘banshee story’, Westport’, ‘Mick O’Hara’ (my grandad’s name)...and I found one story. 

[My] show is me telling that story, trying to find out where it came from and whether it is actually about my grandad. When I find folklore and mythology about Ireland, sometimes I don’t feel like I’m allowed to tell that. There’s an interesting idea about the stories that you find that relate to you and that you feel entitled to tell, and I’ve realized in that process how much I feel like a Londoner.
[see CharlotteMooneyStories.com for tour dates and details relationg to Comb]

Also, I’ve been reading Zadie Smith - another proud Londoner - her book of essays has been massively inspiring - weirdly inspirational for me in this show.

Finally, tell us about the show!

Alex [Harvey, Charlotte's partner and co-Artistic Director at Ockham's Razor] and I have made a show; it’s called Collaborator.

The show is the culmination of what it has been like working together for twenty years. It’s the most personal thing we’ve made; we’ve trained for a year to get our bodies back up to performing speed, and it may be our swan song - it may be the last time we perform together. 

We’ve tried to put into it the wisdom of twenty years of being together and what that’s been like, and it’s a show for anyone that’s ever tried to make something with someone else.

Collaborator will be performed at:

London's The Place - January 29-31

The Lowry in Salford - February 5-7

Corn Exchange, Newbury - March 11