Ockham’s Razor return to the Edinburgh Fringe with Collaborator, an intimate new work from Artistic Directors Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney. Following its acclaimed world premiere at MimeLondon 2026, the show brings their celebrated aerial theatre style into a more personal and stripped-back format.
Blending physical performance, aerial choreography and storytelling, Collaborator explores the realities of creative partnership. Drawing on over two decades of working together, Harvey and Mooney examine trust, compromise and the delicate balance of collaboration.
Collaborator runs at Pleasance EICC (Pentland) from 6th–22nd August 2026 (not 12th, 19th) at 17:00. Tickets are available here.
You’re starring in and have created Collaborator at Pleasance EICC, what can you tell us about the show?
Collaborator is a circus theatre show with myself and Alex Harvey.
We have been making circus together while also being a real-life couple for 25 years. The show is about what it’s like to live and work with someone for that length of time, the joys and missteps and scrambles of building a life together.
This piece marks a return to a more intimate duet after years of large-scale ensemble work, what inspired you to strip things back in this way?
We had stopped performing for many years because we had been having a whale of a time directing larger-scale shows.
Then a friend asked us if we had retired from performing, and we realised that we hadn’t actively decided to stop, it had just happened.
It struck us both as immeasurably sad that we would never perform doubles trapeze together again — never have that relationship and ridiculous trust in the air.
So we decided, while we were raising the funds for our next large-scale show, we would make this intimate duet which would look at what it is to work with someone and what it is to stop.
The show explores themes of partnership, trust and compromise, how have your own creative relationship and shared history shaped what audiences will see on stage?
The show completely mines our relationship and shared history.
We began by writing lists of all the dynamics between us, including the things that drove us insane about each other, plus all the vulnerable dynamics that come up in creation — “am I the dead wood here?” “if you loved me you’d love my idea”, and so on.
The amazing thing was that this could have been really risky, but it ended up being truly cathartic. There is something powerful in giving air to your darkest thoughts — we roared with laughter.
We then took those dynamics as starting points for movement, trapeze choreography, stories and the visual elements of the show.
Collaborator combines circus, aerial work and storytelling, how did you approach blending these elements into such a personal piece?
We made the show in parts, like a collage: stories, aerial duets, movement and kinetic sculptures.
Each Friday we would invite in an audience and show what we had made, and see what they found within it. This was so helpful, as we discovered that the meaning and tone of the piece, from funny to moving, would massively shift depending on quite small changes in the placement of material.
We wanted to make sure that the piece wasn’t just personal, that it could resonate with the audience’s own experiences of navigating relationships, and that it would feel recognisable.
It also helped us make bold decisions. There is a part in the show where we demonstrate how two sets of energy collide in physics — we use various pendulums. There’s no way we would have been brave enough to trust that this would make sense and read emotionally without those helpful Fridays.
Having worked together for over two decades, what have you discovered about collaboration through the process of making this show?
The biggest thing we discovered is that most collaborations can be kind, generous, co-operative and beautiful, as long as you don’t feel you are running out of time.
As soon as there is the pressure of time, it does something to people — they become squeezed and the collaboration can break down.
If there is a villain in this piece, it is time.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Collaborator?
Come.
If you are in a relationship, whether that’s a loving or working one, there will be something in here for you.
Also, when else will you get the chance to see a storytelling, kinetic sculpture, physics lecture and doubles trapeze show?
