David Bellan on a production intended for the whole family The title of this piece refers to the fact that you’re supposed to keep quiet in a library. The set consists of bits of what was once a real library — the now defunct New Barnfield Library in Hatfield. So we have two bookcases, tables and chairs, and begin to meet the cast, who are named, but not identified. There’s a mild-mannered librarian sorting out returned books, a near-manic girl who explodes in sequences of action expressing her frustration, two more girl book-borrowers and a chap in a black suit who is the face of officialdom. He has come to close the library down. “Romance, humour and politics collide,” we are told, “when a library is closed down, only to arise phoenix-style when the local community pull together.”

What actually happens is that the library’s users, and the librarian, gradually convert the official to a love of books, so that he spares the library, and we see him at the end smiling happily, book in hand. As this story unfolds there is also a rather touching romance going on between the librarian and one of the girls.

This was an enjoyable evening, but the production suffers from a major disadvantage. I suspect there is a great deal more to the story than I have sketched in, but the long voice-overs that are intended to fill in the details, are completely drowned out by loud music, so it is often difficult to understand what is going on. Advertised as a piece for the whole family, at least half of those in the audience were young children, and I wondered what they got out of it.

Shhhh
Performed by C-12 Dance
Pegasus Theatre, Oxford