Culture Catch Up: The Other Library On Tour
Hello! It’s another Culture Catch Up and I’m enormously proud to be writing about the very successful tour of ‘The Other Library’. Whilst the tour is ended, I’m going to take a moment to reflect on this piece of work and celebrate everything we achieved as a service to put it on.
‘The Other Library’ is a piece created by Freewheelers Theatre and Media company. It was originally commissioned by Farnham Maltings in partnership with Buckinghamshire Libraries and started life in Burnham Library. After a successful run in the autumn of last year, we knew we had to bring ‘The Other Library’ to more people. The idea of the tour was born.
‘The Other Library’ toured to Chesham, Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Buckingham Libraries. At each stop, the installation was available to interact with and enjoy. There were writer’s workshops with Sara Clifford that generated material to be added to the installation as it travelled across Bucks. Finally, at every stop, Freewheelers performed a 30-minute, multi-media show featuring dance, monologue and video.
Upon doing the evaluation, I discovered that 49% of people who attended any of ‘The Other Library’ events had never attended an event like it previously. This is wonderful and serves as a testament to all the new things you can discover in a public library. The comments were all very positive. One attendee said that the show was “[v]ery inspiring and made me think about access and equality for all, thank you”. The performance even bought tears to someone’s eyes!
I’d like to take a minute to thank Freewheelers for all their hard work, and our library staff at the four venues for being such incredibly hosts to the tour. ‘The Other Library’ has been created in Buckinghamshire but has a very bright future as a piece of work. We can’t wait to see where this piece will go and what legacy it will leave.