PART of the remit of National Theatre Wales is to take live performance to the people instead of to theatres, the theory supposedly being that those who might feel intimidated by the idea of entering the doors of a formal venue will somehow feel more at ease elsewhere.

I have always had a problem with this notion on the grounds that I enjoy the experience of a night out at a theatre, and having attended several "site-specific" productions in the past — normally emanating from Swansea-based Volcano Theatre Company who, together with Welsh National Opera, produced this show in partnership with Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea Metropolitan University and Grwp Gwalia Cyf — I confess to having approached this one with a sense of foreboding. But — and I am only too happy to confess this freely — I was wholly wrong.

This wild and wonderful production proved to be one of the most thought-provoking and beguiling creative works I have attended for some time.

This was a persuasive piece which took its audience on a journey into the world of words and the death of libraries as they were known to the generations who grew up when such establishments were havens of peace, contemplation and quiet study: the days before the digitalisation of knowledge, when it was books and the ideas they contained that were of paramount importance.

It was a journey that led us from the courtyard of the old Central Police Station down into the bowels of the Old Library's basement — something of a revelation in itself, such is its archaic feel and dank atmosphere — and up into the faded grandeur of the old Reading Room with its circular dome, a space in which I have spent many happy hours of research and now looked sad and empty, denuded as it was of books and tables.

The performance itself — incorporating everything from a specially-formed choir right through to an aerial artist and a central ensemble of players who threw themselves into their respective roles with enormous energy and abandon — had much to say about the part that knowledge and literature have to play in the lives of people, and the manner in which the role of the librarian has diminished as we slowly move into an age in which we are becoming the custodians of our own literary heritage.

My sole problem was with a brief sequence in which nudity — a hallmark of many a Volcano production in the past and an ingredient which was totally predictable — was employed to comic effect, weakening the thread and detracting from the effectiveness of the whole. But this is a minor gripe indeed.

Shelf Life runs at the Old Library until April 25. Anyone with a passion for words and a healthy respect for their local heritage would be well advised to go along and see it.

Graham Williams