I could run Test::Harness and suppress the output, but there's just something about all that interactive counting of tests (and there are 2000 tests) that I don't want to deal with. Just in the way that Test::Harness counts tests from 1 to 10, means that I get unbuffered characters and backspaces sent.

Test::Harness is too verbose - I agree. I'd rather see a one-line summary on complete success, with no other output. Thanks for the suggestion - it will be "Plan B".

In fact, thanks to everyone.