Okay, doing a bit more digging: According to the CatalystX::I18N docs, CatalystX::I18N::Maketext is a 'Helpful wrapper around Locale::Maketext. Can also be used outside of Catalyst'. I have MyApp::Maketext setup as directed:

package MyApp::Maketext;

use strict;
use warnings;
use parent qw(CatalystX::I18N::Maketext);

1;
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I have a little test script running, the setup for which is this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use FindBin qw( $Bin );
use lib "$Bin/../lib";
use TopTable::Maketext;
use Path::Class::Dir;

my $dir = Path::Class::Dir->new( "$Bin/..", "root", "locale" );
TopTable::Maketext->load_lexicon(
  locales => ["en_GB"], # Required
  directories => [$dir], # Required
  gettext_style => 0, # Optional, Default 1
);
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I am then trying two different ways to get a handle to the maketext() method:

my $lang = TopTable::Maketext->get_handle;
printf "%s\n", $lang->maketext( "menu.title.news" );
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Gives the following result: Can't call method "maketext" on an undefined value at bin\maketext-demo.pl line 23. If I swap ->get_handle to ->new:

my $lang = TopTable::Maketext->new;
printf "%s\n", $lang->maketext( "menu.title.news" );
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I get the following:

maketext doesn't know how to say:
menu.title.news
as needed at bin\maketext-demo.pl line 23.
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I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to try next! Thank you so much in advance for any pointers anyone can give.