"Here You Come Again - The New Dolly Parton Musical"

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Kevin has just separated from his long-time boyfriend, Jeremy, an investment banker, and is in quarantine in the attic bedroom of his childhood home in Halifax, Yorkshire, during the Covid pandemic. Surrounded by precious belongings from his youth, he is reunited with a much-loved old record player and his cherished Dolly albums and memorabilia. He remembers the hard times those Dolly songs helped him through in the past and counts on them to help him once again. With her wit, humour and charm, Dolly teaches him a whole lot about life, love and how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps… even if your bootstraps don’t have rhinestones!

This musical has enjoyed several successful runs across the United States, so it's about time it arrived in the UK. 

Originally written by Bruce Vilanch with Gabriel Barre and Tricia Paoluccio. TV and theatre writer Jonathan Harvey, who has written for "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" and "Coronation Street", provides additional material to inject a more British style of juke box musical, and humour.

Tricia Paoluccio stars as Dolly. I am a massive Dolly Parton fan; one of my favourite live concerts I've attended was Dolly's show in Nottingham at the Motorpoint Arena, and you can see that Tricia has really done her research, from an early age, and is obviously a fan herself, because the Dolly sound, the Dolly mannerisms and everything about Dolly is here in Tricia's performance. If you've never seen Dolly live, then this is the closest you're going to get to seeing Dolly herself on stage. 

Dolly enjoys laughing at herself and has an incredible sense of humour, and Tricia captures that side of this Country Queen immaculately.

Steven Webb plays Kevin, who describes himself as "a has-been-who-never-was comedian". Kevin starts to self-medicate and he's having a bit of a rough time. He loses his job, he's lost his relationship, and he's surrounded by things from his childhood. Kevin feels like he has nothing. Then through necessity and magic and music he puts on Dolly's "Here You Come Again" album. And as if by magic, Dolly materialises and almost stages an intervention to help him through this time using tough love.

Steven plays comedy very well, and there's also that other side of the coin, pathos, that Steven also brings over extremely well, especially the scenes where he is connecting with Jeremy, as well as another person we get to hear about from his past, who turns out to be the light at the end of Kevin's dimly lit tunnel.

I've seen jukebox musicals that are really good, and I've seen jukebox musicals that are not so good, and I've seen jukebox musicals that have vanished without trace, and with good reason. This is one of the former, and I'll explain why. 

Any musical should have a good, strong storyline where the songs should naturally fall into the running order of the action. This musical does just that. It doesn't feel as if any part of the script has had to be deviated to include any particular song. Let's face it Dolly has written so many songs that the back catalogue is practically endless and finding songs to match the story would not have been hard because Dolly is a proficient writer and story teller. I also love that the darker side of Country music songwriting/storytelling has been included here; songs that on the surface don't appear to be dark, songs like "Me And Little Andy".

Dolly's backing vocalists are Aidan Cutler and Charlotte Elisabeth Yorke, who also double up as various other characters throughout the musical. They are accompanied by Alex Akira Crawford (guitar), Kevin Oliver Jones (Bass and harmonica) and Ben Scott (drums).

Jordan Li-Smith is the Musical Director.

The soundtrack is rammed with Dolly's biggest hits, as well as some maybe lesser known songs to a non-Dolly fanatic. "Islands In The Stream", "Jolene", "Two Doors Down", "9 To 5", "I Will Always Love You", "Me And Little Andy", "Little Sparrow", as well as the title song, "Here You Come Again".

Directed by Gabriel Barre. I love that some of the moments between Kevin and Dolly are not raced and the pace really slows down to include silences. These gaps bring that awkward moments to life between two people when you really don't know what to say, and that brings a very human side of the musical alive. The show is paced really well, and even gives both actors a chance to interact with the audience and play with some of the comments and script. I'll just leave "muffins" on the table for you to imagine the tongue in cheek comment from Miss Dolly!

Watch out for some stage magic as well, especially at the end of the first act when Dolly just seems to disappear and then reappear at a different part of the stage, and proving that she is the equivalent of a Country God(dess), she turns wine into water, all from the same bottle!

Illusion Designer is Richard Pinner.

Set and Costume Designer is Paul Wills, and it's Dolly's costumes and wigs that add that extra sheen to Tricia's impeccable and iconic Dolly Parton visuals, bringing her to life on stage. The set is one to really take notice of as there's everything you could imagine from an attic that has been transformed into a room including a microwave, wardrobe, shower and bathroom, skeleton, inflatable flamingo and of course a bed and a pulley to bring Kevin's food and stuff up and down the inner stairs. Well this is in Covid isolation days so distance has to be adhered to.

The Choreography is by  Lizzie Gee, so there's plenty of line dancing in there.

Lighting Design is by  Tim Deiling. This is a wonderful light show, and even in simple backing lights that are festooned around the attic room. When the big numbers come though the big lightshow commences. A wonderfully colourful lightshow for a wonderfully colourful character.

Sound Design is by  Tom Marshall, and overlooking just one millisecond mic cue for Tricia, this was a perfect example of how a musical should sound. Clear as a bell, which is perfect especially for some of Dolly's more intimate songs.

Associate Director/Assistant Choreographer is Teenie MacLeod.

Dolly Parton has always been a massive supporter of the LGBTQ community, therefore it's no surprise that this show is wonderfully camp, extremely funny and let's face it, with a back catalogue like Dolly's to choose from, the soundtrack is always going to be memorable as well as Dollyliscious. We will always love Dolly Parton and her music.

There's a message that runs throughout this musical that things could be worse and that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. The message is of hope and of never giving up on people and your own dreams. This is the message that Dolly brings to Kevin, but could just be the message that runs through Dolly's personal life, and look at what a success that has turned out to be.

"The New Dolly Parton Musical - Here You Come Again" is here until Saturday 13 July.