Brighton Year-Round 2024

Here You Come Again

Simon Friend Entertainment and Leeds Playhouse Production

Genre: Biographical Drama, Contemporary, LGBT Theatre, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, New Writing, Theatre, Tribute Show

Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Once upon a time in Lockdown, Dolly Parton-inspired singer Tricia Paoluccio had this idea she shared with husband Gabriel Barre, and Bruce Vilanch. Soon Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Canary) joined them and it soon looked like a Mary Poppins-like fairytale was hatched out of a Fabergé egg. Though Panto’s for Christmas, and this is so Panto, Poppins is a summer thing. OK a late summer thing. The team arrive at Theatre Royal Brighton, directed by Barre till September 7^th and continue touring.

It might seem a flimsy premise, but with Harvey on board there’s a solid grounding in the Halifax of 2020, where a slightly underwritten  Kevin (a magnificentAidan Cutler, replacing an indisposed Steven Webb for this part of the run). Kevin, clambering back home up a ladder doing isolation in his parent’s attic, is in the dumps. Literally, dumped by his London-based hedge-fund smoothie Jeremy (we hear how smooth) and facing derision when he attempts stand-up.

He’s startled by an exploding Dolly Parton: Tricia Paoluccio herself. Her voice is quite stunning. It’s not simply that she inhabits Parton’s voice: her soprano soars stratospherically, she negotiates all the micro-tonal moments Parton put in Jolene, and Love is Like a Butterfly, composed in 1974 a year after Jolene and clearly a stage in Parton’s style.

After he’s recovered, they begin the healing process of 15 numbers starting with the upbeat individual Here You Come Again with its fresh Parton-esque qualities. It’s the best song not composed by Parton (it’s by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) but it’s interesting that the best songs are hers, composed between 1973 (Jolene) and 1980 (9 To 5). There’s a different world too in Jolene’s tremulous C sharp minor, and the D major torch-song blast of Parton’s I Will Always Love You, here Paoluccio’s exit song, and famously taken up by Whitney Houston.

Cutler  enjoys a superb voice, whether duetting in the Bee-Gees’ Islands in the Stream from 1983 which Parton transposed down, or when he gets a solo in the last song, Parton’s 1977 Light of a Clear Blue Morning. Cutler inhabits Kevin Rutter’s mix of self-ironising and hapless self-pity, mixed with shafts of a brio Kevin actually possesses. From the start though we know there might be a silver lining that isn’t one of Dolly Parton’s costumes.

The storyline sashays around the songs, designed to fit a bout of online work (9 To 5) its aftermath and low moments (Me And Little Andy a dark little number from 1977) meant to show Kevin there are those worse off. It’ll need more than that. But Dolly isn’t giving up.

Paul Wills’ single set (there’s a late small surprise) of a bric-a-brac encrusted attic with skyline is part-shrine, part bolt-hole with a bed and the nest of living so many of us made during Lockdown. Wills’ delight resides in his gallimaufry of Parton costumes for Paoluccio, and the occasional surprise for Cutler’s Kevin.

It’s almost entirely Paoluccio’s and Cutler’s show. They’re both outstanding. But there’s strong contributions from Charlotte Elisabeth Yorke who can wield a mean Parton herself  and who plays Kevin’s Mum; Trish, Kevin’s vinegary employer, and there’s contributions from the onstage band: Jordan Li-Smith (keyboards), Alex Akira Crawford (Guitar), Ben Scott (Guitar), Kevin Oliver Jones (Bass/Harmonica).

This must be taken as a gorgeous fairy-tale or not at all. The audience are in no doubt, packed as they were on press night: and several times urged to join in. Is Dolly an imaginative figment? Nothing so simple. The answers and sheer magical thinking rub up against a real Northern England experiencing things we remember so well, though this isn’t in itself dark. It’s as delicious and heartening as Parton’s last torch song.

Jordan Li-Smith (Keyboards), Alex Akira Crawford (Guitar), Ben Scott (Guitar), Kevin Oliver Jones (Bass/Harmonica)

Directed by Gabriel Barre, Set & Costume Designer Paul Wills, Choreographer Lizzi Gee, Lighting Design Tim Deiling, Sound Design Tom Marshall, Musical Supervisor Richard John, Illusions Richard Pinner, Casting Director Stuart Burt,

Head of Wardrobe Hair and Make-Up Design Hollie Coleman, Wardobe and Wigs Assistant Eleanor Morrrish, , Musical Director Jordan Li-Smith, Orchestrator Eugene Gwozoz, Associate Director/Assistant Choreographer Teenie Macleod, Orchestral Manager Maurice Cambridge, Dialect Coach Eleanor Manners, Production Manager Bern Arkell

CSM Dom Dom Whiffin, DSM April Lindsay, ASM/Book Cover Emily Blaxland, LX1 James Stokes, Head of Sound Chris Campbell, Sound 2 Tia Morris, Tech Swing Sam Thornton,

Marketing Maidwell Marketing PR Story House PR

Till September 7^th and touring

Published September 4, 2024September 4, 2024 by Simon Jenner