Preview: DollyWould, Wardrobe Theatre

Following the award-winning sell-out hit Letters to Windsor House (read our interview with them about that show here), Sh!t Theatre (aka Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole) return with their bold new show: an adventure into the heartland of country music and beyond to explore real and plastic, mortality and immortality, original and clone.

DollyWould – which enjoyed a 100% sell-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and visits Bristol off the back of a four-week off-West End London run – tells the story of the duo’s trip to the first lady of country’s theme park, DollyWood, built on the legendary performer’s childhood home. While there, they try to visit the original Body Farm, the forensic medical facility which researches human decomposition. One is plastic immortality, the other the inescapable reality of death.

Enlisting the expertise of the ‘Nigella of science’, genetic scientist Dr Kat Arney, Sh!t Theatre explore the enigma that is Dolly Parton and her namesake Dolly the Sheep in this rollercoaster ride of a show complete with live music and sing-a-longs.

“An icon is unpacked, satirised and worshipped all at once – gleefully scrappy and frequently silly.” ★★★★ The Stage
“Exhilaratingly daft – Sh!t Theatre overshare their love for Dolly Parton, with delightful results.” ★★★★ Time Out

Here are Sh!t Theatre’s Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole to tell us more.

Tell us about this abiding love of Dolly Parton. When did it start for you (both?), and why do you love her so much?
We both fell in love with Dolly because of her music when we were younger. We both listened to Jolene on loop as teenagers. Jolene seems to be a good entry point into the world of Dolly Parton. We used to have a point in our show where we had recordings of friends and acquaintances talking about when they fell in love with Dolly, and for all of them it was upon discovering Jolene – one friend listened to it hundreds of times after a break up, another felt it summed up their relationship with someone they lost.
Her brilliant music aside, we love Dolly because of her wit, because she is a contradiction, because she is an amazing businesswoman, a philanthropist and children’s literacy advocate – and because she looks great!

Dolly Parton has created a plastic brand of herself, an avatar with big blonde wigs and boobs which can be recreated, cloned – is immortal. There’s a famous story where Dolly entered herself in a Dolly Parton drag competition, and lost. The drag queens were more Dolly than she was. Yet she is completely her authentic self. She does everything her own way, she has her own wit, her own mind and writes her own songs. She is plastic yet real, ridiculous yet respected, we laugh at and with her. She embodies an overblown version of the male fantasy, yet it is an open secret that she is a lesbian. She’s important to us as an artist, role model and probably queer woman.

Tell us about the trip to Dollywood and your impressions of the place.
It was honestly the most beautiful theme park we’ve ever been to! It is literally at the base of the Smoky Mountains, and Dolly incorporated a steam train which literally takes you up into the mountains. There is a wild eagle sanctuary. The theme is ‘ye olde America’, not BOOBS. So it’s tacky, but not in the way you think it’ll be tacky. Dolly is also keeping old customs, jobs and skills alive – carpentry, ironwork, candle-making and so on.

The link between Dolly Parton and Dolly the Sheep is a neat one phonically, but what are you actually exploring via these two?
Dolly the Sheep is literally named after Dolly Parton, as she was cloned from a mammary gland. With the two Dollies we explore cloning and branding, legacy and immortality, and semiotics. A fun night out!

“We have always made shows from a place of anger and this year (..) we wanted to make a show from a place of love.”  Is Dollywould different from the Sh!t norm? 
It was harder to make. Turns out it’s harder to translate LOVE onstage without it feeling cringe-y. As a result, partially, we think this is the weirdest show we’ve made to date. But the Sh!t formula is still there – the formula being us, booze, and shitness.

DollyWould is at the Wardrobe Theatre from Wed, Apr 18 to Sat, Apr 21. For more info, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/dollywould

Read more: Preview: A Streetcar Named Desire, Bristol Old Vic