Dolly Parton is big in so many ways – the hair, the bust, the voice, the status as a country music legend, the sunny reputation. But it is the latter which presents a problem for a show like Here You Come Again, which seeks to leverage her iconography for some seriocomic dramatic stakes. Any meaning you can extract from Parton is intrinsically limited, endless platitudes strung together like fairy lights over a void.
On one level this is a tribute show, and that is perhaps the only level at which it really works. Star and co-creator Tricia Paoluccio has an uncanny knack not just for mimicry but for the precise inflections and syntax of Parton’s crystalline voice. She has the same indefatigable ebullience too, a monster truck with a dazzlingly white smile painted across its bumper. Most of the show’s appeal emanates from her portrayal, which is simplistic but also spot on.
