Here You Come Again – Review – York Grand Opera House
By Roger Crow, Januay 2025
Many of us had our own ways of getting through lockdown while isolating alone. One of mine was to watch all the James Bond movies, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. At no point did Sean Connery or Roger Moore appear while I was on the treadmill, but given the fact I rarely saw anyone in person for months, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
In Here You Come Again, the protagonist is 40; living in his parents’ attic in Halifax, and accessing his room via a ladder. That’s how we meet one of the stars of the show, hurling loo roll into his room and ruminating on anything and everything. The set is a beautifully constructed work of art complete with bed, fridge, microwave, door – and most importantly on that door, a poster of Dolly Parton.
Our hero, Kevin (Steven Webb), somewhere between Kenneth from 30 Rock and the troubled comedian of Baby Reindeer, is a lot of fun with all the right moves. (Don’t worry, this isn’t as dark or as troubling of Baby Reindeer, which I binged in one sitting and suffered from a spot of PTSD as a result).
“Dazzlingly clever”
It is of course about obsession, in this case from Kevin’s point of view.
Depressed after breaking up with his fella, our protagonist is wallowing in self pity. A wannabe comedian who barely got a chance to prove his worth on stage, he is wondering where his life went wrong.
That massive tub of cheese snacks by his bedside is one way of coping. Bottles of red wine and prescription drugs are another. But hope comes in the form of you know who, a Country legend who manifests herself in his room in a dazzlingly clever trick where one second Dolly is on the poster, and the next, she’s there in person, leaving a space on the poster.
Naturally I felt the urge to want to rewind live theatre at the effect, and perhaps I wasn’t the only one.
“Beloved track”
We feel our hero’s pain. There can’t have been many folks who haven’t been on the end of that rejection from a loved one, and when we lose ‘cabin pressure’, the urge to sleep is huge, but you can always rely on Dolly Parton to help ease those blues.
There is a clever trick when Dolly vanishes from stage, and you’re left wondering how it’s done, like all great theatre.
This could have been just another feelgood jukebox musical, segueing from one hit into another. Naturally there’s the odd moment of setting up a classic song and paying it off with a beloved track, and there’s no harm in that. The great thing about this is it feels so relatable. Things could have been tightened up a little in the first hour, but the script is fun and dark where needs, be, the performances are terrific, and there’s plenty of light and shade, beautifully balanced.
And yes, there are those obvious bangers from Ms Parton, beautifully played by Tricia Paoluccio (one of the writers).
“Fun and touching”
Co-writers Bruce Villanch and (director) Gabriel Barre do a splendid job with the script, and a special mention for Jonathan Harvey, who’s been one of the saviours of Corrie over the past few years. His additional material raises plenty of giggles.
It also features a beautiful line we could all live by: stop staring in mirrors and start looking out windows.
I can’t think of a better way to ease the pre-spring blues than a couple of hours in the theatre watching a show as fun and touching as this.
Dolly, we will always love you, and this gem of a theatrical island in the world of streaming is to be applauded.
‘Here You Come Again’ is at York Grand Opera House until 1st February
Adopted Yorkshireman Roger Crow developed a passion for film and TV in the 1970s and 1980s. He has been a published film and TV reviewer since the 1990s; a world travel and restaurant critic since the noughties, and for the past decade has assessed the pros and cons of live gigs and theatre productions around the UK. His ideal day would involve reviewing a performance of Bat Out of Hell, followed by a Pad Thai while being serenaded by Texas on a cruise around Europe.
crowsfeat.com
