Well hello, Dollies
Finds out why cloning and comedy are the perfect match
andyoucanputthemonanyoneand effectively clone Dolly Parton. She has an immortal image now and she can clone herself on and on and on into the future, so we started looking at the difference between that cloned Dolly and the real Dolly.”
“And we’re cloning Dolly so we become weird Dolly creatures ourselves in the show,” says Mothersole. “We do quite a few interpretations of Dolly songs and there’s some opportunities for twisted singalongs.”
In keeping with the immersive research which underpins every Sh!t show, the girls embarked on a field trip to Parton’s Tennessee theme park, Dollywood.
“We were expecting big boob rollercoasters,” says Biscuit, “but actually she has recreated her childhood home and placed it right in the middle of this theme park, complete tions. Like Dolly, the centre has a talent for branding and merchandise – Mothersole sports a jaunty Tennessee Body Farm baseball cap.
“So we also tried to get in there,” says Biscuit. “We were chased away by a police officer in an unmarked van,” says Mothersole. “Apparently, they get so many creepy tourists who want to go in, they’ve got a really good bullshit detector.”
Access should be rather more open when they make a pilgrimage to see Dolly the Sheep in the National Museum of Scotland. “We’re thinking of inviting people to meet us and go into together and sing some Dolly songs,” says Biscuit.
While in Edinburgh, Mothersole will also be appearing in another Fringe show, Our Carnal Hearts, a study in envy by performer Rachel Mars, for which Mothersole has composed the music. Music is an integral part of Sh!t Theatre shows and, should budgets ever allow, the girls would love to mount their proposed musical, Evita Too, about Isabel Peron, third wife of Juan Peron who took over the Argentine presidency after his death in 1974.
“The body of Eva Peron disappeared for 15 years after she died,” says Mothersole. “She was found when Peron was back in power and he and Isabel had her preserved body installed overlooking their dinner table, so we want a giant puppet of Evita looming over everything. We’d probably need help making it, because the scale of it would be bigger. We’d want it to look shit, but big and shit.”
“We have ambitions for bigger, greater, shitter things,” agrees Biscuit.