UPSTAGED MANCHESTER

Dressed as a pair of tits (literally), Sh!t Theatre attempt to tackle topics as diverse as: ‘Dolly Parton, cloning, branding, immortality and death’ according to the flyer. This might sound like a lot of disparate material for a one-hour show, but Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole make it feel as light as a feather.

As if the show needed any more material, Dollywould is also about how far people are willing to go for their idols – a particularly hilarious section involves the two listing the expenses they racked up on their research trip/pilgrimage to Dollywood. (Having just travelled all the way to New York for a David Bowie exhibition, I can empathise.)

The heavier themes mentioned above might sound as if they have no place in a show this joyous and celebratory, but they stem from Dolly the sheep (the first mammal ever to be cloned), who was named after Dolly Parton – it might sound like a tenuous link but Biscuit and Mothersole draw out a surprising number of parallels between the two. Dolly’s many drag impersonators are cast as her clones, who have become ‘more Dolly than she is’, in the words of the show. The wigs that the duo wear look at first like especially cheap imitations of Dolly’s manicured hair-do, but time reveals them to be a nod to Dolly the sheep as much as Dolly the singer.

The two performers bring to the show such sincerity, likeability and genuine liveness that you almost feel as if you could jump up on the stage with them and they would just carry on performing around/with you. Theatre like this is anything but sh!t.