Dolly Parton-inspired play Goodbye Jolene is coming to The Lens Studio in Portsmouth

Goodbye Jolene by Siobhán Nicholas, is a play with songs, featuring country music alongside sixteenth century choral compositions.

The play has been created by the Brighton-based company Take the Space.

Siobhan says: “It’s about a woman who finds inspiration, courage and strength through music.”

Care worker Niamh quits her job after Covid, determined to change her life. Her secret is she struggles with dyslexia – but after being invited to sing at Blackpool Country Music Festival she has to confront her demons, once and for all.

Norman the choirmaster, played by Chris Barnes, offers to coach her. They are very different people, from different backgrounds – but an alliance emerges.

Nicholas was inspired by her Auntie Mary, who suffered from dementia but who could still communicate through music.

“In the care home my lovely vibrant aunt became someone who wasn’t able to communicate with the outside world – but one day when I started to sing, she remembered my name. I took out my mobile phone and started singing along to one of her favourite country songs. To my delight, she started smiling. Not only that but suddenly she seemed to recognize me and when a nurse gently asked her who I was – clear as a bell, she answered ‘Siobhán’.

“It reminded me of the healing power of music and how music stirs memory and I knew I had to write a play around that idea.”

Sadly, Mary was one of the thousands of people in the UK who died in care homes during the Covid lockdowns.

Nicholas, the child of Irish immigrants who settled in working class Kilburn, also wanted to honour her mother, a teacher who taught many adults and children to read and who inspired in her daughter a love of words and writing.

She says: “Through my mother, a determined teacher, I discovered the joy of reading which soon became a superpower for a small, lonely child with thick glasses, an odd accent, in the wrong uniform at a new school.”

The music in Goodbye Jolene is a combination of country music and 16th century early music by English composers William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. Early music has long been a passion of Chris Barnes, who takes the role of Norman, the middle-class choir master who becomes a mentor to Niamh.

Barnes, who was a Westminster chorister as a child and studied music at Durham University, has also written original music for the production.

Nicholas says: “Too many people in the UK believe that classical music is above and beyond them – too highbrow and so we’d really love our audiences to leave the theatre having enjoyed all the music in the play - including two original songs, written by Chris Barnes.

“We want people to leave the theatre with a smile on their faces. We have all been through such a lot, with covid and lockdowns and this is a way to celebrate music and the way it brings people together.”

Take the Space will also run a workshop on music and memory with Portsmouth-based over-55s choir Recharge, which was set up to combat loneliness and isolation.

The title of the play is a nod to Dolly Parton, whose charity The Imagination Library was set up in honour of her father, who was unable to read and write. One in seven people in the UK have problems with literacy.

Nicholas says: “If somebody like Dolly Parton can rise up from such a poor background to become a worldwide icon that gives everyone hope.”

Goodbye Jolene is on September 21 at 8pm. Tickets £16.50. Go to portsmouthguildhall.org.uk.