View from the Green Room: Cliona Hagan lit up a bitterly cold night

Cliona Hagan lit up the Theatre Royal stage with a two-and-a-half-hour tribute to her idol Dolly Parton. The “house full” signs have been up for several months now and tonight is another sell-out performance for a show that’s been running for the last couple of years. 

“Will I see you again next year?” asks a beaming Cliona to an audience that’s already been on its feet for several minutes. Too right she will!

It’s easy to like Cliona Hagan. Her personality is so warm the Greens would surely move to tax it. And her voice rests easily on the ear. 

In truth, Hagan’s singing is effortless. She’s got “the look” – the one that makes constant eye contact with the audience so that you always feel she’s engaging with you personally. 

Cliona understands her audience and her charm would warm a fan in a blizzard. 

Dolly anecdotes such as her retort to accusations of being a dumb blonde with, “Doesn’t bother me… I’m neither dumb nor blonde”, brings Cliona laughs along with a cheer from the sisterhood. And why not?

She’s also got a first-class band with her – the Sheerin Family from Wexford. It’s a band of six brothers that also sell out the Royal every January with their superb “Take it to the limit” tribute to the Eagles. 

Easy listening sits well with Cliona and her in-laws – she’s just gone and married one of them – and the craic and banter between them all night is infectious.

Cliona understands perfectly the art of the ballad. It’s storytelling through music that carries a whole swathe of emotion – love and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, happiness and loss. And… yes… sometimes it can be just that bit twee when nostalgia meets awkward. But… hey… life can be like that sometimes.

Everyone has a Dolly favourite and Cliona’s choice of songs is on everyone’s wish list in the audience. It’s not an easy choice. With a career spanning over 50 years, Parton is a country legend and has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. 

Parton's music comes with gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. 25 of her singles reached no. 1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist. She has 44 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years.

She has composed over 3,000 songs, including "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper, and an international hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colours", and "9 to 5". As an actress, she has starred in films including 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for which she earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress, and Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992) and Joyful Noise (2012). And, incredibly (check it out on YouTube), she also sang “Coat of Many Colours” in Páidí Ó Shea’s pub in the Kerry Galetacht while she was on holidays there. Maith thú, Dollí!

Dolly’s charity work is also widely admired. 

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, part of the Dollywood Foundation, was founded in honour of her father, who never learned to read or write. It mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. 

Currently, over 1,600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 850,000 children each month across the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Republic of Ireland. She was honoured by the Library of Congress in 2018 when she donated her 100 millionth book.

Cliona’s “Dolly Songbook” doesn’t miss a beat. All the biggies are here… "Hello I’m Dolly", "Blue Ridge Mountain Boy", "Country Roads", "Joline", "Here You Come Again", "Heartbreaker", "Nine to Five", "Rainbow", "Great Pretender", "Little Sparrow". Audience members readily stand up throughout, mobile phones light up the darkness and waves move around the audience.

Cliona Hagan lit up a bitterly cold night.