Dolly Parton impersonator celebrates star’s 80th birthday with international tribute show Decades Of Dolly

The UK’s leading Dolly Parton impersonator said it’s “an absolute joy” to perform as the country music legend as she prepares for an Eras Tour-style show celebrating the star for her 80th birthday.

Kelly O’Brien has spent nearly two decades touring the world as Dolly, even creating her own full-scale theatrical tribute concert with a live band.

As the star turns 80 on January 19 2026, Kelly is revamping her act and is about to embark on a huge Decades Of Dolly tour across the UK, with dates also booked for the US and Australia.

The 51-year-old mother-of-two, who lives in Aldbury, Hertfordshire but comes from South Australia, said she fell into being a Dolly impersonator after pretending to be various singers at a talent competition to try to win some cash when she was a single mother.

That was 19 years ago and now she could not imagine life without being Dolly.

As well as dressing up to look the part, Kelly has learnt to play four different musical instruments so she can perform just like the star.

She can now play the guitar, harmonica, the dulcimer and the banjo.

She told PA Real Life: “She’s just so easy to love, it’s just an absolute joy to emulate her.

“She’s just absolutely gorgeous, and every single person that I’ve spoken to that knows her has the best things to say about her.”

With her pitch-perfect Tennessee accent and five-foot-tall stature, Kelly dons her big blonde wig and rhinestone-encrusted costumes and is instantly transformed into Dolly.

Explaining how it all started, Kelly said: “I was in Australia doing a lot of talent competitions, and some of them are worth money.

“And there was one that I did that was worth the first prize was 100,000 Australian dollars and I had four minutes to impress.

“I used to impersonate different people and do voices and comedy and sing as well. And I’d done musical theatre for a few years by then.

“So I decided to do a minute each of Dolly, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Judy Garland.

“But when I sang as Dolly, everybody lost their minds. They were like, ‘oh my goodness, it’s amazing’. And I guess because I’m five foot tall and I could sing country music, it just fitted me quite well.”

Kelly then moved to the UK, where she heard that singers could make money from performing as tribute acts.

She went on: “I thought, if I dressed up as somebody, I could make three times the amount of money.

“I’d spend more time with my son, as I was a single mother then. So that’s how I kind of got started.

“I studied Dolly for about three months at home. The way she spoke, walks, talks, the songs, the jokes, the Dolly-isms. I learned about her life. I mean, I’m still learning. So that was nearly 19 years ago.”

Kelly said she began by buying a few dresses and wigs online from sites such as eBay and getting gigs at pubs and working men’s clubs.

She continued: “And then, as you make money, you can invest and then I started having people make my costumes for me.

“Every year it just got more and more popular. I got some great opportunities. I would do the Singapore Grand Prix, and I started working on the cruise ships.

“I was travelling the world as Dolly. I’d do private engagements and I would sometimes sing for famous people.

“I was able to slowly turn down the jobs in the pubs that I didn’t like to do. And then, in 2020, I decided that I wanted to have a theatre show.

“I wanted to make it a bigger spectacle. I decided to produce and write my own show, and that’s what we’ve been touring ever since.”

The role has taken Kelly to India, Bangladesh, Denmark, Ireland and the United States, and she has toured Australia five times.

Kelly said she couldn’t believe it when she did a show in Nashville and Dolly’s family came to watch.

She explained: “Afterwards, I met the whole family, and they were just blown away, and they couldn’t believe it.

“They said, ‘I don’t know how you talk like her. How do you do the voice so good?’ So it was a huge compliment. And while I was there, I also got to go to Dolly Parton enterprises.”

Kelly’s stage show has been touring since 2021, and plays around 50 dates a year.

But, to mark Dolly turning 80 on January 19 2026, she said she wanted to revamp the act.

“It’s going to be called Decades Of Dolly. It celebrates seven decades of Dolly’s life,” Kelly explained.

“It’s basically me running off and on stage several times, getting changed into each decade.

“And then while I’m off stage, there’s a film projection that tells the story of her life, musically and what she’s been through and the accolades that she’s won.

“We filmed everything at this amazing location in Essex called Eaton House, and my son appeared in it.

“It’s just going to be incredible. It’s kind of really elevating a typical tribute show into more of a theatre show. It’s almost cost my life’s savings.”

As well as praising her hugely successful singing career, Kelly applauded Dolly for her fundraising and charitable work.

“She’s just such an incredible woman,” she said.

“She’s not only a singer, an actress, a humanitarian, a philanthropist. She’s an amazing businesswoman. She’s given away millions of free books to children. If you work at Dollywood, she will fund your college education.

“You know, she could be a billionaire, but she gives so much of her earnings away.

“Her niece and I are very good friends, and her niece will tell me a lot about what she does with the family and how she supports people, and how she’s really supportive of everybody’s dreams.

“Everybody always has the most incredible things to say about her.”

Asked if there were any drawbacks to the role, Kelly joked that her “two-inch nails” can make flushing the toilet tricky, and said that having to wear high stiletto heels “does unfortunately come with the job”.

She also needs to dedicate a whole room in her home to storing all of her Dolly-related equipment, including around 150 costumes.

Kelly said her husband, Ben, is “very supportive” of her unusual career.

She added: “He’s a poet, and at the moment he’s writing a whole series of poems about Dolly Parton and Plato. So, yeah, he’s even become a little obsessed in his own way.”

Kelly’s show began at the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone, Kent, on Friday, January 16 and will tour the UK as well as the US and Australia, with more than 40 dates booked so far.