Everyone loves a good villain, and many fantasy stories feature an antagonist who is more interesting than the actual story or the supposed heroes. Unfortunate – The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch is a decidedly adult parody of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, focusing on the trials and tribulations of the ‘evil’ Ursula. It’s a musical filled with bawdy humour and a decidedly queer sensibility throughout and owes something of a debt to Disney’s 1989 musical adaptation.
We meet Ursula (Shawna Hamic, The Time Traveller’s Wife) when she is just a teenager with the unfortunate surname of Squirt. Bullied, marginalised and scared of showing off what she can really do, the plus-sized Octo-lady still manages to charm and outwit her way into the affections of ‘nice but dim’ young Prince Triton (Thomas Lowe). It all goes horribly wrong, of course, and eventually, we make it to the plot of The Little Mermaid, but in a way that’s nothing like the cartoon of your youth.
This is very much not the Disney show. Songs such as Female Role Models, Ask The Girl, and We Didn’t Make It to Disney push this firmly into adult parody territory. It has all the crass silliness of a good drag show, with dafter songs and better costumes. The staging is clever and showy; this is a show where a stunt can be a punchline or a cue for a song.
STARBURST first saw this show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, and like many things at the Fringe, it was clearly still a work in progress. We had faith though – the creatives here are the powerhouse behind former audience favourites Buzz, a musical about the history of the vibrator, and Vulvarine! a pastiche and homage to all things superhero. With Unfortunate, their wit, skill and creativity have all come together, and are perfectly timed thanks to the release of Disney’s live-action version of the same story in 2023.
This new version of Unfortunate is longer, tighter, and has some absolutely banging tunes, courtesy of composer Tim Gilvin. Some of the more problematic elements of previous adaptations have been resolved – yes, we’re looking askance at the cartoon version of Sebastian, here transformed into an Irish crab from County Cork.
Unfortunate’s second act is particularly strong, grabbing the audience and not letting go until the end. Writers Daniel Foxx and Robyn Grant have fine-tuned this into a solid and unique show. It still spends a little too much time trying to cram in as many cheap and vulgar gags as it can, but that’s part of the point. This is the show to bring your friends to, as well as a bottle of wine.
Hamic is solidly cast, handling the rapid switch from host to main singer to stand-up comedian with ease. Lowe is understated as the handsome Triton, providing strong vocals and adding impressive abs to the show’s appeal.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star River Medway nails it as Ariel, the bratty teenage mermaid who’s obsessed with size. Given that a chunk of the performance is either spent singing or miming, she remains consistently funny throughout.
Allie Dart is especially fabulous within the supporting cast. The chameleonic Dart plays multiple roles, from the Chef to Sebastian the Crab, and is distinct and fantastic throughout, performing some stunning costume changes as the story demands. Her work in the tune Les Poissons is especially worthy of note, with its reliance on split-second timing and exceptionally tightly timed costume changes. Julian Capolei is also brilliant as Grimsby.
Rude, silly, vulgar, very purple and spectacular in all the right ways, this is not a show for everyone; if you’re the sort of person who tuts when someone swears or who can’t watch an episode of Doctor Who without writing to the BBC because you think it’s ‘too woke’, then you should avoid this. For the rest of us, though, it’s glorious fun.
Unfortunate? More like Unmissable.
Unfortunate is on at the Southwark Elephant until February 17th and then tours nationally to venues across the UK including Salford, Glasgow, Oxford, Exeter and Cardiff. Check out unfortunatemusical.com for booking information.
