Unfortunate, as its tagline suggests, tells the story of one of Disney’s greatest villains Ursula, from The Little Mermaid. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years, Ursula is a massive gay icon, reportedly modelled on legendary drag queen Divine. Unfortunate is a wonderful, riotous, queer, camp musical, written by Instagram and TikTok star Daniel Foxx alongside Robyn Grant.
Musically, Unfortunate has lots of references to the classic Disney song with hilarious parody versions of every Little Mermaid tune, but also throws in lots of delightful, if slightly too fast, Hamilton-esque rap. The highlight of the show is the title track, Unfortunate, that I now repeat in my head every time someone utters the title (see the studio version video linked below). Equally as hilarious, is the raunchy Sucking on You filled with innuendo after innuendo. Don’t expect any songs to become all time musical classics, expect to just have some with silly, funny parodies that will make you belly laugh.
The entire lead cast were all wonderful, particularly Shawna Hamic playing Ursula and Thomas Lowe as Triton. Their comic timing and symbiotic relationship, where they seem to egg each other on to create funnier and funnier scenes, was simply sublime. I have to give huge props to Allie Dart who plays about 8 characters, all with different accents and is almost never off stage.
If you are looking for serious theatre then this show is not for you. If you’re a fan of Disney, pop culture, queer culture, musical comedies or fringe theatre then this is for you. I had a brilliant evening where I gay squealed, side-splitting belly laughed and even cried at the murder of a poor unfortunate underwater cucumber princess. There is some great drag and also some excellent puppetry, it truly was a hilarious, camp riot of a show.
Unfortunate is currently playing at Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 17th Feb 2024, tickets available at www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
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