Unfortunate review: Shawna Hamic 'glorious' as Ursula in Little Mermaid musical parody

River Medway as the 'fabulously airheaded' Ariel

(Image credit: Pamela Raith)

published 18 January 2024

To rewatch Disney's "The Little Mermaid" as an adult "is to be struck by how jam-packed the film is with queer-coded tropes", said Nick Ferris in The Daily Telegraph – from the "muscle-bound bodies of the mermen" to the "diva-esque" underwater witch Ursula. At the time, all this may have escaped the attention of many viewers, but now the creators of "Unfortunate" – subtitled "The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch" – have zeroed in on it. Drawing on the drag show tradition, this musical retells the story through Ursula's eyes and for an adult audience. The result is a "hugely funny, fresh and engaging production", with lavish costumes, extravagant song-and-dance numbers and visual effects. With some judicious cuts, and some of the jokes toned down, I could see this storming the West End as "the next Wicked".

"For parody to fully work, its perpetrators need to have an innate understanding of, even affection for, the source material they're lampooning," said Alun Hood on What's On Stage. That is self-evidently the case with this "enchanting and biliously funny" musical, which kicks off a long tour in late February at The Lowry in Salford. Robyn Grant and Daniel Foxx (book and lyrics) and Tim Gilvin (composer) have created less a send-up of the Disney animation than "a loving homage larded with knowing humour, a queer sensibility and lashings of glittery camp". The writing is "genuinely funny", while Gilvin's "terrific pastiche score" references the film's soundtrack, but with "a fair few banging tunes of its own".

There's a showbiz adage that "good musicals are not written – they are rewritten", said Paul Vale in The Stage. This fabulous show, which has been "extensively reworked" since its first outing in 2019, shows just how true that is. At close to three hours, the show is arguably a bit "overstuffed", said Kate Wyver in The Guardian, but an outstanding ensemble cast keep the action moving along with "boundless energy and constant camp delight". Shawna Hamic is "glorious" as the wronged Ursula. And River Medway, familiar to some from "RuPaul's Drag Race UK", makes a "fabulously airheaded" Ariel. It's an "infectious" treat.