Review: Unfortunate (Touring)

Tuesday, 11th June 2024 at the Grand Opera House, York

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This musical parody is all kinds of fabulous and all kinds of bonkers, with the perfect descriptor coming from the script itself: “well, that was fucking mental”. Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch casts Ursula not as the evil villain, but a woman wronged and a role model for strong women who live unapologetically – she is an absolute bad-ass and we love her for it.

Book and lyrics Robyn Grant and Daniel Foxx are full of entertainingly placed musical theatre and pop culture references and there’s a real sense of rebelliousness in their grasp of the bare bones of Ursula’s Disney identity and the Ursula they present here. They retain that wonderful sass the best villains have us gravitating towards and they build on it beautifully, giving us her origin story and entertaining glimpses of the rebel she’s been since youth (see: Wicked echoes).

Robyn Grant directs, seemingly with one goal only: give them bloody everything. If you think of the most outlandish drag show you’ve ever seen and intensify the tongue-in-cheek chaos of it all a few times over, you might just get a sense of where this show is pitched in terms of relentless surprises and rambunctious sense of anything goes.

And go go go it does thanks to an indefatigable cast. The ensemble are a force to be reckoned with, bringing a sense of relish to Melody Sinclair’s choreography and their handling of Abby Clarke’s puppets.

Shawna Hamic is the “bad witch” herself (with very Six energy) and somehow manages to channel that same gravelly quality of Pat Caroll’s distinct voicing of Ursula in the Disney film. Caroll was apparently inspired by iconic drag queen Divine and Hamic definitely brings that heightened theatricality and unshakeable confidence to the role. And the pipes! Fabulous performance all round.

Hamic is an absolute belter (in various senses of the word) and she’s well-matched vocally by Thomas Lowe, whose Triton gloriously smacks of Book of Mormon energy and boasts a powerful voice boot. Jamie Mawson provides the final belting hero of the piece, playing Eric in the vein of Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen’s hilarious “Agony” in Into the Woods – very eccentric and very entertaining as the self-indulgent love interest.

River Medway is our Ariel and brings new layers to the term “giving face”, sparkling in comic scenes where Ariel can only respond non-verbally to the madness around her. And Allie Dart is an absolute wonder as she flips between wildly varied roles – including costumes and accents – and in one particularly golden scene, flipping between two characters at great speed. A showstopper all by herself. It’s a similar story with the fabulous Julian Capolei who never stands still and channels a wide variety of characters with distinct borderlines between them – when not drawing attention to the madness for laughs that is.

Musical highlights are many and include opening, closing and title numbers “Nasty”, “I’m that Witch” and “Unfortunate”, along with “We Didn’t Make it to Disney”, and the utterly unhinged “Les Poissons”. Taking their cue from Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s lyrics and music, the show features that distinctive piano underscoring from the film and Tim Gilvin’s music is well-matched to the tones of the plot but generally the show follows its own wild and varied musical path.

In truth, at times the show is too wild for its own good, with so much frenetic energy and pace, a good portion of lyrics are just inaudible and that’s a shame as what does come across absolutely sells the wit and originality of the writing team. It’s also a show with some unnecessary padding (costumes aside) – it’s never less than engaging but it is sometimes manic and sprawling to the point of losing itself. But one thing is for sure: you’ll be thoroughly entertained by this show and this cracking cast.

Unfortunate is at the Grand Opera House, York until June 15th 2024 – more information and tickets can be found here.