I really don’t know where to start with this theatre review because quite frankly I’m still laughing to myself and humming inappropriate tunes from last night’s performance from Fat Rascal Theatre!
Some people turn their noses up at musicals without a west end budget, and let me tell you right now, that’s a big mistake kid. Huge. Because Unfortunate was hands down one of the best things I’ve seen on stage in ages.
Let me tell you why….
Unfortunate is the untold story of Ursula the sea witch – an unashamed parody of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. It’s rude, it’s sassy, it’s strong female heavy and it’s absolutely bloody brilliant.
With songs such as ‘(Just Ask Before You) Kiss the Girl’ – a hilarious tune about consent – and ‘We Didn’t Make It To Disney’ a musical point about the lack of diversity in the children’s movie giant’s repertoire, it had us all howling with laughter from its opening scene to the close.
The songs in Unfortunate were so good, they were even catchier and better written than some other big shows I’ve seen from the West End!
Unfortunate is a little bit shorter than your usual musical with a solid runtime of 70ish minutes but it kept us enthralled throughout even without a bar break. The storyline is fantastic and does what Wicked did for the Wizard of Oz to help us understand exactly how our favourite purple villain got so dark and twisty.
With a basic set and a cast of just 5 you’ll be amazed at just how much they’re able to bring their story to life! Robyn Grant in the role of the 8 legged goddess herself was amazing. That woman can SING ya’ll, what a belter. And Katie Wells was face hurtingly funny(yes that is a word) with her TOWIE/Love Island take on Ariel.
It was hard to choose which character from Steffan Rizzi we liked the most – his bashful King Triton or his terrifyingly unstable Scuttle the Seagull. And both Jamie Mawson and Allie Munro were brilliant shape shifters moving from one character to the other to make the cast of 5 seem like a cast of 50!
This isn’t a million dollar production but it feels like one and I’d hate for you to miss it because the name isn’t up there in Covent Garden in shiny lights. There’s a reason Fat Rascal Theatre always smash it at Edinburgh Fringe and why every seat was sold out in the Hippodrome Studio last night.
It was quite simply awesome. Buy a ticket. Like, now.
You can get tickets for Unfortunate for under £20 so there really is no excuse not to go! But be quick as they sail away from the Hippodrome on the 22nd of December:
BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE