Growing up as ‘deviants’ in the eyes of society, it was not uncommon for us members of the Queer community, to root for the villain in Disney films as kids. They have trauma, they have layers, they have diabolical plans…and usually the best songs.
Case in point, one Ursula the sea witch. Not only was she based, visually darling, on 80s drag legend Divine, but she was written with Bea Arthur’s voice in mind. But famously the agent of the Golden Girls actress was so offended with being told his client’s voice sounded like that of a witch that he refused to even show Arthur the script.
Not a lot was known about Ursula except that she was fabulous, had been banished from the kingdom by King Triton and now turns mer-folk into her ‘Poor, Unfortunate Souls.’ Well here to provide us with the most necessary of all origin back stories, is comedian Daniel Foxx with his musical Unfortunate. A fun, camp and queer-coded take on how Ursula came to be, replete with songs, jokes and gay eels. The musical opens at London’s The Other Palace this Friday. Loverboy caught up with Foxx to find out more…
Hello Daniel, we’re three weeks away from the curtain going up on your biggest show yet. How are you feeling? Tell us what status you are at. What still needs to happen?
Hello! Honestly, the general feeling is excitement. The show’s hot and ready – we’re fresh off the back of a winter run at The Lowry in Salford, so everyone’s pawing at the ground ready to go. We’ve got a few new cast members joining us for the London shows, so the next few weeks will just be getting them rehearsed in and fitted for their codpieces. Maybe a lick of neon paint or tentacle polish here and there. But this ship is very much ready to set sail.
The musical first began in 2019 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. How does what you’re feeling now compare with what you felt three weeks before the debut performance in 2019?
Definitely calmer, but the excitement’s the same! In 2019, we had no clue what to expect: we’d given birth to this big, rude, explosion of a show and had no idea how it would gel with audiences – or whether there would even be an audience. Now, 7 years on (oh god), we’re going into it with a gorgeous fanbase and half a decade of shows under our belts. We know Ursula so intimately, we know our audience, we’ve covered every possible fish-based euphemism in the English language, and we’ve packed so many jokes into the script it’s leaking. So yeah, we’re absolutely BUZZING to see it loud and proud at The Other Palace Theatre, but there’s less guesswork going on than when we arrived at our student dorms in Edinburgh Fringe 2019!
How did the concept first come about? How long did it take you to create the musical?
My co-conspirator (and bestie) Robyn Grant and I were glugging rosé one dark and stormy night back in 2018, and sort of slurring between what our next musical should be, and which childhood characters deserved more, and the two conversations kind of blurred into one. Ursula never got her moment. Why doesn’t she have more lines? Actually, she was a body-positive queer icon. Fuck Triton. What would her ballad be? Also, what if she rapped? And vogued. Also, the eels are gay.
In terms of writing, the initial production was a whirlwind, actually. We connected with our darling Tim Gilvin, composer extraordinaire, and rattled out the original Edinburgh Fringe script in like two months. I think it had been sitting in us for a long time – turns out we had a lot of opinions on Ursula, and we all knew what we wanted the show to sound like. But it has been a process of writing and rewriting over the years – the show’s had various incarnations and the script’s got tighter each time. This production is Unfortunate in its final form, and I think it’s the best it’s ever been.
Tell me about the importance of starting out as an indie production? How was it getting funding etc? What important things did you learn from its beginning that are still in place now? (Compared to say if it had just been a big major production)
I think it was very freeing, to be honest. We weren’t constrained in any way; we just wrote exactly what we wanted to see as audience members, wrote the songs we wanted to jiggle our shoulders to. We were a theatre company at that point (Fat Rascal Theatre) and so kind of produced it internally. Thankfully, the show did really well at the Fringe – sold out and got a ton of 5-star reviews, thank you – which I think made getting funding easier for the next steps of taking it to London, and touring it around. We immediately proved there’s an appetite for Ursula.
If it had gone straight up as a major production… I don’t know. I don’t know if it would be as funny as it is now, if we’d have taken as many risks and been as true to our own *vision*. I’m glad it’s grown the way it has.
That debut performance was six years ago and since then the show has reached bigger and bigger venues. How has the music evolved since then regarding visuals, production, the musical itself?
Bigger and better baby! Musically, I’d say it’s been pretty consistent – we know what we like, and it’s gay bops. But also the show kind of informs that itself… We knew we wanted a healthy dose of Disney sparkle in there, to keep it in that world we’re parodying. And obviously, Ursula is so directly based on Divine, we knew we wanted some queer 80s sound, and some contemporary queer club sound too. Disney meets Gaga meets Berghain – let’s go.
Visuals and production-wise, we’ve been experimenting a bit. Again, we’ve always wanted a mix of Disney and gay disco, kink, leather, etc, but thinking back to our Fringe days, we had a few flats, a few basic props, some elevated sock puppets and actors in a lot of spandex. As it’s grown, the whole production’s got glossier, obviously – we have more money to realise those worlds and get some fun in there. Especially around Ursula’s magic, and exploring how fashion can help tell a story. But we’ve been conscious about keeping the charm of the original production too – we’ve all seen those musicals that have more budget than heart.
Tell me about the cast you are working with this time. Who’s new? Who’s returning? What’s important for you when casting someone for Unfortunate?
Beautiful. Angels. We’ve got some new faces and some lifers. The one and only Sam Buttery is taking up the tentacles as our Ursula, who is just sensational. Her voice is out of this world, but what sold me, as a comedian, is how naturally funny she is. She plays with the audience, and it’s honestly a different show every night. I love her.
And then we’ve got Allie Munro returning as our Sebastian (and about… four thousand other characters). She’s been with us since the very beginning and is just a knockout. Allie gives an absolute masterclass in multiroleing – at one point multiple characters on stage at the same time. It’s genius to watch.
Julie Yamanee is joining us as Ariel for the London shows, which I’m so excited about. I can’t wait to see her, and Blair Robertson is on board as our oceanhunk Triton. He’s fantastic. James Spence is also new to the crew, also playing a bunch of characters (but most prominently Eric and Neptune), and Freya McMahon, Jacob Whawell, and Kelly Sweeney are joining in the ensemble and understudying.
The thing that everyone has in common – and which is so important for us when casting – is funny bones. Everyone gets what we’re going for, and everyone is up for being silly in the most glorious way. Without them, the show’s nothing!
Knowing that Ursula was inspired by Divine is perfection. A great way of bringing queer inspiration to the mainstream. Tell me about Unfortunate, the importance of representation and how mainstream audiences have reacted to the show.
That’s what drew us to the show in the first place, really! It’s such a central part of Ursula as a character and yet criminally underexplored.
Ursula is unapologetically fat, unapologetically glam, unapologetically kind of butch, and unapologetically herself. And we’re meant to find that villainous, lol.
We’ve leaned into what makes her great, and what we love about her, and it turns out there’s a whole lot of people out there who agree. The cheers we get on certain lines each night make it so worth it. People are just delighted to see themselves not just represented, but brashly, boldly celebrated.
In the last week a starry, big-budget concert has been announced of another musical inspired by Ursula. It can however, never have the heart and love that Unfortunate has generated since it began thanks to its community spirit. Tell us about the importance of supporting local queer theatre in 2026.
Ha! Yes, our rival!
No, to be honest, as much as I’d love some drama, I’ve no doubt the other production has its own heart and will be an amazing show. There’s certainly some brilliant people involved, and the songs released so far sound great.
But we’re very different shows. Unfortunate is, above all, funny, unapologetic and adult. The other production is, from what I can tell, a lot more sincere and family-friendly. So there’s something for everyone, I guess.
Unfortunate has grown on word of mouth, from humble Fringe Festival origins, to arts centres, and at last to a big London venue. It’s built on community, on fans, and on literally thousands of hours of writing, rewriting, cackling, getting drunk on Kylie Minogue rosé and saying “I don’t think we can write that”. That’s a unique flavour that can’t really be replicated.
Lastly we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001. So we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song and why? (Did you know she is a huge Little Mermaid fan and had a room in her NYC apartment decorated with inspiration from the film?)
Absolutely obsessed with Mariah having a Little Mermaid room. Insanely camp. I’m so tempted to say ‘Fantasy’ just for the (again) campest music video of all time, but I think it’s got to be ‘Emotions’. Immediately transports me back to the 90s. I’m a mum in a grape-themed Tuscan kitchen, sipping merlot from a mug and daydreaming about my affair with the gardener. Exquisite.
Unfortunate plays London’s The Other Palace 6th February – 5th April.
See www.unfortunatemusical.com for tickets and info.
Daniel will also be touring his show, How Lovely, in 2026.
See www.danielfoxx.co.uk for full dates and tickets.
Image of Daniel Foxx: Matt Crockett
Image from Unfortunate: Mark Senior
