The copyright-swerving super powers of the ‘parody’ as a concept has led to it becoming quite the rage in the theatre world of late. Being able to slap on a beloved IP or iconic character without fear of the House of Mouse lawyers lining up outside the rehearsal room doors? It’s easy to see the appeal.

Yet character or brand recognition alone do not necessarily a good show make. By all means, let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that satirists are afforded such robust legal protection in an increasingly litigious creative world, and hopefully it’ll be a good few years before AI learns the nuances of the send up, but any satire worth its sea salt has to bring more to the table than just familiarity.

Robyn Grant, Daniel Foxx and Tim Gilvin’s fringe favourite, Unfortunate is a distinctive, bold example of getting your parody down pat. It takes one of Disney’s most bombastic, fabulous villains, The Little Mermaid’s Ursula the Sea Witch, and retells the story of Mermaid from her perspective.

It’s essentially Wicked – Under the Sea edition (something its marketing freely acknowledges), and much like that canted revisit to Oz, and to a lesser extent Disney’s own Maleficent live action outings, the emphasis here is very much on setting the record straight from the villain’s perspective. Here, young Ursula (Shawna Hamic) Squirt is a feisty, gifted young witch who struggles to fit in amongst her classmates, catches the eye of a handsome young peer, and is ultimately unfairly cast out to a life of exile by a corrupt overlord who frames and shames her.

“It’s essentially Wicked – Under the Sea edition.. .and much like that canted revisit to Oz, the emphasis here is very much setting the record straight from the villain’s perspective.”

Sound familiar? The early building blocks of Unfortunate’s story certainly offer more than passing nods to Gregory Maguire and Winnie Holzman’s handling of Elphaba/The Wicked Witch of the West, but after this initial, slightly familiar, set up, Unfortunate sets sail to a gloriously bonkers retelling of Mermaid, with plenty of twists in the tale (tail?), as Ursula and her fishy friends recount how the story really went.

The broad strokes of Ursula as a woman scorned, seeking to right her wrongs may not be shatteringly original, but its execution here as a naughty, decidedly adult offering certainly brings a jolt of individuality to it all.

And beneath the outer shell of joyful, often silly smut, the reworking of the Mermaid story is deceptively quite clever, and certainly original. Reframing Ursula as essentially a contract cynic hired to inject some disillusionment and reality into air-headed young Princess Ariel (RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star River Medway) before she can take the throne is a delicious riff, and works brilliantly as a canted spin on the original film’s deal with the devil. Everything else about it is suitably dialled up to stratospheric levels of camp, including an insufferably spoilt Prince Eric (Jamie Mawson), Ursula’s alter-ego Vanessa (Julian Capolei) respawned here as a moustached, slut-dropping, straw-sucking Essex girl, and even has Ratatouille’s Colette thrown in for good measure (Allie Dart, in one of numerous roles).

The lampooning is regularly on the nose – from a decidedly non-PG rework of Ariel’s seminal ‘Part of Your World’ ballad, to an extended number about uglier denizens of the sea who ‘Didn’t Make It To Disney’. More inspired are the costume-swapping hijinks of ‘Les Poisson’, and in particular the biting commentary of ‘Ask the Girl’, which musicalises modern concerns about the original song.

“They’re fun, often bawdy takes on the original Disney offerings, and its certainly refreshing to see a parody actively engage in just that.”

They’re fun, often bawdy takes on the original Disney offerings, and its certainly refreshing to see a parody actively engage in just that. But in some ways, Unfortunate fires best when doing its own thing. It relishes in its mischief and devilment, and the flourishes of sexual tension or empowerment in numbers such as ‘Sucking on You’, ‘Female Role Models’ and ‘I’m That Witch’ are where the show really seems to find its sea legs.

This is in no small part thanks to a fierce and commanding central turn from Orange is the New Black’s Shawna Hamic, who stomps, sasses and sings up a veritable sea storm as Ursula. Bombastic, brassy and unflinching, she gives great diva and captures the cackling wickedness and malevolence of the infamous sea witch, with added splashes of punk and camp.

“Shawna Hamic… stomps, sasses and sings up a veritable sea storm as Ursula. Bombastic, brassy and unflinching, she gives great diva”

Medway is a lot of fun as a ditzy, dick-obsessed Ariel, and Allie Dart is a transformative ball of energy, hilarious and in impressive voice in a variety of turns, perhaps most notably as disillusioned chef Colette. Regularly threatening to steal the whole thing, though, is Thomas Lowe as Ursula’s one-time love, King Triton, pitched here as a sort of nepo himbo on steroids. In addition to some truly outstanding vocals throughout, Lowe is a nimble and impressive physical comedian, with an impressive and routinely hilarious grasp of character as his tortured, sensitive, often useless Triton tries to navigate his own choppy waters of emotions and regret.

Migrating from its more humble origins to the full, sizeable stage of Birmingham’s Hippodrome theatre and others (Midlanders should take note that the show also comes to the Wolverhampton Grand this July), some of Unfortunate’s fringe roots can still be seen and felt in a couple of places, but on the whole Abby Clarke’s staging work and Adam King’s lighting have been well upgraded. It still retains much of that indefinable fringe charm and edge, though a number of recurrent sound issues, and in places an overly loud mix, could do with some work.

On the whole (apologies, this show would probably much prefer on the hole…), Unfortunate is a big, bawdy sucker punch of nautical naughtiness. It’s most assuredly not one for the kids, which might feel slightly jarring given the source material. Indeed, for some it may be even a little too crass.

But for everyone else, the frequent filthiness, and regular talk of suckers, sluttiness and semen (no typo there) are all part of an unashamedly naughty, unapologetically empowering middle finger to Disneyfied pleasantry and sensibilities. And a firm, ripe, juicy cherry on top of what is, yes, a deceptively well-conceived parody, after all.