Review: The Little Foxes (Young Vic)

Review by Daz Gale

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It’s been an interesting year for programming at the Young Vic with Nachtland, A Face In The Crowd and Passing Strange offering varied results. Following two musicals back to back, they are ending their 2024 output with a revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. Led by a multi-award winning actress and directed by an Olivier award winner, hopes were high that the Young Vic could end the year on a string note, but would they be able to deliver?

Premiering in 1939, The Little Foxes was last seen in London in 2001 with a production at the Donmar Warehouse (After an on stage incident minutes into the show delayed press night by an hour, director Lyndsey Turner joked we’ve waited 23 years, we can wait another hour). Set around the Hubbard family, this drama sees three siblings scheme and attempt to one-up each other when a businessman offers them an opportunity that would provide them with untold wealth. As greed and ambition battle their demons from the past, relationships are tested and broken as the dysfunctional family dynamic filters down to the next generation.

Lillian Hellman may have wrote this 85 years ago but the quality still holds up to this day, with mild updates to the time and setting but the actual body of work remaining intact. Layered writing allows the fractured elements of the family are allowed to breathe and reveal themselves slowly and naturally with little nuggets of what has happened in their past to make them this way dropped along the way to ensure the audience is always gripped. It can prove a tad uneven at times, with a particularly slow-burning first act setting up for an explosive second act. Where I enjoyed the first act but wasn’t as captivated as I perhaps would have liked – this would remedied after the interval in a show that gets more and more riveting as it roars towards its climax.

A lot of that can be attributed to director Lyndsey Turner. Allowing the story to unfold gradually, it created an uneven watch at times, especially during the first act where a clumsy scene change midway through the first act wasn’t handled as smoothly as you would hope, taking you out of the moment and losing momentum. However, the choices in Turner’s direction were overall a resounding success, particularly in the second act where the intensity is ramped up to create a truly suspenseful climactic sequence that had me on the edge of my seat. Though the set design isn’t as strong as I would have hoped from a drama like this, the focus in The Little Foxes is on the talent of the cast who manage to take all of your attention with no distraction elsewhere – and what a cast they are!

Anna Madeley gives an urgent performance as Birdie, dominating the opening scene of the play and ensuring some of the more memorable moments throughout. Unfortunately, her character is drastically side-lined later on, only seen fleetingly in the second act, which feels all the more disappointing given the lasting impression Madeley gives with her stunning portrayal. Eleanor Worthington-Cox similarly sees her stage time be few and far between, but she more than makes up for it in the climactic scenes, more than coming into her own and proving what a remarkable force of a performer she is. Anyone who saw Worthington-Cox in Next To Normal will be acutely aware of how raw and emotive her performances can be, and her turn as Alexandra is another example of this in a further standout performance from her.

Mark Bonnar is captivatingly menacing as Benjamin with a terrifying darkness and dominance through the story, with Steffan Rhodri forming a double act as brother Oscar though mainly being resigned to the sidekick in the action. Stanley Morgan delivered an impressive turn as Leo in one of the more complex of characters we see in the play as Morgan attempts to portray somebody trying to find their place in the world and indeed their family. The fact he managed to perform in such an outstanding way given how the play started is a testament to his resilience and strength as an actor in a performance I am grateful I got to witness.

John Light gets some of the trickier and more difficult moments in the play as Regina’s terminally ill husband Horace, and is mesmerising in the role with an initial calm demeanour and the characters failing strength paving way for a rawness that is gripping to watch. Though they don’t have as much to do in the story, Freddie MacBruce and Andrea Davy provide solid performances as Cal and Addie respectively. Davy in particular leaves such an impressive as Addie, it left me longing to see more of her.

The performance of the night undoubtedly belongs to Anne-Marie Duff who is absolutely spellbinding as Regijna. In a true example of a masterclass performance, Duff knows when to hold back, reign it in and sit in the background letting others take centre stage, biding her time for her moment in the spotlight. When it arrives, it blows everything else out of the water. Elements of Regina’s true nature are teased subtly in the first act so that when it all comes to a head in Act Two, the result is breathtaking. In the final 10 or so minutes of The Little Foxes, Duff delivers one of the strongest feats of acting I have seen in a while – incredibly striking the perfect balance between emotion and clarity as she takes hold of the narrative and twists it to suit her needs. While the entire cast are fantastic in their own right, it is Anne-Marie Duff who you will leave the theatre blown away by.

Though it was a suitably dramatic press night for unexpected reasons, the expected drama of The Little Foxes was played out in fantastic fashion. Though the production isn’t quite perfect, there is more than enough on offer here to ensure a watch that will captivate you until the very end. Lyndsey Turner’s use of tension and suspense creates an urgent atmosphere that amplifies the savagery of the story. Bolstered by a sensational cast, The Little Foxes may be an ambitious production, but this ambition is more than met with a show that had no issue coming out on top.

The Little Foxes plays at the Young Vic until 8th February 2025. Tickets from www.youngvic.org 

Photos by Johan Persson