The Little Foxes (Young Vic, London) 

Verdict: Sibling cesspit 

Anne-Marie Duff has become widely celebrated as the mousey housewife who roared in the hilariously chaotic revenge comedy Bad Sisters on Apple TV+.

And here she goes again, at London’s Young Vic theatre, only this time as a seemingly downtrodden sister in a wealthy family fighting for control of an Alabama cotton plantation. 

Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes, written in 1939, is a bitter domestic melodrama in which one brother Ben (Mark Bonnar) seeks to swindle his sister Regina (Duff) out of a potential multi-million dollar fortune by plotting with another, Oscar (Steffan Rhodri).

But Regina already has the measure of her conniving siblings. She plans to thwart them by withholding money kept by her mortally ill husband, Horace (John Light).

Just in time for Christmas, this is a tasty but cheerless exercise in family feuds.

 The back-stabbing brothers even seek marriages between their own children – first cousins – to secure a medieval-style alliance (a subject debated by MPs this week, in one of those weird overlaps of art and life).

Rhodri’s Oscar is a nasty piece of work who beats his alcoholic wife (Anna Madeley, Mrs Hall of All Creatures Great And Small) and manipulates his feckless son Leo (Stanley Morgan).

Anne-Marie Duff (pictured) has become widely celebrated as the mousey housewife who roared in the hilariously chaotic revenge comedy Bad Sisters on Apple TV+.  And here she goes again, at London’s Young Vic theatre, only this time as a seemingly downtrodden sister in a wealthy family fighting for control of an Alabama cotton plantation

Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes, written in 1939, is a bitter domestic melodrama in which one brother Ben (Mark Bonnar) seeks to swindle his sister Regina (Duff) out of a potential multi-million dollar fortune. Pictured: Mark Bonnar as Ben and Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Regina’s virtuous daughter Alexandra

Only Regina’s virtuous daughter Alexandra (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) emerges with any credit.

Regina was originally played on Broadway in 1939 by the formidable Tallulah Bankhead, and here Duff works hard to be less of a monster. 

But when she stands by, watching her husband have a heart attack on the stairs, her self-serving moral depravity can no longer be denied.

Bonnar’s Ben, an opportunist in a tailored tweed suit, notes that soon all America will be this way.

Lyndsey Turner’s slick production transposes the original 1900 action to the 1960s, with Lizzie Clachan’s peculiarly bland set of beige hessian panels and G Plan furniture arranged around a grand, four-seater green velvet Chesterfield sofa. 

Perhaps this is an attempt to say something about the civil rights era, as black servants played by Freddie MacBruce and Andrea Davy lurk in silent judgement of their masters’ complacent supremacism. 

Rhodri’s Oscar is a nasty piece of work who beats his alcoholic wife (Anna Madeley, Mrs Hall of All Creatures Great And Small) and manipulates his feckless son Leo (Stanley Morgan)

But it’s too vague a gesture.

Despite top-of-the-range acting and portentous sound effects, urging us to feel the tension, Hellman’s writing is simply too schematic to make us care about the outcome.

 

Ballet Shoes (Olivier, National Theatre) 

Verdict: Girls’ Own epic 

Noel Streatfeild’s children’s classic Ballet Shoes, by contrast, is a jolly riot of wishful family thinking suitable for children aged seven and over.

It’s a zany story about three orphaned sisters growing up in 1930s London in the home of itinerant palaeontologist Great Uncle Matthew (‘GUM’). 

A Girls’ Own fantasy reminiscent of Enid Blyton, it sees the three siblings follow their own creative stars.

Pauline discovers a talent for acting, Posy wants to be a ballerina, and Petrova dreams of being an aviator. They’re ᴀssisted by GUM’s niece Sylvia (another, older orphan), and seen-it-all housekeeper Nana.

Daisy Sequerra (pictured) brings dedication and tantrums as dancer Posy, while Yanexi Enriquez embodies cast-iron cerтιтude as the mechanically minded Petrova

But when the sisters run out of money after GUM fails to return from his travels, they are forced to take in lodgers: a lesbian English teacher, a jazz dancer from New York and an Indian mechanic with a fabulous Citroen.

Director Katy Rudd previously staged an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Ocean At The End Of The Lane at the National Theatre, and again produces an impressive exhibition of stagecraft.

Frankie Bradshaw’s set is an edifice of archaeological curiosity, but also transports us from ballet schools to film sets, around London and across continents.

A doughty cast is led by Justin Salinger doubling as the studiedly eccentric GUM and Russian ballet teacher Madame Fidolia.

Grace Saif straddles bolshiness and ambition as budding actor Pauline.

Daisy Sequerra brings dedication and tantrums as dancer Posy, while Yanexi Enriquez embodies cast-iron cerтιтude as the mechanically minded Petrova.

Noel Streatfeild’s children’s classic Ballet Shoes, by contrast, is a jolly riot of wishful family thinking suitable for children aged seven and over. Pictured: Pearl Mackie, as Sylvia, left, and Sid Sagar (Jai Saran)

The whole enterprise could collapse like a house of cards. But Pearl Mackie, as Sylvia, the girls’ surrogate mother, helps maintain continuity.

It’s spirited, wholesome and hearty, and you’ll either love it already, or — like me and my 14-year-old daughter — be captivated by its ambition.

The Little Foxes until February 8; Ballet Shoes until February 22.

Pinocchio (Watermill Theatre, Newbury) 

Verdict: The ordinary becomes extraordinary 

Carlo Collodi ends his 19th-century morality tale about the fibbing Pinocchio with his death by hanging. 

There are neither ropes nor strings in Michael Morpurgo’s whimsical fantasia about a puppet who is not so much wicked as thick, as might be expected in a boy carved from a cherry log with eyes made from pine… which is what gave him his name.

Morpurgo’s point, pithily made in Simon Reade’s adaptation, is that Pinocchio is a unique individual, as are we all.

Carlo Collodi ends his 19th-century morality tale about the fibbing Pinocchio with his death by hanging

His knuckle-headedness means he is easily lead astray by more wily characters but, supported by his parents’ unconditional love, he will find his own path through life.

The charm of this show comes from the ordinary becoming extraordinary.

Gepetto is inspired by the shape of a log to create a son for his childless wife. In a truly magical moment, Pinocchio (Jerome Yates) appears, stock still, his limbs gradually coming to stiff life.

Occasionally he lies, but it is Pinocchio’s laddish stupidity that gets him into trouble. He doesn’t understand that a careless blow can kill a friendly cricket, any more than that his toes will burn if he puts them too close to the fire.

Under Indiana Lown-Collins and Elle While’s breezy direction, nothing is irredeemable.

There are neither ropes nor strings in Michael Morpurgo’s whimsical fantasia about a puppet who is not so much wicked as thick, as might be expected in a boy carved from a cherry log with eyes made from pine… which is what gave him his name

That includes Pinocchio’s scorched extremities, thanks to Gepetto’s expert emergency surgery, involving a drill and screwdriver, and his ingeniously extending lying hooter — which gets pecked off by a flock of woodpeckers.

The cast keep the show moving splendidly through a series of merry musical misadvantures, but the real show-stealers are Marc Parrett’s puppets, including a poo-shooting pig with a head made from a watering can, a gang of ginger weasels as slinky as can be and, best of all, a giant lantern suggesting a luminous whale, in which Pinocchio and his dad are reunited over a lunch of tuna and anchovies. 

Delightfully diverting.

Until January 5, watermill.org.uk