Tilda Swinton returns to the stage in triumph

Royal Court Theatre

In 1987 director Stephen Unwin, designer Bunny Christie and actor Tilda Swinton caused a sensation with Man To Man, the fragmented story of a German woman who transforms herself into her dead husband in order to survive in Nazi Germany and beyond. The trio are back with the same play, slightly updated, to celebrate the Royal Court Theatre’s 70th anniversary. The critics were all impressed by Tilda Swinton but some but some didn’t think Manfred Karge‘s play had aged well.

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe was gripped: ‘the combination of Swinton’s white-hot talent and the vividness of Karge’s imagery grips you in its teeth like a rabid dog, and shakes and shakes you. I can’t stop thinking about it.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowksi reassured us: ‘this isn’t one of (Swinton’s) arch performance projects, it’s a proper play, in which she loses herself in a proper character.’ He extoled her qualities: ‘it’s genuinely astonishing how ageless she looks – you’d never put her at 65. But it feels like that’s not simply because she doesn’t look it, but because she really really is a great and incredibly vigorous actor who can choose to channel the energy and voice and posture of a younger woman. Slash man. Slash woman pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man.’

Mark Lawson of The Guardian described the star: ‘With a gruff laddishness as her base tone, Swinton – on a Bunny Christie set dotted with period East German technology including fridge and tape machine – regularly transforms verbally and physically into other women and men.’ He continued: ‘Anthony Vivis’s 1980s English version, revised by director Stephen Unwin, conveys Karge’s knack for vivid imagery. A smoker’s yellow-stained finger is able to write an endearment in after-sex sweat on Ella’s body; Hitler youth piss swastikas in the snow. The show at times resembles performance art (…) but the performer’s verbal flexibility and perfect pacing make Man To Man compelling theatre.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton commented: ‘Stephen Unwin’s direction of the 28 short scenes is clear and driving, and the text (translated by Anthony Vivis) a compelling mixture of the raw and the poetic. When Ella/Max thinks of her past life as a woman she sees herself in terms of Snow White, pale as snow. Swinton’s wistful delivery of those lines is just one of the inflections of a performance that captures the contradictions of a divided life, at once pitiful and revolting, admirable and disgusting.  Her sense of alienation from herself and from the times in which she is living is like a warning cry.  A play written in the 1980s speaks loudly today’.

Franco Milazzo for BroadwayWorld riffed extensively about the original German title Jacke wie Hose: ‘The German idiom means, roughly, that a jacket and a pair of trousers amount to the same thing, so why fuss over which one you’re wearing? It perfectly encapsulates what the whole play is about, namely that personal identity can be a matter of tailoring, not conviction. Yet, now we are stuck with Man To Man which sounds more like a problem page in a gay lifestyle magazine.’ He did go on to talk about the production: ‘It’s an alluring performance that moulds itself around a challenging script. The twenty-eight short scenes have more stylistic variety than a Eurovision host’s wardrobe. Prose jostles for space alongside blank verse, rhyming couplets, pub songs, proverbs and whatever else was running through Karge’s mind at the time he wrote this. While the arthouse crowd will no doubt find this restless mashup of dramatic styles deeply arousing, there are times when the text barely resists the temptation to slide into pretentious twaddle. Unwin’s direction has real verve even when it sags a little towards the middle; frankly, though, it could sag all the way to Sydney and still be barely noticeable when Swinton is in this kind of dominant mood.’

Kirsten Grant for the Telegraph reported: ‘Despite its rather short 85-minute runtime, the text itself is overloaded, interspersed with doggerel, rhyming couplets, and songs. But Swinton’s command of the stage together with Unwin’s clever direction keep the pacing from lagging.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Holly O’Mahony for LondonTheatre gave an insight into the actor’s performance: ‘it’s easy to forget you’re watching Swinton as she burps and swaggers around the stage as Ella-turned-Max. A working-class German, Swinton bestows her with a thick cockney accent, sardonic sense of humour, and a matter-of-fact attitude towards a hard-up life (…)  Under Christie’s self-consciously cool design, though, she looks more like an 80s rock star. Her short hair stands as if petrified above her head, while a cakey smear runs down her cheek. Beneath a fishnet vest occasionally coupled with a suit jacket, she does not wear her husband’s trousers, as the play’s blurb describes, but a pair of red Y-fronts, exposing her bare legs, bloodied knees and chunky black boots.’

The Times’ Clive Davis had reservations: ‘Karge’s overextended portrait of a woman who could be a modern Mother Courage becomes a test of endurance. Random reflections tumble over each other as Ella rummages through memories in a voice which often slips into a surly monotone. And the political backdrop to her life is often sketched in unsubtle terms.’

The Independent’s Alice Saville also had doubts about the play: ‘In 1988, I’d imagine that seeing an actor existing between genders on stage felt simpler – an artistic choice, reflecting on the dehumanising nature of war and industrialisation. In today’s simultaneously more politicised and more nuanced landscape, there’s something a bit thin about the way this character’s identity is drawn. Her feminine side is painted using excerpts from Snow White, poetic snippets of lost girlishness that feel irrelevant to her harshly masculine present. It feels like we’re building towards some sort of fantastical transformation that never comes.’

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis found it: ‘surprisingly, a little bit boring (…) It remains disjointed and elusive despite the finessing of its original director Stephen Unwin, and Swinton’s larky, captivating performance (…) The play’s 28 scenes feel simultaneously overstuffed with imagery and frustratingly sketchy. You search in vain for solid meaning.’

Critics’ average rating 3.6 ⭑

Man To Man can be seen at The Royal Court Theatre until 24 October 2026 (sold out but try £15 Mondays- tickets available at 9am online for that day’s performance https://royalcourttheatre.com) It will then tour to Edinburgh, Berlin and New York.

If you’ve seen the current production of Man To Man, please leave your review and rating below