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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Mark Lawson

Man to Man review – Tilda Swinton’s perfect pacing makes this multi-character monologue compelling

Tilda Swinton with high hair and white body paint on a set dotted with period East German technology including a television and an amplifier
Tilda Swinton – on a Bunny Christie set dotted with period East German technology – regularly transforms verbally and physically into other women and men. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Early autumn London theatre has already featured two Oscar winners: Cate Blanchett in Electra/Persona and Mark Rylance in Tartuffe (Remixed). Now Tilda Swinton makes a trio. This shows the commendable dedication of some screen talent to theatre but also the box office need, in recessions, for famous faces. Unusually, there was a first night red carpet outside the Royal Court, leading a writer long associated with the venue to express “shock” to ushers at such Hollywood vulgarity.

Swinton is reprising Manfred Karge’s Man to Man, which she first performed 39 years ago, in a production heading to Edinburgh, Berlin and New York. The piece is a multicharacter monologue starting in Germany in the 1930s.

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