Tilda Swinton's Man to Man: The Reviews, From Three Stars to Five

Man to Man had its press night at the Royal Court on Friday 11 September, six days after performances began, and the reviews came in overnight and across the weekend. Tilda Swinton plays Ella, the woman in Manfred Karge's one-woman play who puts on her dead husband's trousers in 1930s Germany and lives on as Max through war and dictatorship. It is the role she created in the play's 1988 UK premiere, at the Traverse and the Royal Court.

The star ratings

• The Arts Desk (Aleks Sierz): five stars
• The Guardian (Mark Lawson): four stars
• Time Out (Andrzej Lukowski): four stars
• The Stage (Sam Marlowe): four stars
• The Telegraph (Kirsten Grant): four stars, as listed by the Royal Court and the theatre.reviews round-up
• WhatsOnStage (Sarah Crompton): four stars
• BroadwayWorld (Franco Milazzo): four stars
• Theatre Weekly (Greg Stewart): four stars
• The Independent (Alice Saville): three stars
• LondonTheatre.co.uk (Holly O'Mahony): three stars
• The Standard (Nick Curtis) and The Times (Clive Davis): three stars each, as listed by the theatre.reviews round-up

Nobody disagrees about Swinton. Sierz called her performance the high point of his year and the production the play of the year. Lukowski's verdict was simply 'Tilda Swinton has still got it', and he noted that this is a proper play rather than one of her performance projects. The Guardian's headline credited her perfect pacing, Crompton called the performance 'understated yet fierce', and Sam Marlowe's review for The Stage went out under the line 'Grips you in its teeth like a rabid dog'. Even the three-star reviews start there: Saville found her understated but mesmerising, O'Mahony wrote that you cannot take your eyes off her, and the Standard's Nick Curtis, who found the play 'disjointed and elusive', still credited Swinton's 'larky, captivating performance'.

Nobody argued about Swinton. They argued about the play around her.

Where the critics split

The disagreement is about the text. Karge has updated it for this revival — the Guardian says he has written a new 28th section on the renaissance of Nazi ideology in Germany — and Crompton felt the Berlin Wall and AfD updates underline the play's relevance but weaken its momentum. The Telegraph's headline called it a triumphant stage return, though Grant found the text overloaded. The Times's headline reads 'Powerful Tilda Swinton rescues this shaky monologue', and the theatre.reviews round-up quotes Davis saying it 'becomes a test of endurance'. The Standard's headline was blunter still: 'A major event, if a little boring'. Saville thought the character's identity drawn thinly for today and the narrative easy to lose track of, and O'Mahony that the fragmented structure means the antifascist message never quite lands. Sierz, for his part, questioned the Royal Court's nostalgic habit of restaging revivals with their original creative teams.

Tickets, running time and what comes next

The London run in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs is sold out, but the Royal Court lists four ways in. Every Monday, all tickets are £15, bookable online from 9am on the day. Every day at midday, returned tickets for that day's and the next day's performances go online, Monday performances excepted. TodayTix releases £25 Rush tickets at 10am, Tuesday to Saturday. And standing tickets and last-minute returns are sold in person. Full prices run from £15 to £74.50, and the age guidance is 14+. The Royal Court gives the running time as approximately 1 hour 25 minutes. Stephen Unwin directs, with design by Bunny Christie, lighting by Ben Ormerod, sound by Elena Peña and projection by Matt Powell.

London closes on 24 October. The production then plays the Traverse in Edinburgh from 29 October to 7 November, premieres at the Berliner Ensemble on 9 February 2027, and reaches New York in spring 2027, according to the Royal Court and BroadwayWorld. The Guardian's review listing says New York in February; the theatre's own page says spring.