Manwatching, Royal Court 2017 review ★★★★★

In delightful defiance of that old guff about how women should be seen and not heard, a new play puts female sexuality centre stage at the Royal Court. Manwatching is written by a female playwright with Royal Court connections who chooses to remain anonymous (in an age of viral slut-shaming, can you blame her?).

The frank, funny script details the thoughts one woman has when she masturbates, has sex and generally goes about the process of growing up and becoming a woman. It's an unflinching interior monologue, spanning erotic Jane Austen fantasies and the musings of ideal male proportions.

But there's a twist on the confessional, feminist model: the play is read aloud by a man. Each night a different male comedian reads the part – with no preparation or prior knowledge of the script. In doing so, the author tackles the age-old question: does a thought expressed man, even if it was originally had by a woman, carry more weight?

The result is a juxtaposition of female thoughts and male voice, along with the gleeful immediacy of a performer experiencing each joke and admission afresh with his audience. More provocatively, the male mouthpiece emphasises the gender disparity in attitudes surrounding sexual enjoyment and shame.

Manwatching comes the the Royal Court's Jerwood Upstairs Theatre after making a splash at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe. Book fast; it's set to be a sellout, and rightly so.

Public booking for Manwatching at the Royal Court opens on Friday 4 November.