SOURCE: Steinberg, Sybil. Review of Head to Toe, by Joe Orton. Publishers Weekly 231, no. 22 (5 June 1987): 70.

In the following review, Steinberg points to the scatological, erotic, and satiric themes in Head to Toe, hailing Orton as an important literary talent.

A cross between Gulliver and Alice, Orton's unwitting hero, Gombold, begins his journey when he wanders onto the head of a giant, hundreds of miles tall. The trip of the title, and back again, takes long enough for the host-creature to age, long enough for Gombold to have assorted adventures with assorted companions. Mostly he gets into trouble running afoul of unknown conventions, a frequent experience in such an odd landscape. Here plants talk, governments are run by large, trivial-minded women, men are occupied with war and revolution and Gombold spends many years imprisoned in a privy. Gargantuan body parts contribute an oddly gruesome, mildly distasteful humor to Gombold's...