This glitteringly cruel revenge comedy is dominated by the magnificent Lesley Manville

If ever place names were nominatively determinative, Tony Kushner’s Slurry, relocated from Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s homeland to outside New York, perfectly reflects the rundown industrial town awaiting the title’s visit. The whole population anxiously anticipates the arrival of the billionaire who might just prove their saviour as the play begins. And if ever there was a dramatic build up to the heroine’s entry, this is it – with spades, bells and whistles.

As townsfolk from long-term unemployed low-lives to top brass gather on the station platform, the spectacular sound effects of the approaching passenger locomotive are topped by clouds of swirling smoke and steam (director Jeremy Herrin brilliantly orchestrating designers Vicki Mortimer, Paule Constable and Paul Arditti – set, lighting and sound respectively). The extraordinary vision of Lesley Manville’s Claire Zachanassian, arguably the wealthiest woman in the world, emerges. Channelling Mae West, Monroe and Barbie in the first of a succession of extravagant doll-like ensembles of tulle, velvet and gold brocade (costumes by Moritz Junge) topped by tossing golden curls, with her entourage in attendance, she begins as she means to go on: by dominating the stage and the puny mortals fawning over her.

Claire is a local bad girl made not just good, but multi-billionaire. Born and ill-bred in Slurry, unsupported by the childhood sweetheart who got her pregnant, she left decades earlier, a shunned and destitute teenage mum forced into prostitution to survive and with no hope but for revenge. Marriage to an impossibly wealthy, long-deceased Zachanassian means that revenge plans are a given.

Her offer of a billion dollars shared between the residents comes with conditions. She’s out to buy "justice" – the death of the man who’s done her wrong, now one of the town’s most popular personalities, general store owner Alfred Ill. It’s clear she still holds a candle for Hugo Weaving’s conflicted Alfred, whom he plays with a ruined macho grandeur. But Claire's too damaged to veer from the goal made clear by the flower-decked coffin borne by minions, including her impossibly fit but vapid husband Number Six, soon to be replaced by Number Seven (tellingly both played by Joshua Lacey).

At first the townspeople demur in horror: collectively, individually and self-righteously. Eventually temptation leads them to seek to bargain with Claire, led by wheeler dealer Mayor Herckheimer (a perceptive comic turn from Nicholas Woodeson), Joseph Mydell’s well-meaning but eventually pragmatic minister, and Sara Kestelman’s abrasive School Principal. She begins as a poster girl for uprightness and descends into drunken demoralisation when Claire reveals that she has the townsfolk over a collective barrel if they want her gelt.

The journey is beguiling as the people of Slurry insidiously count on the money, running up debts and demanding credit in Alfred's store, and the damaged ex-lovers meet in the woods for a Liebestod-esque tryst. A devastating outcome is a given from what I’d like to say is "the two hours' traffic of our stage", as Shakespeare puts it. The only problem with this magnificent evening is its length: a swingeing three-and-a half hours. But if you have the stamina (which the huge, admirable company have nightly), this is a richly rewarding evening.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Johan Persson

The Visit runs until Wednesday 13 May. 7pm, 1pm (various dates). £32-£86. National Theatre, SE1 9PX. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk