Plays the young drunkard about to revert (4)
I believe the answer is:
toys
'plays' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'the young drunkard about to revert' is the wordplay.
'the young' becomes 'y'.
'drunkard' becomes 'sot' ('sot' can be a synonym of 'drunkard').
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'to revert' says the letters should be written backwards.
'y' put inside 'sot' is 'syot'.
'syot' in reverse letter order is 'TOYS'.
(Other definitions for toys that I've seen before include "Amusing items" , "Small dogs" , "Plays (with something), not seriously" , "Sports" , "Matters of no importance" .)