Writer: Leigh Douglas
Director: Fiona Kingwill
Chastity Quirke is an All American God-fearing Republican voting sorority girl. Young and fresh faced, but also cunning and scheming, she is both the best and worst person to be sitting outside the door of the office of the President of the USA.
The superbly crafted, razor-sharp satire, written and performed by Leigh Douglas has a pinpoint accuracy that makes it both hilarious and disturbing in equal measure.
Cleverly combining a voiceover commentary from sometime after Chastity’s days as the Receptionist of the United States, with a live narrative recounting her rise to power, you know from the outset that something has happened to dislodge her from her perch, but there is nothing to suggest just how dramatic the fall will be, or what lies behind it, until the end of the show when you realise the clues were hiding in plain sight throughout.
The live narrative shows Chastity as a brat with ambition knowing how to pull the right levers to rise from an assistant to an assistant to an assistant, to the eyes and ears of a vital ally to the President, using only her good looks, Christian values and Machiavellian scheming to make the transition.
At the same time as satirising people like Chastity, Douglas also creates a cast of characters that boil down the values of the modern-day GOP into a series of savage but utterly believable caricatures under Fiona Kingwill’s direction.
Douglas’s cheerful delivery and sunny outlook, allied with the things Chastity is asked to do, and for the most part willingly does, highlight the almost fanatical unquestioning nature of the followers of the current occupant of the White House, and make the final consequences of her actions all the more effective.
The beauty of the best satire is that it can switch from comedy to dystopia and an all too possible future in a heartbeat and ROTUS does this, the seeds of the ending having been carefully planted throughout. The only thing that tempers the humour in the show is the fear that it may be just too close to a future coming our way soon.
Runs until 24 August 2025
4.5 stars
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