ROTUS: RECEPTIONIST OF THE UNITED STATES
Park Theatre
★★★★
“Leigh’s comedic talent is put to great effect in this short but brilliant work”
Sparkling from a stellar, sold-out run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Leigh Douglas’ avatar, Chastity Quirke, bursts onto the London scene. As ROTUS: Receptionist of the United States, she is a sight to behold and, it has to be said, something of an uplifting tonic on a grey, rainy evening in January. Her shiny-stockinged legs strut about the small stage (bigger than the ‘broom cupboard’ she got at Edinburgh), she throws herself on her White House reception desk, suitably branded (President of the United States, PROTUS – get it?). She poses, primps and preens, she shakes her long blond mane. She flirts and she smiles. Oh what a smile! So much sugar in a twitch of the mouth.
Chastity – it’s all in the name – is the dumb daughter of Mrs America (watch the 2020 miniseries about Phyllis Schlafly and the STOP ERA campaign). She has swallowed the Republican Kool-Aid and is convinced that it is the duty of all female supporters to be pretty and feminine as well as bright, to embody every virtue, to support powerful men who are going to bring back America’s moral ground and, eventually, to become pregnant in order to raise proper American families. This philosophy has served her well – look at the ladder she has climbed: she reports to the Chief of Staff; she is guarding the door to the Oval Office, and if the listening skills her hairdresser mother taught her are being deployed to weed out disloyalty during casual conversations outside that door, so much the better. But Chastity is about to be tested. She is going to realise the real motive behind her recruitment. And her feminism is going to turn feminist.
Writer and performer Leigh Douglas has direct experience of working in these often overlooked administrative roles. She and director Fiona Kingwill have deployed this to create a sharp satire, not so much on Republican power play, as on the women without whom male power withers. Leigh’s comedic talent is put to great effect in this short but brilliant work. Not only does she perform Chastity, but also the host of political characters that surround her, both male and female. As she transitions on the flip of a coin from being the too-clever blond into one or other of her more powerful female role models or the ever-manipulative Chief of Staff, she gives each a unique image and a distinct vocal identity. There is a slight possibility of confusion but it is dealt with effectively.
The production is also lifted by a clever voice-over adding narrative coherency and very effective lighting (Rachel Sampley) as the cracks start to appear in Chastity’s world. In summary, this is a very smart, one-woman show, backed by a talented production team, using laughter to expose the dangers of thinking you have it all figured out. In the world of influencers, information bites and TV Traitors, this delivers a sharp warning – a knife hidden in the midst of our non-stop laughter.
ROTUS: RECEPTIONIST OF THE UNITED STATES
Park Theatre
Reviewed on 21st January 2026
by Louise Sibley
Photography by Damien Robertson
