Performed with appropriate vim and perky enthusiasm, ROTUS: Receptionist Of The United States plunges into the politics of a Republican White House to reveal that party machine’s cynical brutality. Chastity Quirk believes that she is a player, the receptionist to the President and a spy for a power-broker. Her ambitions are matched by an effective manipulation of male insecurity and arrogance; a desk full of baked goods and sweets is enough to win trust and establish herself as a not threatening presence while the administration plots to save the nation from liberals.

What appears to be a fluffy, if sardonic satire on the gender politics of America’s ruling party switches towards a much darker finale with Chastity realising that she has been played and the Republican hierarchy is exposed as utterly ruthless. The bouncy fun gives way to a vicious conspiracy and the script’s exploration of contemporary corruption is a welcome attack on Trump: if the details of their machinations are exaggerated and possibly paranoid, the description of patriarchal cunning and deception voices a vibrant feminist resistance. The pace is unfaltering and the combination of facile office politics, taut character sketches and the movement to darkness provide a trenchant theatrical critique of the descent into autocracy. 

ROTUS: Receptionist Of The United States, Gilded Ballon Patter House, until 24 August, 3.40pm; 22 August, 7pm; main picture: Damian Robertson.