Richard Meros, BA, gives us a PowerPoint presentation on the conditions and possibilities of Hillary Clinton taking him as her young lover in the hope that our support will boost his chances of amorous congress with the US presidential candidate.

Over a series of pink-hued slides he shares a veritable thesis of information, incorporating enough pop culture references, scientific facts, line graphs and amusing anecdotes to suit anyone’s learning style. Along the way he also gives us his vision for a better world, in which millennials and baby boomers come together for the common good. 

Meros makes some very robust arguments that even the legally-trained Mrs Clinton herself would find hard to rebut. There’s just one major obstacle in his way – the US Department of Homeland Security, who aren’t too keen on Meros’s plan to assault Mrs Clinton with a friendly weapon.  

The show must have evolved rapidly to keep up with the fast-paced American presidential race, and perhaps as a result there are some gaps in the internal logic of the play. This is more than made up for with ribald wordplay, excellent PowerPoint animations and Arthur Meek’s delightfully eccentric performance.

Forget Trump. The real presidential debate of 2016 is happening in Hillary’s heart. Should she whisk Meros away to her subterranean love lair to be like a cellphone charger she can plug into every night? One can but hope.

Find out more about the play (and the film) at HillaryClintonYoungLover.org. 

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Richard Meros B.A. is the ultimate millennial charlatan. In his mind, he’s an academic; in reality he’s unemployed. This alter-ego of performer Arthur Meek delivers one of the smartest bits of writing at this year’s Fringe. Ostensibly, it’s a lecture rationalising why Hillary Clinton should take him as her lover, which includes getting the audience to send her letters. In fact, it’s an astute deconstruction of generational divides.

Meek’s suave, smug performance as his conceited, right-wing alter ego Richard Meros is spot on—“all I want is better transport, healthcare and education,” he tells us, “and lower taxes”—but it’s the stunning script, by Meek and Geoff Pinfield, that makes this show extraordinary. Every line is stuffed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it wordplay, with a heady fusion of high and low-culture references. Meek debases the academic veneer by stuffing the lecture with nods to Coleridge and Miley Cyrus in the same breath.

It’s deeply, provocatively political too. The topics in Meek’s sights are many, all skewered with sharp satirical wit. [More] 

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It was something of a risk for Arthur Meek to bring this comedy lecture to Edinburgh Fringe Festival – after all it was only two weeks ago that Hillary Clinton was named as the Democratic nominee for the United Status Presidential election. As I enter the lecture theatre for the show, I can’t help thinking what would have happened if she hadn’t … but she did and here we are to listen to Richard Meros (Arthur Meek) put forward his argument about why Hillary Clinton should take a Young Lover and why it should be him.

Before entering the lecture room – Summerhall is a former veterinary college and the venue is perfect for this show – women in the queue are handed white roses and we all receive a postcard which can later be posted to Hillary Clinton’s campaign office to add our support to Meros’ campaign.

Dressed in a suit with bow tie and cummerbund, and with a vase of roses, Meros fusses with his video camera and checks all is ready before launching into his comedy lecture complete with PowerPoint presentation.

The ‘lecture’ covers the attraction of the older powerful woman and reasons why Clinton needs to take a young lover to “re-energise the United States” – “Her first 100 days will be done in just 15” – and addresses potential obstacles including Clinton’s husband Bill, who will “always be the dry dock she returns to”, and the possibility of scandal (pointing out that with a popularity rating of 71% John F Kennedy is still the most popular president since polls began). 

Meek’s boyish grin and charm works his way and, despite the silliness of the proposition, his clever witty delivery keeps the audience well engaged and laughing as we continue to indulge in the fantasy. 

He addresses the question of “Why Richard Meros?” similarly to a game of ‘Guess Who’ and whittles down the potential from 7.2 billion to just one – “Me” – discounting the entire Australian male population due to their “drinking problem”. 

It’s a quirky show by a clever writer and performer and the older couple next to me declare it to be “The best show we’ve seen!” 

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Would the chances of Hillary Clinton winning the 2016 US Presidential election be enhanced if she took a young lover?

This is the question Richard Meros poses to his Circa theatre audience during his one-hour presentation Hilary Clinton/Young Lover, or to give it its full title – On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me As Her Young Lover. [More]

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As I settle to write this review the news comes through that, two days out from the Iowa caucus (aka the first of the Democratic primaries to take place in 57 states and territories), the New York Times endorses Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate for the USA’s presidential elections in November. It describes her as “one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.” That’s as may be but do the Millennials care?

Given the spectacle of supposedly mature American women screaming their delight at Sarah Palin’s support for bizarre Republican front-runner Donald Trump, women voters cannot be counted on to support Ms Clinton en masse. If you look past the institutional primaries (which end on June 14) to the constitutional election (November 8) – where voting is not compulsory, by the way – what could swing the vote is the unexpected participation, en masse, of hitherto self-absorbed /selfie-obsessed Millennials.

This is where Richard Meros, B.A. comes in. Being a pseudonym for the covert writer of the scurrilous booklet from which Hillary Clinton / Young Lover was freely adapted, Meros is again personified on stage by the multi-talented Arthur Meek. The original work was On The Conditions And Possibilities Of Helen Clark Taking Me As Her Young Lover, (Lawrence and Gibson Press, 2005), which itself became a PowerPoint performance piece of the same name in 2008. Helen Clark, who didn’t take up the offer in 2008 and so lost the election, has moved on and so has Meros.

Before he even speaks a word, Meek’s Meros sets up a digital video camera to record himself. Instantly we become aware of the unabashed narcissism that underpins the blinding self-confidence that radiates from his red-hot core of charisma. But he doesn’t rely on that.

Like its predecessor, Hillary Clinton / Young Lover proves, through a splendidly presented reductive-cum-deductive process, that Ms Clinton could, nay would – and must! – improve her election prospects by taking a young lover, and that Richard Meros is the only possible contender for the honour.

My personal observation (not mentioned in the play as such, although I am scurrilously name-checked more than once on opening night) is that while young adults may retain elements of teenage antipathy towards their parents (until they become parents themselves) they invariably retain a special fondness for their grandparents – and yes: vice versa. At first blush this is may seem like a plus in Meros’s ‘Millennial meets Baby Boomer for fun times on the campaign trail’ quest. But let’s be clear here: he is talking about a sexual relationship.   

Is history in his side? Meros offers Thomas Jefferson, John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton as precedents. But Presidents Jefferson and Clinton more of an age to be the fathers of their young lovers while President Kennedy was just nine years older than Marilyn Monroe. Hillary Clinton is old enough to be a Millennial’s grandmother. Mind you, as the song says, “A fiddle that’s old is more in tune / And old wine tastes much nicer”. He’s already keen – power is an aphrodisiac for him – so she wouldn’t be abusing her power to take him on. Would she?

I consider these questions now because while in the thrall of Richard Meros B.A.’s compelling PowerPoint presentation – ingeniously and impeccably structured by Geoff Pinfield (director) and Arthur Meek (performer) – it’s all too easy to be won over. His winning style would trump Trump on the hustings any day, in New Zealand anyway (maybe not in the US of A, but we may live in hope).

Jeopardy is always a good driver in comedy and here it comes with the risk that Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton will not be selected as the Democrat’s presidential candidate. Maybe she needs Meros right now. After development seasons in Hamilton then Auckland, the live show officially premiered in New York last March, at La Mama but the object of honour didn’t make it (although Homeland Security might have). She didn’t get to Nelson or Havelock North either.

Plans to return to the USA have come up against the prohibitive costs of visas for public performance, so the ever-enterprising team have further adapted the show as a film version which is destined for a US release in April, by which time more than half the primaries will be over.  

If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic candidate, the planned Edinburgh Fringe season in August should surf to success on the inevitable tsunami of election campaign madness. If not it could possibly be reconfigured as a ‘post mortem’ treatise on where she went wrong.  

Meanwhile grab this opportunity to tune into this highly entertaining spin on the increasingly mind-boggling zeitgeist of the US presidential election. Arguably Hillary Clinton / Young Lover is one of the saner campaign meetings you could attend.

Full disclosure: I am a Bernie Sanders fan. Not that I have a vote. And even though my Facebook feed, which includes friends in the USA, seems to be like-minded, I learned at the last NZ election it does not represent majority opinion. The question is, will the New York Times prove to have backed the winning candidate – and will she make it without Meros? 

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The spectacular (little) Belgian Spiegeltent is the venue for this intriguingly titled show. Presentation, I mean, because it is a formal presentation, with a real Powerpoint and everything. And a presenter with degree, a BA. The tone is set early with audience interaction, a quick survey ascertains how many are tertiary educated, and those less well educated are identified.  My friend and I have BAs but the woman next to me doesn’t. Not to worry, though because Richard (who has a BA) pauses his presentation and carefully explains the more complex concepts and words to her, for example a play on the words “can’t” and “Kant”. This clearly indicates I am the perfect audience for this delightfully witty show: a white, middle aged, tertiary-educated baby boomer. Havelock North’s cultured populace was made to be the audience for this, and we don’t mind the digs because Meek and Pinfield (co-writers) take a few digs at their own generation too.

So, let’s forget the audience for a moment and look to the performance which is witty and funny and charming (in a slightly creepy way).  Arthur Meek’s Richard Meros is polished and self-important, he’s a great character, fully realised and vaguely familiar. He’s like a lot of Millenials – irritating to us Baby Boomers. He emanates pratism especially in his Powerpoint presentation illustrating why Hillary Clinton needs a young lover (and why it should be him). Often a “visual aid” can detract from a presentation/show but here the visual puns and running jokes support and entertain. It’s a well put together pp, both as a representation of character and because it’s just bloody funny.

Richard Meros is engaging and annoying in equal parts but Meek is impressive. The script is delivered rapidly, flawlessly and with the comic timing it deserves. Hats off, sir, too, for your ad libs.

And let me doff that hat to director/co-writer Geoff Pinfield. I enjoyed the cleverness of the script (even as it mocks “cleverness”). Low-brow and High-brow humour jostle throughout, pretentions are outed. Word play, relevant political references, allusions to pop culture, literature, philosophy…this might be the best use I’ve had out of that BA I got.  Well done gentlemen.

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This pacy hour-long monologue accompanied by an equally ‘nuclear’ power point presentation does indeed prove unequivocally that the young (by that he means over 18 and under 34), healthy, intellectually capable (read ‘can do double scoring scrabble words’) metaphorical equivalent of a phone charger would succeed in his mad quest. In his immaculate pink bow tie and matching cummerbund, his Colgate smile and effusive ‘utterly inclusive’ charm, his argument is probably won before he has even started. 

Convincingly dashing away perceived obstacles such as the husband, scandal and the up-coming elections, eliminating the potentially eligible candidates (all Australians in one sweep because they have issues with alcohol), Mr Meros provides a watertight case in his favour.  Along the way he touches on almost any issue you could imagine: politics, people, the environment, youth, US  history, sex, pop-culture, his aversion to Australians. In a bout of verbal gymnastics which includes listing 44 American presidents in one breath, he draws rounds of guffaws from a delighted audience. 

Meeks is an accomplished script writer and actor. Nelson Arts Festival audiences have previously seen his, On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, Charles Darwin: Collapsing Creationand Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man.  In fact not only could Richard Meros lay down the double scoring words, he would also most likely lay claim to all the triple scoring words using the x, y and z, so easily do those loquacious phrases erupt in an endless lava spill.

The show finishes with an hilarious hard-core sales pitch to purchase his book of the same name promising illustrations and activities to amuse. This is one garrulous, mad romp from start to finish. Hilary Clinton would have been mightily amused were she not busy with campaigning. 

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In his new two-part lecture On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover, Arthur Meek presents the indisputable and indefatigable premise that probable 2016 Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton requires a virile unsullied young lover and that the only candidate for that role is the lecturer himself.

This imaginative and well-constructed riff just completed its run at La MaMa as part of the New Zealand Performance Festival. Despite Mr. Meek’s wish to “get back to New Zealand,” it would be good for America if he stayed around a bit longer and continued to comment on our present political and cultural scene. [More]

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Last night at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club in New York City’s East Village, Arthur Meek gave a prophetically timed performance of his one-man show On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me As Her Young Lover. In April Clinton is expected to announce her candidacy for President in the 2016 Democratic Primaries and the scandal involving the use of her private email address has driven the American media to distraction over the past weeks.

Meek greets us as Richard Meros (BA): bow-tied, bright-eyed and bushytailed and completely (at times terrifyingly) earnest. His performance takes the format of a PowerPoint presentation that, through doggedly logical steps, seeks to convince the audience that taking a young lover is crucial to Clinton’s success and is the forbidden fruit of the American subconscious and also, through a process of profiling and elimination, he is the only man for the job.

Returning to the format of On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me As Her Young Lover, which received acclaim in New Zealand in 2008, Meek tailors his approach to titillate the sensibilities of the American audience. We are led through a head-spinning array of pop culture references that locate us firmly in the US: PBR, Taylor Swift, AA meetings, the cronut and a very extended metaphor in which Meros is the nubile Native American in a canoe to Mrs. Clinton’s colonial Mayflower.

Loudest chuckles are elicited by his description of America going back and forth between the Democratic and Republican parties as “lurching back and forth between the elephant and the donkey like a drunken man in a zoo.”

Eliciting audience participation can at times be awkward but Meek brokers a contract of interaction with the audience through the format of his absurdist lecture, taking a selfie of the crowd and occasionally consulting the opinion of ‘Dr. Veronica’, an audience member who was earlier identified as the most highly educated person in the room.

Embracing the hastily Photoshopped aesthetic of a scrapbooking fanatic, Meros’ PowerPoint presentation goes along with the character of the over-educated and underemployed Meros with too much time on his hands and a serious Clinton fetish.

The play concludes with the meta-narrative of Meros’ journey to New York and this very performance at the theatre as being part of his quest come closer to Hillary. Meek does well to engage the American audience and many of his references are on point. While the logic might often be hard to follow, one can’t help but be charmed by Meros’ bizarre and fervent mission. We will be following the presidential campaign closely to watch for the young dapper man whispering in Clinton’s ear.

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The publicity reads “Richard Meros, BA (Hons) is the self-proclaimed Machiavelli of Generation Me. In this anarchic and incisive journey into the hot and heavy heart of Western Civilization, Meros proves, step by barkingly-logical step, that Hillary Clinton not only wants a Young Lover, but needs one to win the 2016 Presidential Election. Furthermore, the only possible candidate for this coveted position is, by rational necessity, him.” 

This is one fantastic solo show and there’s little in it that could possibly offend anyone at all, nothing, that is, that wouldn’t be instantly assuaged by a flash of the sparkling pearly-whites of Richard Meros (Arthur Meek’s delectable alter ego).

The main house at The Basement is clear of any clutter save a screen and a pink box on which sit a few bits of paper and a glass of water. We’re greeted at the entrance by Meros himself, all Ivy League charm and boyish bonhomie, in a smart dark suit and a zippy bow tie. Not every man can look all class in a bow tie but Meros does, in fact he looks as though he was born wearing it, like Clapton with a guitar or Jackman with his giant fingernails. In short, he’s the epitome of a Gentleman’s Quarterly cover pic; he’s that sartorial.

Before he does anything else though, he will need to convince a house bulging at the seams and suitably primed that he, and he alone, can win the key to Hillary Clinton’s boudoir – and more – in a horizontal heartbeat. 

On the screen centre stage is a projection of the show’s poster, Clinton herself surrounded by a collage of faces. We spend the few minutes the audience takes to get themselves and their drinks comfortably seated to identify who the faces are. There’s Bill, of course, and Obama, Reagan, George Washington, Marilyn Monroe, a dog, and a stalk of broccoli. There’s also a picture of Lorde that raises a few eyebrows – “Why is she there?” the woman in front of me asks, but I have no answer.

In the spirit of good parenting I try to explain to my son who the woman with the big hair and the startling smile is. I name her as Monica Lewinsky and say she had an affair with Hillary’s husband while he was in office. Finn wants more details. I just get to the blue dress when, mercifully, the lights dim. I mutter something about promiscuous heterosexuals and leave it at that.

Meros starts by taking a Polaroid of the audience. ‘For my Facebook page, he says, and so begins one of the most entertaining hours I’ve ever spent in a theatre.

The pace is blistering. Meros/Meek is a riot of brilliance. He lists all the presidents of the United States with the speed of a Tom Lehrer reciting the elements and speaks of his first sexual experience with Hillary Clinton. We think we know what it’s going to be but it’s something altogether different. He identifies our levels of educational achievement, hits on a PhD graduate, a Dr Ganesh, and proceeds to expose his academic shortcomings by asking him the name of Taylor Swift’s first album. The good doctor, of course doesn’t know but Jamie, a woman with no qualifications at all, does.

Meros is slick and very, very funny. His Powerpoint presentation is ingenious – stunningly so – and the ongoing battery of images provides him with a second character with which to interact. His metaphors are brilliant too: the vampire in the kindergarten brought the house down. He sits, and gently gives a lecture to Bill Clinton about how his being Hillary’s young lover will enhance Bill’s own sex life and we believe every word.

He chats about White House scandals to justify his own place in an on-going rude history of that illustrious citadel: Jefferson had six illegitimate children and was greatly respected; Kennedy shagged everything that moved and was greatly loved; Hillary would be the same and he would be the beneficiary.

Politics as an option for Meros? No thank you, he’d rather go back to Balclutha. Balclutha becomes the new Taihape in an instant and we can’t stop laughing. Oh, the power of rural New Zealand. 

He quotes the greats: Run DMC said, and he agrees, “It’s like that and that’s the way it is”. We nod in agreement too – of course. With him at her side … (spoiler averted, but the room collapses in hysteria).

Next, he begins to intellectually eliminate his competition reducing an initial five or so billion down to just one: him – and the logic is … well, logical. It must be, he posits, someone unemployed and over-educated and that is, oddly enough, him.

To tell anything else would be to tell too much and I’ve already spoiled more than I should have so I’ll end by saying that if you see no other comedy performance this year see this one. You’ll have to be quick though because this show has a shelf life of only a year – the election that will place Richard Meros between white sheets in the White House is in 2016 and I don’t imagine we’ll see much of him after that because, as he so rightly tells us, the conditions and possibilities of Hillary Clinton taking him as her Young Lover are profoundly conceivable but that’s only if (another spoiler averted). 

As a post script, my family always waits until all the credits have rolled at the movies because, more often than not there’s a wee gem tucked away at the end. How often we’ve been the only bums on seats in an otherwise empty cinema and seen that last little cinematic treasure that everyone else has missed. Take my advice and don’t rush out because Meros has one last surprise for as you leave and if you get it you’ll thank me.   

Enjoy! 

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So Arthur Meek, the celebrated playwright and actor, has breathed new life into his hit play On the Conditions and Possiblities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, which at release became a wildfire success due to its core being woven around the Kiwi political system and that favoured face of our Labour party. 

It’s the same, same… but different.

The same dashing good looks and sharp suit greet us at the door. Where else will you be welcomed by a handsome young man with a smile and the words, “I love you!” Pretty special.

The thing with Meek is that he is gifted: his words are well crafted and he is a natural presenter. So his character Richard Meros is delightful; he has a MySpace, he takes an instamatic ‘selfie’ of the crowd, he beams at us, he is charm incarnate. He is crack up funny at times, just for his ability to make words work together (spoiler alert) my favourite of which is: “Let us separate the sand from the picnic.” He alludes to the act of fellatio as a “shake and vac”, and he is endearingly racist against Australians (“Aren’t we all?” He muses). His PowerPoint presentation is immaculate. I am loving it. 

The big problem is the subject of the show. I don’t know enough of American politics or Hillary Clinton and in the guts of the show, where I feel I should be laughing and nodding and wiping happy tears from my face, I lose my way… When he finally gets out the other side of his political rantings I am too far gone to be got back. What starts so promisingly entertaining for me ends decidedly average. Though one cannot fault the man’s energy, which at the show’s conclusion brings warm applause from us all. 

It’s a good show to see if you know a lot or are passionate about the US political system… or indeed if you yourself have often wondered on the conditions and possibilities of Hillary Clinton taking YOU as her young lover.

[Note: This show is destined for La Mama in New York, as part of a New Zealand performance season – ED.]

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