Actor Arthur Meek playing Richard Meros is pictured with a whimsical look on his face against a pink background. A thought bubble with a picture of Hillary Clinton with yellow flower wreathes either side of her is off to the left.Dash­ing Mil­len­ni­al Richard Meros is back in town with a per­sua­sive argu­ment that out­lines the con­di­tions and pos­si­bil­i­ties of Hillary Clin­ton tak­ing him as her Young Lover pri­or to the 2016 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion. (You may recall him attempt­ing the same thing with Helen Clark before elec­tion night 2008.)  I asked him some ques­tions before his lec­tures (fea­tur­ing a ‘Nuclear-Pow­er­Point’) start tomor­row night.

Q: This is the sec­ond time you’ve tried to get laid by a woman in pow­er via the medi­um of the­atre. Why do you keep try­ing?

A: I have to coach your lan­guage. This isn’t about get­ting laid, I’m not an egg. It’s about get­ting loved. I’m a roman­tic. I feel it’s bet­ter to woo and be ignored than nev­er to have wooed at all (as Byron would have put it if he’d been any good at poet­ry) Also, no offence to Helen Clark, but Hillary is a much big­ger catch. If she’s Pres­i­dent she’ll have her own plane with a bed in it, which is way bet­ter than cud­dle class on Air New Zealand.

Q. On the face of it, Hillary Clin­ton seems to be an unusu­al choice but the US Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­maries seem to fas­ci­nate a lot of peo­ple in New Zealand. Why do you think that is?

A: As Kiwis, we look to the US to tell us what to eat, watch, wear and buy. They help us decide who to spy on, arrest and blow up. Let’s face it, we’re in love with the US, so why don’t we face it and get our hump on rather than stand about like wall­flow­ers at the bot­tom of the world wait­ing for the cute kid to ask us to dance?

Q. If I’ve seen On the Con­di­tions and Pos­si­bil­i­ties of Helen Clark Tak­ing Me as Her Young Lover will this just be more of the same?

A: Yes. Just like The Lion King and Frozen are more of the same Dis­ney ani­ma­tions. This is the lat­est adven­ture of Richard Meros, B.A. It’s every­thing you’ll love — the humour the style and tone, and a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry pre­sent­ed by a man who’s eight years old­er and more beau­ti­ful­ly delu­sion­al than ever.

Q. The show was described as ‘dement­ed’ – in a good way —  by New York Mag­a­zine when it was per­formed in the US. Auck­land audi­ences seemed to be favourable as well. Do you antic­i­pate Welling­ton audi­ences feel­ing dif­fer­ent­ly?

A. The thing you’ve got to under­stand about Welling­to­ni­ans is that they’re smarter and sex­i­er than any oth­er audi­ences on the plan­et. New York­ers may have thought the show dement­ed, but then they think that about pub­lic health care. Auck­lan­ders admire any­thing that increas­es in val­ue with time. So of course they like us. But Welling­to­ni­ans, they will be encir­cled in the swift­ly flow­ing moat of pure rea­son.

  • Hillary Clin­ton / Young Lover writ­ten by Geoff Pin­field & Arthur Meek, based on a book by Richard Meros, on at Cir­ca The­atre 30 Jan­u­ary – 20 Feb­ru­ary 2016