Like a politico-slapstick version of The Farmer Wants a Wife, Richard Meros (played by Arthur Meek) has decided that what Hillary Clinton really needs to propel her to the White House is a young lover… and that that young lover should be none other than himself. He’ll spend the best part of the next using a PowerPoint presentation, several pseudo-logical arguments and his toothy, winning charisma to convince us of those two tenets.
On entry, we’re handed a flyer for the show which doubles up as a postcard petition, entreating Mrs Clinton to hire the New Zealander as her personal concubine. All that’s needed from the audience is a mere £1.05 investment in the airmail stamp and the memo will be winging its way to (presumably baffled) White House operatives in no time. It’s a funny gag and an effective prop to make his flyer stand out from the thronging milieu thrust in our faces elsewhere… but like the show it advertises, it’s mildly amusing and not much more.
The problem is that Meros doesn’t really build too much on the preposterousness of his premise, relying instead on the idea of himself as Clinton’s lover for most of the hilarity. Sure, there are plenty of empty jibes at pop culture, the promiscuousness of some very famous former presidents and the snobbery of the education system (indeed, the show’s whole lecture format could be read as sticking it to The Scholarly Man), but he doesn’t really delve deeper into the very rich mining ground of US politics at all.
In its final stages, the show especially begins to drop away as Meros envisages his dream coming true in a piece that doesn’t really work. With his strongest material (an impressive backwards rendition of all US 44 presidents and a whittling down of the world population to just himself) immediately preceding the weaker finale, the show seems to slump somewhat towards the end.
However, there are still enough chortle-worthy set pieces and clever quips to make the whole thing worthwhile and the Kiwi charm is certainly out in full force. It’s just a shame Meros didn’t expand the show beyond the (admittedly funny, but soon stale) silliness of its title.