Applause blares as light shines over the stage, set in the form of a desk with a couch beside it, both facing towards the audience seating. A relatively small theatre housing a mere hundred audience members who've been given free tickets to attend the show just as long as they look clean and are willing to have their faces shown on TV.
A male voice booms, "Let's welcome your host, the great Erin Gallagher!"
A gorgeous blonde pops out from behind a curtain and walks on stage, wearing a nice comfy ensemble of black platform heels, form-fitting black jeans, white tee and black glossy jacket.
She claps. "Thank you! Jay the Narrator, everybody!" Applause.
"Welcome to Tonight Talk with Erin, I am of course Erin Gallagher. If you've noticed uhm, most of our guests and crew are on strike right now, so they aren't able to join us tonight. Personally we've reached a nice settlement with the good folks at NBS and the union has allowed us to film tonight's episode, but you know what, I said... Guys, it's alright, y'all can take this week off. 'Coz you do know that we here at the Tonight Talk stand in solidarity with our fellow actors, and so most of our crew has been in the picket lines all day. I don't know 'bout you all but it has been a scorcher today."
Some laughs.
"We don't really have any of our writers today, It's just me, Jay, our one cameraman--this is our only angle today." Audience chuckles. "We're not using any of these other cameras today. Anyway, uhm, I'd like to say I'm an actress. Would you all consider me an actress?"
Most of the audience members say yes and cheers. "I was in Lord of the Rings for four seconds so that counts, right?" Audience laughs. Erin pulls from his pocket two small boxes of the same purple colour. "Do you all know how to play 'carrot in a box?'" Most of the audience says yes, some no. "Somebody said no. Haha, that's fine, it's easy. So, the game is, one of these boxes has a 'carrot' inside it. I know which box has it, you don't. Now, it is my job to convince you to either swap boxes or not. Whoever has the 'carrot' in their box in the end wins. Sounds easy, right?" Most of the audience says yes. "It's basically a game of bluff. Now, uhm, does anyone want to come up on stage? Let's play 'carrot in a box'. You, please. Come on up. What's your name?"
Erin points at you, the audience member.