Twelfth Meepit Show

(Setting: The Altador Stadium, as full as the postbag of the ‘Complaints’ department of the Meepit Show. The Yooyuball goals have been removed, and replaced with a large podium in the centre. Scattered around the stadium are scorch marks, and there are gaps in the stand, where seats have been destroyed. There is a faint smell of dung in the air. In a semi-circle around the podium are four stools. A Skunk Draik going by the name of the Producer is standing on the podium. The stools are all empty. At the very top of the stadium, neon letters read ‘The Meepit Show’. Around the outside of the stadium, there are three entrances. One entrance is marked ‘Contestants’, another is marked ‘Roan’ and the third one is labelled ‘Producxzq’. Underneath the second exit, the titular Mutant Scorchio stands impatiently.)

PRODUCER: Good evening, and welcome to the Twelfth Meepit Show! My name is the Producer, and I’ll be your host for the night!

ROAN: Producer?

PRODUCER: Yes, Roan?

ROAN: Remind me again – why, if you’re the Producer, am I producing this show? I mean, you’re clearly not called the Host.

PRODUCER: After you told me my job was easy, I thought you might be interested in giving it a go – let you see just how difficult making a show like this can be.

ROAN: Well, for a start, what’s with the title of the show?

PRODUCER: (Surprised) Don’t you know your culture?

ROAN: As a matter of fact, I’m very familiar with my culture. It’s other people’s that I don’t know about.

PRODUCER: Twelfth Night is traditionally the day when people swap roles – the masters serve the servants, and the servants live like the masters. It seemed like an appropriate way to bill the show.

ROAN: But, by my count, this is the thirteenth Meepit Show to be recorded in the Neopian Times. And goodness knows how many others there have been. My point being – it’s Thirteenth Night. So what happens then?

PRODUCER: Ah, well, you see, in certain cultures...

ROAN: There you go again with the different cultures.

PRODUCER: ...the number thirteen is deemed unlucky, and is skipped.

ROAN: Doesn’t it normally skip up to fourteen, though? Rather than back down to repeat a number?

PRODUCER: Sorry. What I meant to say was – isn’t this your problem? You’re producing the show, after all. The research side of things is all up to you – I just swan in five minutes before the show starts and have a quick flick through the question cards.

ROAN: How rude! That’s nothing like me.

PRODUCER: That’s true - you don’t arrive more than five minutes early.

ROAN: Only once – and that was a mistake. I’d never flick through the questions beforehand, either.

PRODUCER: No, I might have been overestimating your preparation there.

ROAN: I don’t know why you’re getting on my case about it, though – there’s no way you’ve been through the questions yet.

PRODUCER: And what makes you say that?

ROAN: I haven’t written any.

PRODUCER: What about all of these? (The Producer picks up a pack of question cards and waves them.)

ROAN: Sorry, no decent questions - have you read them?

PRODUCER: Just the first one.

ROAN: Oh, that was a red herring.

PRODUCER: I noticed – I had to go and wash my hands. Still can’t get rid of the fishy smell. Anyway, let’s see your handiwork. (Discarding the crimson fish on top of his stack, he draws the first question card) “To write a question or not to write a question. Does that count as a question?” To which the answer is “Ask again later.”

ROAN: Fine, maybe I wrote one decent question.

PRODUCER: (Picking up the next card) “Is this a dagger I see before me?” “No, it’s a question card.” (He draws another.) “Four of spades”. (He draws another.) “If I write this question in a forest, and nobody is around to see me write it, do I really need to bother?” And it appears the next few are blank. (He puts the pile down.) Roan, are any of these usable?

ROAN: Well, not now that you’ve told everybody what they say. (He tuts.) Honestly, some people have no thought for the effort that goes into producing those cards.

PRODUCER: Who exactly would I be revealing the answers to?

ROAN: What do you mean?

PRODUCER: I count four chairs for the contestants. Unfortunately, we seem to have fallen approximately four people short.

ROAN: (Looking at said seating) Are you sure there’s nobody there?

PRODUCER: Unless you’ve booked four invisible, mute pets.

ROAN: That does sound like something I’d do.

(Roan moves over to one of the stools, and prods his finger in the space above the seat. He shakes his head, and moves on to the other three, repeating the motion.)

ROAN: Nothing.

(He moves across to the podium, and prods the Producer.)

PRODUCER: Hey!

ROAN: Just needed to check my finger was working properly. Seems to be. (He frowns.) I could have sworn I booked a contestant. (He shrugs.) Maybe that was a dream. Ah well – what’s done is done. Come on, Producer, keep the show moving! See, hosting’s not as easy as it looks.

PRODUCER: I can’t host a show with no questions and no contestants!

ROAN: I stopped listening five words in to that sentence, I’m afraid.

PRODUCER: Roan, go and find some contestants!

ROAN: From where?

(The crowd cheer and clap loudly.)

ROAN: (Turning to the crowd) Do you mind? I’m trying to find some contestants here! Now, where could I get some idiots who might enjoy the Meepit Show experience?

(The crowd fall silent. All of them. And there are a lot of them. Every one of which has paid to come and see a Meepit Show.)

ROAN: No, I’m all out of ideas.

PRODUCER: (Slowly) Roan, would you like to have a look at the audience?

ROAN: Not particularly – they’re not the sort of people I’d like to look at in a hurry. Although looking at them in a hurry would be infinitely preferable to looking at them for a longer period of time.

PRODUCER: (Very deliberately) Roan, go and get some contestants from the audience.

ROAN: Oh! Why didn’t you say so before? (Roan moves to the edge of the colosseum, before turning back to face the Producer.) Does this mean mixing with the general public?

PRODUCER: Not all of it. Now, hurry up – we’ve got a show to do here.

ROAN: (Tutting) Getting tetchy, are we? I wouldn’t be so rude and abrupt, if I were you. (He lifts himself into the lower echelons of the stadium). Right, we’ll find a member of the public. (He moves to the first pet on the row, a Green Tonu.) So, are you one of those common people?

TONU: I have been described as such, yes.

ROAN: Sounds good. Do you want to be on the show?

TONU: Oh, yes, please!

ROAN: Shame – you were so close as well! (He moves along to the next member of the audience, a Tyrannian Mynci.) Hello!

MYNCI: Ugga ugga...

ROAN: Forget it, you’re annoying me already. (He looks at the rest of the audience.) Surely there must be somebody here who’s fairly normal.

(An audience member raises his hand.)

ROAN: Afraid not. If you’re volunteering to take part, you’re clearly not as normal as you’d like to think. Come to mention it, this choosing contestants malarkey is harder than it looks. (He turns to the Producer.) Who do you normally get to do it for you?

PRODUCER: I do it myself!

ROAN: No, this is the difficult part – that doesn’t seem like something you’d do.

PRODUCER: (Haughtily) I’ll have you know it’s a complex elimination process.

ROAN: Go on.

PRODUCER: Well... (He chuckles nervously.) It’s a system of quantitative easing that sorts the populace primarily by their time of arrival.

ROAN: So... you take the first pets you see off the street?

PRODUCER: Not always.

ROAN: Really?

PRODUCER: Sometimes it’s the second or third.

ROAN: In that case, I’ve done more than my fair share of work for now. (He hops out of the front row and back into the colosseum.) Happy now?

PRODUCER: I still don’t have a contestant.

ROAN: What do you mean? You’ve got loads up there!

PRODUCER: I’m sorry, you want me to run the quiz on an entire audience?

ROAN: (Shrugging) Seems reasonable to me. Just skip the introductions. Come to think of it, if you’re in a rush, you could skip the whole question-and-answer part and move straight on to the bit where you insult them all.

PRODUCER: Isn’t the ‘quiz’ part the important aspect of the quiz show?

ROAN: Come on. Who comes here for the questions?

PRODUCER: All of them did! (He waves to the audience in general.)

ROAN: And they’re all still here, aren’t they? Despite you not having asked a single general knowledge question on your card, they’ve all hung around.

PRODUCER: Apart from the ones who were normal and told to leave.

ROAN: Apart from them, yes. Anyway, as your producer, I order you to get on with the show. No arguments.

PRODUCER: You’re always allowed to argue with me.

ROAN: Yes, and you’re never capable of arguing properly back. What’s different now?

PRODUCER: (Sighing) Very well. (He turns to face part of the audience.) Good evening, one and all, and welcome to the Meepit Show! Friends, Altadorians, countrypets, lend me your ears!

ROAN: That’s a bit greedy, isn’t it? You’ve already got two of your own; you don’t need theirs.

PRODUCER: It’s a figure of speech. Now, our first contestant tonight is, apparently, the audience! Audience, would you like to introduce yourself?

(The audience burst into hundreds of separate monologues, which mix together rather like a set of fine ingredients – one would be enjoyable, two would offer interesting variety, and several hundred ends up a horrible, lumpy mess of taste or sound, depending on whether you’ve stuck out with the initial point, or given up and delved into the metaphorical culinary equivalent.)

PRODUCER: Very interesting.

ROAN: Wait a second! (He turns to the audience, and points towards the back) You! Yeah, the Blue Kyrii with the top hat. There’s no way Edna asked you for a Draik Egg!

KYRII: (Shiftily) Maybe not...

ROAN: And don’t get me started on that Yellow Kougra eating the asparagus over there. The only way you’d get four hundred points in Search For Princess Lunara is if you went over there and physically kidnapped her yourself first. Honestly, I could come up with better lies than you.

KOUGRA: Can you?

ROAN: No! That was a lie – see how easy it can be to be believable?

PRODUCER: There’s no way you heard all of those.

ROAN: Why not? I have an ear for idiotic statements. Why do you think I always listen to you?

PRODUCER: You never listen to me!

ROAN: (Cupping a hand to his ear) Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that! Anyway, Producer, we’re rapidly running out of time here – isn’t it about time you started wrapping this up?

PRODUCER: We haven’t even started yet! Look, you can’t run a quiz show with that many contestants – it’s far too many! Can you just pick somebody who conforms to your high standards, so we can get on with the show?

ROAN: High standards? I was only looking for somebody with half a brain who could string a sentence together. Perhaps going for a first on the Meepit Show was a mistake. You want a random contestant? Fine. (He points randomly into the crowd) You! You’re the new contestant. Come on down!

(The pet Roan pointed at, a White Wocky, makes his way down through the crowd and into the arena, taking his place on one of the chairs.)

ROAN: There. A contestant. Happy now?

PRODUCER: Just one?

ROAN: Yes, just one. Weren’t you just complaining about there being too many people? (He sighs.) You know, Producer, being the host is really bringing out the bad side in you. I bet you have newly-found respect for how polite and restrained I am as host now, don’t you?

PRODUCER: Roan, there is an ideal number of contestants, that is both larger than one and smaller than an entire audience.

ROAN: (Tetchily) Well, how do you expect me to work with such restricting conditions? Come on – get started!

PRODUCER: Very well. Contestant number one, tell me a little bit about yourself.

WOCKY: Hi! My name...

ROAN: Yeah, you can skip that - we’ve heard it all already. You live in Shenkuu, you repair flying boats and your name’s Lazy.

WOCKY: It’s Larry!

ROAN: You repair flying boats. There’s only one in Neopia. You’re hardly going to be rushed off your feet.

PRODUCER: So, Larry...

ROAN: You mean Lazy.

PRODUCER: ...are you ready to start?

LARRY: Yes.

PRODUCER: Excellent. We start with Round One. The rules are simple. I ask you a question. If you get the answer right, you gain a point. If you get it wrong, you lose a point.

ROAN: Hey, when did you introduce the new rules?

PRODUCER: They’ve always been the rules!

ROAN: No, I’m sure the point allocation was more arbitrary than that.

PRODUCER: In that case, how about we do it your way? We revolutionise the point system, so it doesn’t resemble anything like the traditional medium of randomly assigning points. That’d throw everybody.

ROAN: But, as producer, I couldn’t possibly sanction that. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to make no sense whatsoever with your scoring system.

PRODUCER: Fine. Let’s get on with the show. Are you ready, Larry?

ROAN: Lazy. Get it right.

LARRY: Yes, I am.

PRODUCER: Then let’s start the Meepit Show!

ROAN: About time, too. Honestly, if this were me, I’d have scared all the contestants off already and I’d be relaxing in my dressing room, damaging things.

PRODUCER: Your first question... (He pauses, before turning to Roan.) Is that really what you do after the show?

ROAN: Naturally. Of course, when I say my dressing room, I, naturally, mean the one that would be mine were my role as producer permanent.

PRODUCER: So it’s my stuff you break?

ROAN: Not always break, no. Some of your stuff’s quite resilient.

PRODUCER: Thanks.

ROAN: I sell that.

PRODUCER: You what?

ROAN: (Quickly) Look, a contestant! (He points to Larry.)

PRODUCER: Ah, yes!

ROAN: (Quietly) A good distraction, even if I say so myself.

PRODUCER: Larry, your first question. “Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?”

ROAN: One of my personal favourites. Any idea, Lazy?

LARRY: Er... not sure. Shall you?

PRODUCER: It says here “That depends, really. Last summer was fairly abysmal, so that’d probably be a good thing to compare you to. But if you choose one of the nice days, then I won’t bother with the whole comparison thing. So, in summary, the answer is both yes and no.”

LARRY: Was I right?

PRODUCER: I guess you must have been.

ROAN: No – I don’t recall him giving that speech. Therefore, he didn’t give the answer, and he’s wrong.

ROAN: Oh, I decided it didn’t need one after all. I think he loses a point for that.

PRODUCER: Very well. Next question...

ROAN: Another one? (He shakes his head sadly.) You’re pushing it, you know – we don’t have all day. Just wrap up the show!

PRODUCER: But...

ROAN: No excuses! You’ve taken on the role of host, which, as far as I recall, involves doing as little work as possible. You’re walking on dangerous territory if you go on much longer. All the world may be a stage, but you’re in danger of treading on the curtain.

PRODUCER: At least let me reveal the scores, then.

ROAN: The scores? Why are they important – what’s in a score? A contestant with any other total is still an idiot.

PRODUCER: It’d help end the show faster.

ROAN: (Pausing for a moment) Go ahead.

PRODUCER: Very well. Our winner today, with an impressive score of minus one...

ROAN: ...and, let’s not forget, a zero percent correct answer rate...

PRODUCER: ...is Larry! Congratulations!

(The crowd applauds.)

PRODUCER: Well, that concludes tonight’s Meepit Show!

ROAN: Yes, it does. (To audience) Did you enjoy that?

(The audience cheers.)

ROAN: Excellent. Firm proof that we may well have carved out a niche here as the only quiz show in Neopia where the quiz part of the show isn’t actually necessary.

PRODUCER: And where the quality doesn’t actually suffer as a result of roles being switched, leaving everybody in a position which they are entirely unqualified for.

ROAN: You know, I would say that that’s normally the case, but I have standards, you know – some set-ups are just too easy. I do have to say, though, that I’d be a lot happier in future not being in a producing role.

PRODUCER: Harder than it looks, is it?

ROAN: No, the production’s a doddle. There’s just a lot less insulting than I’d been expecting – it doesn’t really suit my skill set.

PRODUCER: To be honest, I think being a host is quite difficult as well.

ROAN: No, it’s not as easy as I make it look.

PRODUCER: So, will normal service resume in the next Meepit Show?

ROAN: I don’t know. You’re the Producer – you tell me!

(The Producer smiles.)

PRODUCER: Do you want to end the show?

ROAN: Sure!

(The Producer hops down from the pedestal, and Roan takes his place, the Producer making his way across to stand at the side.)

ROAN: Well, thank you, everybody, for coming here tonight and enduring that appallingly hosted show. Insulted contestants, chaos, a format that makes no sense whatsoever – they’ll all be back next time...

PRODUCER: ...when hopefully, we’ll have a normal show again.

ROAN: Yes. Although, just to let you know, I was slightly more organised than you might expect.

PRODUCER: (Curiously) In what way?

ROAN: I’ve actually already arranged the next show.

PRODUCER: (Sceptically) Really? You did nothing for this one, but you’ve sorted the next one?

ROAN: Oh yes! Contestants, furnishings – I’ve even booked a suitable venue!

PRODUCER: ...here?

ROAN: It wasn’t a tough decision.

PRODUCER: So we have another show full of your organisation prowess to look forward to?

ROAN: Indeed. Wow – with an official prequel and a potential sequel on the way, we’re almost running the risk of having some continuity.

PRODUCER: Imagine that.

ROAN: Well, you have all that to look forward to. In the meantime, thank you, and goodnight!

(The crowd departs. Since there are a lot of people in the crowd, this act takes quite a while. Unfortunately, this is hardly justified by a few sentences in the stage directions, given that most other sentences tend to last a couple of seconds at the most, and throwing in one that lasts half an hour would be unfair of me to do. The quandary, though, is that nothing particularly exciting happens in the course of the crowd leaving. The closest we get is a pet who almost trips up, but manages to correct himself, and that’s hardly worth committing to print. Oh, the irony. In any case, if the ramblings here aren’t quite putting you in the mood for half an hour passing, then please, feel free to wander off and do something else for a bit. Have a cup of tea, walk the Puppyblew, plot world domination. Something like that. If, however, you’re feeling in a slightly later mood, then read on!)

(Macduff.)

ROAN: (Pointing at the fourth wall) What are you doing still here? The show ended half an hour ago!

PRODUCER: They may be here from the sequel. You know, reading up to ensure they haven’t missed anything.

ROAN: That doesn’t seem like something a person would do.

PRODUCER: You’d be surprised.

ROAN: So... they’d be from the future?

PRODUCER: I guess you could say that.

ROAN: That’s pretty clever. (He knocks on the fourth wall.) Hope everything’s working out for you over there! Hey, do we have trained war robots yet?

PRODUCER: I think we’d better leave them to it. We don’t want to lure them away from the future. Important stuff might be happening there.

ROAN: More important than the Meepit Show?

PRODUCER: Could be.

ROAN: Like... a new edition of the Meepit Show.

PRODUCER: Perhaps.

ROAN: Oh. In that case, go! Shoo! Nothing to see here! Go and enjoy the future! We’ll be there shortly!

(Roan leaves the stadium. A moment later, he returns.)

ROAN: See – told you!

The End

(Author’s note – if you’re reading this and you’re not from the future, then my apologies. Although, by elimination, that means you’re reading this from the past, so before I’ve written it. In that case... good luck sorting out that paradox.)