Lucy exits with the telephone in her hand, as Natasha drags a carpet onstage. She unrolls it. It is a white woolly material. Natasha wears a dress, a long silver sheath. Before she lies down, she pulls a string and a large screen fills the space behind her.

‘I carry this everywhere with me,’ Natasha explains to the audience, ‘because carpet is still new to me. I grew up in a house that was all hardwood, low-ceilinged, a bungalow on a country road.’ Natasha starts laughing. ‘I was what you call dirt poor.’ She bends over as if this is the funniest thing she has ever heard. ‘I won’t put you through it; just picture death and you’re nearly there. We didn’t even have a VCR so I hadn’t seen many films before I became an actress. Anyway, enough about me.’ She turns her back to the audience and faces the screen. ‘Let’s watch a film.’

Onscreen, hundreds of clips ran together, moving from black and white to colour. In the clips, women walk in and out of rooms; they are grabbed at by faceless figures. They sprawl on furniture and are photographed: tied to train tracks, being slapped hard across their faces. Hundreds of close-ups of women with tears in their eyes, their features unmoving, their faces all strikingly similar. At the end, a single scene plays again and again: a woman is punched in the face. Blood spurts from her nose as she smiles. ‘You love me,’ the woman says, as she lies on the floor. ‘This means you really love me.’ As this scene plays, Natasha pours red liquid all over the carpet until it becomes fully red and filthy, her feet soaked with the liquid.

‘What was I saying?’ Natasha turns back to face the audience. She is laughing. Some of the liquid gets caught in her hair and runs down her face. She is holding an award. ‘I guess I’m just happy to be here,’ she says, ‘because, despite everything, you guys love me. I mean you really, really love me, don’t you?’

She rolls up the carpet and pushes it offstage. She pulls the string and the screen disappears. She picks a sign up from the floor and shows it to the audience. The sign reads: ‘The Big Comeback Special.’ Natasha exits.

Lucy walks onstage holding a cigarette and a glass of wine. She looks relaxed in jeans and a black T-shirt. She carries a microphone stand under her left arm. She places the stand down and adjusts its height. She taps the microphone. She takes a drag of her cigarette.

‘Did you miss me?’ she asks into the microphone.

The audience claps.