They fleece audience after start of show (8)
I believe the answer is:
shearers
'they fleece' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'audience after start of show' is the wordplay.
'audience' becomes 'hearers' (I've seen this before).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'start of show' becomes 's' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'hearers' put after 's' is 'SHEARERS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shearers that I've seen before include "wool-gatherers" , "They cut the wool from sheep" , "They remove wool from sheep" , "They fleece" .)