Quiz by James Graham looks at the failed attempt in 2001 to swindle a million quid from an ITV game show. Jackpot winner Major Charles Ingram was thought to have been helped by strategic coughs emanating from Tecwen Whittock, a fellow contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Graham, best known for his gripping political dramas, can’t muster any passion for this story or his characters. Ingram is a posh, weepy lummox. His wife, Diana, comes across as a blur of aloofness, cunning and banality. Whittock, who claimed to suffer from a persistent throat condition, is a clueless hobbit with a wonky Welsh accent. And Diana’s brother, tangentially involvedin the drama, is an amiably bumbling spendthrift.
The material has a built-in problem. Whose side are we on? The story is about some fairly rich people trying to rip off some very rich people, so are we rooting for the greedy but twerpish Ingrams or for the cocky, obsessive and mega-wealthy Paul Smith, owner of the Millionaire format? Graham addresses this problem by directing our attention elsewhere and he bungs a bit of everything into the script. We explore the Ingrams’s early marriage. We get a brief history of British TV quizzes. We examine the difficulties faced by Smith and other format-mongers as they seek broadcasters for their shows. And we enter the twilight world of quizzers and scammers who meet in dank pubs and swap notes about how best to swindle TV game shows. Even these diversions aren’t enough to pad out the evening to the full three hours so the actors enlist the audience in parlour games and questionnaires.
There are a couple of decent performances here. Sarah Woodward is impressive as an icy QC and she adds an amusing cameo as a Coronation Street star.
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