Coughing Major who just didn’t play the game
James GRaHam, who has supplied West end houses with two plays this season — Ink and Labour Of Love — will be back with a third, an exploration of TV game shows, in the New Year.
Quiz, on now at the minerva at the Chichester Festival Theatre, will move up from West sussex to London for a limited season, from march 31, at the Noel Coward Theatre — where Labour Of Love is running until later this month.
Ink, a transfer from the almeida, is on at the neighbouring Duke of York’s.
Quiz, directed by Chichester artistic director Daniel evans, fictionalises the story of Charles Ingram, the ‘coughing major’ who took part in Who Wants To Be a millionaire? and was accused of cheating when he won £1 million.
It uses full audience participation (a quiz, plus multiple choice answers) and Graham’s clever ploy is to allow us to judge whether Ingram’s guilty, or not.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure I could be bothered (travelling on southern Rail will do that to you). But I was soon throwing myself into it and paying attention to the ‘evidence’.
Graham told me he’s going to use the opportunity of the transfer to tweak the format and do some ‘slight’ restructuring.
The production also gives a potted history of the TV quiz show, with references to Take Your Pick, Opportunity Knocks, Blind Date etc.
He and I both wondered at the demise of the format. Graham surmised: ‘The mass-reach TV quiz show doesn’t exist now, because people don’t gather around the TV together at night.’ Which I believe is the correct answer. Graham hopes a future play will examine how our intelligence and security services are run.