Did the coughing Major really try to cheat his way to £1 MILLION?
It was the most audacious crime imaginable: stealing £1 million right before the eyes of a studio audience on prime-time television. But a deliciously entertaining three-part series reveals the story of the ‘coughing major’ on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is still far from being an open-and-shut case.
We all remember the news reports: how when Major Charles Ingram (played here by Matthew Macfadyen) claimed the top prize on ITV’s smash-hit quiz show in 2001 the programme’s producers were worried his victory wasn’t quite what it seemed.
After carefully watching the tapes, they suspected one waiting fellow contestant had deliberately coughed whenever presenter Chris Tarrant (Michael Sheen) read out the correct answer for each question. The dramatic decision was made to put the payout on hold – and delay the broadcast of the programme.
Instead of enjoying new-found wealth, Ingram and his wife Diana (Sian Clifford, Fleabag) reaped only notoriety, ridicule and disgrace. Accused of brazen cheating, they and contestant Tecwen Whittock were soon under arrest and facing criminal charges. All three were eventually given suspended prison sentences.
But if you had no doubt about the Ingrams’ guilt then think again, for this brilliant dramatisation by
James Graham (Brexit: The Uncivil War) uncovers how the truth is still open to interpretation. ‘The story isn’t as clear cut as the majority of people think,’ Graham said recently. ‘What happened that night isn’t black and white.’
Equal parts heist thriller, comedy and factual drama, Quiz is packed full of twists and surprises that cast all our certainties aside. Could the couple really have been co-conspirators with Whittock when they’d never even met before their trial? And just how did a secret society of middleclass quiz obsessives all but manage to hijack a TV institution?
Sian Clifford is a note-perfect Lady Macbeth of Middle England, ruthlessly egging on her husband, while Michael Sheen – previously seen as David Frost, Tony Blair and Brian Clough – once again demonstrates his preternatural ability for depicting real-life figures with utter conviction.
As to the question of whether the Ingrams were victims of a colossal injustice: let the drama play out on screen this week – and then we can ask the audience...