Quiz cheats:
Michael Sheen talks about the coughing scandal on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
When Major Charles Ingram won £1 million on the British version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire in 2001, it should have been a joyous event. Instead it led to an investigation and a criminal trial in which he and his wife Diana, and lecturer Tecwen Whittock, were convicted of cheating.
The events surrounding the scandal, which created a huge uproar around the world among fans of the show, are now recreated in the drama Quiz.
Michael Sheen, who plays Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host Chris Tarrant, says he thought it was an open-and-shut case of cheating and deception.
But having acted in the drama, he now has his doubts about what really went on.
“Like most people, I assumed there was no question about the convictions of Charles and Diana Ingram and Tecwen Whittock,” says Sheen. “They cheated, they were found guilty and they were convicted. I had no reason to assume anything else ...
“Then I read the scripts for Quiz, which are not saying, necessarily, one way or another. But they certainly open up questions again. And I was very open to that.
“By the end of it I certainly didn’t feel as sure they were guilty as I had in the time between when it happened and then coming to work on this.
“I don’t really feel qualified to say either way. But it certainly made me question stuff and be open to the possibility that the truth is still to be discovered.”
Charles Ingram (played by Matthew Macfadyen) is a former army major who was a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
It was alleged that an elaborate plan had been concocted whereby Ingram’s wife Diana (Sian Clifford) and Tecwen Whittock (Michael Jibson), who were in the studio, would cough to indicate which of the multi-choice answers was correct.
Their plan worked in the short term and Ingram won the £1 million top prize. But later investigations exposed the trio and their cheating.
“It is an extraordinary story,” says Sheen. “It’s one of those things that has such potential. At first you think, ‘Oh really? A story about Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Is that going to be that interesting?’
“Initially you think it’s going to be a little bit flimsy, maybe. Then you realise that actually it’s a way to explore all kinds of much bigger, complicated, complex issues. That you can’t take anything for granted when it comes to how it looks on the surface ...
“It’s a story about far more than just the ‘Coughing Major’. And yet it says so much about us as a nation as well in so many ways.
“It says a lot about television, about entertainment, about how public perceptions can be influenced by all kinds of different things. It’s a very British heist that happened.”
For Sheen, portraying Chris Tarrant presented its own challenges. He is used to playing real people, having done so in The Queen (Tony Blair), Frost/Nixon (David Frost), Fantabulosa! (Kenneth Williams) and The Damned United (Brian Clough). But Tarrant was tougher again.
“The difficulty with playing Chris Tarrant in Quiz is that the other real-life people I have played are usually the lead character or one of two lead characters.
“You get a much bigger canvas to work with, whereas he’s very much a supporting character in this.
“So that made it more difficult, I found, because you don’t get as much to stretch out with. You come in more short bursts ...
“Chris Tarrant is so brilliant at what he does on that show, I had to watch it over and over again in order to see what it is that he is actually doing a lot of the time.”
Sheen hadn’t met Chris Tarrant before doing Quiz but the pair crossed paths shortly after production finished on the drama.
“I was at The Pride Of Britain Awards just after we’d finished filming Quiz – walking down the red carpet having the photographs taken,” says Sheen.
“Then I hear a voice behind me, saying, ‘Nothing like me’. I turn around and there’s Chris Tarrant.
“It was extraordinary because I hadn’t met him before. Obviously, he was hugely familiar, like he would be to anybody in Britain.
“But I’d also been spending this obsessive amount of time focusing on him. So it was a very weird experience to suddenly be there having a chat with him.
“He was lovely – very friendly, very warm, very generous. He was talking about Quiz as if I was still doing it or about to do it. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh no. I’ve already done it. It’s too late now. I wish I’d met him earlier.’
“But it was great. It was lovely to meet him. And I hope he likes it.”