AMC drama revisits ‘Millionaire’ quiz show coughing scandal

Any misconduct that attached to ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” was of the garden-variety business type. During the quiz’s show initial 1999-2002 run, the network milked the unexpected hit with nightly airings until its ratings crashed.

Then there was the lawsuit over the show’s profits that yielded a $269 million verdict, plus interest, against ABC’s parent company, Disney.

British TV, which originated the series, easily topped those corporate offenses. In 2001, a husband and wife were accused of cheating their way to the top millionpound prize — allegedly coughing up the correct multiple-choice answers by brazenly signaling with exactly that, a cough.

The headline-making chapter is the basis of AMC’s “Quiz,” a three-part drama that looks at Charles and Diana Ingram and their painful fall with a deft combination of satire and expansive humanity. Starring Matthew Macfadyen, Sian Clifford and Michael Sheen, the series debuts 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, with the concluding episodes airing at 9 p.m. EDT on June 7 and 14.

Writer James Graham said he intended to convey more than a question of whether justice was done, both in the series and in his play of the same name that debuted in London in 2017.

The story was “a vessel to explore thematically the issue of truth and reality and facts in your country and my country, both to the presidential election and the Brexit referendum, which is the time I started writing this,” he said. “I think we all became increasingly more anxious that there was a battle happening, and the battle was over whether or not anything could ever be proven to be definitely true or definitely false ever again.”

Like many in the U.K. and beyond, he was aware of the legal and tabloid ordeals of Charles Ingram, who was a major in the British army, and his wife, who were convicted in both forums. More than a decade later, Graham’s interest was re-ignited by a book for that argued for the pair’s innocence.

The resulting play and TV drama take a nuanced, if not necessarily exculpatory, view of events.

Associated Press Sian Clifford, left, and Matthew Macfadyen in scenes from "Quiz," about a couple accused of cheating their way to the top prize on the British version of TV's “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”