Quiz

Though I let it pass me by when it aired, it's appearance on the Guardian's "TV of the year" list led to me giving "Quiz" a try. Though I accept people's frustration that the series doesn't want to prescribe guilt to its famous couple, in and of itself it's in interesting insight to the levels of manipulation seemingly innocuous and trustworthy institutions can fall foul too.

When the UK television production company Celador arrive at an idea for a new gameshow, they couldn't have predicted the unprecedented success that the show would be. "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" would become an worldwide phenomenon, but with their high profile, and the considerable prize on offer, inventive groups found a way to bend the show to their advantage. Into this, Major Charles Ingram (Matthew Macfadyen) follows his wife and brother-in-law into the hotseat, but unlike them he win's the top prize. However, accusations of cheating, particularly a conspiracy with coughing members of the audience, follow soon after.

Though the story clearly gets some people enraged, if it was 100% a work of fiction then it would be judged as a slightly farfetched but truly enjoyable miniseries. The performances are good, not just from the main cast but from numerous supporting performers like Helen McCrory, Aisling Bea, Elliot Levey and Nicholas Woodeson. Macfadyen and Sian Clifford do a great job of keeping the Ingram's as slightly odd but not unlikeable, which helps sell the indecision about their guilt. Personally, I didn't like this Michael Sheen impression as much as I have done some of the others, I don't feel he caught Chris Tarrant as well as he did Brian Clough, or Tony Blair. Some aspects of the story are really fascinating, not so much the actual Ingram saga, as the levels of manipulation that the show suffered. It suggests that a small but organised group of people managed to influence who made it onto the show and abused the phone-a-friend aspect.

As mentioned, the show works very hard to provide what might be considered a balanced view, which I suppose is noble, but betrays the truth somewhat. Though the Ingram's maintain their innocence and the show presents a very strong argument for them, they were found guilty by a jury, and fairly quickly too. As a report of history, I'd accept that the show is questionable - but as entertainment I'd say just ask the audience.

A very misleading mini series.

It is well made as light entertainment goes and the acting is generally very good with the glaring exception of 'Ingram' who, when portrayed in the chair, is a noticeably different character than you can see on the real how.

The trial is also changed to make interesting television rather than a fair account of the evidence presented.

So - 8 for entertainment and 2 for accuracy.

This was a very entertaining three part drama from ITV about how James Ingram and his wife allegedly cheated there way winning a million pounds on the quiz show "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire ".

I can assure you without giving anything away, after the final episode you like me will think the Ingram's were hard done by. And yet in a court of law with two of the countries finest barristers and a jury they were found guilty. This is because we only see the case for the defence and hardly any of the prosecution. In fact all three episodes felt like it was made by the Ingrams to make them look the victims.

However that apart I did learn a lot about the quizzing community who had devised a way of beating the phone in system to get themselves on the show. (You would have thought the producers suspected something when one contestant made it on the show four times!)

All the performances are excellent in particular Michael Sheen as the quiz host Chris Tarrent. 8/10

Spread over the Easter weekend, this was ITV's dramatisation of events now almost twenty years old when the network's then flagship light entertainment quiz show (not a game show!) "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" was the at the centre of a cheating scandal revolving around a series of carefully choreographed coughing fits to guide the contestant Major Charles Ingram all the way through fifteen questions of increasing severity to the ultimate prize of £1,000,000. Once convinced that they'd apparently been duped, the show's production company Celador reported Ingram and his alleged accomplices, his wife Diana (much was made at the time of the couple coincidentally sharing the names of the Royal couple) and fellow-contestant Tecwen Whittock to the police and a criminal case was made against them. The trial made as many headlines as the original show when the couple (and Whittock who barely features in the action here, actually) were duly convicted but only given a Pyhrric suspended sentence so that the trio didn't have to go to jail, but obviously didn't collect their "Winnings", nevertheless left the trial in disgrace and out of pocket, leading to their bankruptcy when ordered to pay the legal costs of the trial. The Ingrams have pled their innocence ever since but at the same time haven't been above milking the publicity for financial reasons by appearing, for example, in other reality programmes since then.

So, did this programme find them guilty then? Apparently not. At no stage do the couple admit, even in private, that they're up to no good and the fact remains that the only strong "evidence" of any foul play against them is Diana's dodgy-seeming calls to Whittock immediately after Charles's inauspicious first night on the show (his appearance was made over two nights) and more pertinently, his decidedly odd behaviour in the chair as he abruptly changed at least two of his answers to the correct ones after seeming to completely rule them out.

This production revealed several interesting background points surrounding the original show which I either didn't know or had forgotten, including the fact that Diana and indeed her brother-in-law had already appeared in the show before Charles or that there was a network of what we'd now called hackers in the background offering their services to not only get people onto the show but to also usurp its procedures to win large sums of money for signed-up participants, with the claim being made that they were instrumental in helping hundreds of winners to win over 10% of all the show's prize-money down the years.

I'm not personally convinced the couple were so innocent. Before it was taken down from YouTube over the last couple of days, I was able to watch the offending episode in full where if anything Ingram's dithering and bumbling nature is even more pronounced. That said, how he'd decipher and interpret which cough to follow in a crowded TV studio seems like a risky game plan to me and he did go on to prove his intelligence by joining M.E.N.S.A. I think I'll go 50/50 on that one Chris.

This series entertainingly recreated the scandal with some fairly obvious dramatic licence (did for examp!e Ingram and the gung-ho Celador producer really cross swords, so to speak, in the gents toilet at the trial, I wonder!) and I suppose couldn't have asserted the Ingrams' guilt in any case, without attracting a libel charge against it. I felt the casting could have been better, with Matthew McFadyen bearing no physical resemblance at all to the real major, more's the pity when compared to Sian Clifford's marked similarity to his wife and of course the human chameleon Michael Sheene's take on show presenter Chris Tarrant.

Whilst admitting that the show could have conceivably taken a quite different viewpoint on the "did they or didn't they" question and so seemed like a bit of a cop-out in the end, it had enough going on in the background to sustain the entertainment over three nights. Or maybe I should rephrase that...

It's good but don't expect a biopic or gripping drama. This is basically a little bit of a laugh that successfully takes the story and turns it in every way possible. It's inaccurate and there are a few moments where it seems like you're watching Mr Bean but it's good fun. Sheen is uncanny as Tarrant.