Quiz (TV series)

Last updated

Quiz
Quiz - ITV Promotional Poster.jpeg
Promotional poster
Genre Drama
Based on
Written byJames Graham
Directed by Stephen Frears
Starring
Music by Murray Gold
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes3
Production
Executive producers
  • Dan Winch
  • William Village
  • James Graham
  • Stephen Frears
  • Andy Harries
ProducerAlice Pearse
Cinematography Hubert Taczanowski
Editor Pia Di Ciaula
Running time46–54 minutes
Production companies
Original release
Network ITV
Release13 April (2020-04-13) 
15 April 2020 (2020-04-15)

Quiz is a British drama television serial developed for the ITV channel and AMC and written by James Graham, based on his play of the same name [2] commissioned by William Village [3] and the book Bad Show: the Quiz, the Cough, the Millionaire Major by Bob Woffinden and James Plaskett. [4] It is directed by Stephen Frears [5] [6] [7] [8] and consists of three hour-long episodes. [9] The series focuses on the disgraced Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? contestant Charles Ingram, a former army major in the Royal Engineers, and how he unexpectedly won the £1 million jackpot on the quiz show in 2001, followed by a criminal trial in which he and his wife were convicted of cheating their way to success. [10]

Contents

Quiz premiered on ITV on 13 April 2020. The series received positive reviews from critics. Released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns worldwide, Quiz received a large audience — similar to the Netflix documentary Tiger King — with the first episode being seen live by an average audience of 5.3 million in the UK. While the show was still airing, Ingram's Wikipedia article was one of the most viewed on the site. [11]

Summary

In 2001, at the height of the public obsession with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a British army major named Charles Ingram and his wife, Diana, apparently swindled the British game show. The morning after Ingram bumbled his way to a million pounds, broadcaster ITV and production company Celador realized something had been amiss: a series of coughs by the Ingrams' alleged accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, may have led Ingram to the answers. It was a massive scandal, resulting in a court case that found all three guilty. [12]

Episodes

No.TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal air dateU.K. viewers
(millions) [13]
1"Episode 1" Stephen Frears James Graham 13 April 2020 (2020-04-13)9.05
Major Charles Ingram doesn't like quizzes, but for his wife Diana and brother-in-law Adrian, knowing the answer is a way of life. As both Diana and Adrian do not win as much as they hoped on the new TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , all eyes turn to an unsuspecting Charles to win the million-pound prize. Meanwhile, the repeated reappearance of middle-class, professional quizzers has not gone unnoticed by the ITV team and producer Paul Smith makes a vow to stop them by any means necessary.
2"Episode 2"Stephen FrearsJames Graham14 April 2020 (2020-04-14)8.74
Charles returns for a second night in the hot seat with a new strategy. After his previously hopeless performance, he proves massively successful, his dithering answers invariably turning out to be right. However, the production team finds his sudden change of fortunes suspicious and begins looking into an unusual pattern of coughing from the studio audience.
3"Episode 3"Stephen FrearsJames Graham15 April 2020 (2020-04-15)8.97
Hapless Charles, the man who has never heard of Craig David (one of his questions), is a national laughing stock amid accusations that he hit on right answers after affirmation coughs from his co-conspirators. Persecuted and hounded by the public and press, Charles, Diana, and Tecwen head to court. But his barrister works hard to try to convince the jury that Charles and his wife are innocent. At first, it seems the case for the prosecution is solid, but as the case for the defense gets underway, the jury learns there is far more to the story than they first thought.

Cast

Production

Development

In March 2018, Deadline Hollywood reported that Left Bank Pictures was developing a television adaptation of Quiz. [14] In April 2019, Left Bank was in talks for Stephen Frears to direct the adaptation. [5]

In August 2019, it was announced that ITV and AMC co-commissioned the drama series, with Graham writing and Frears directing all three episodes. [6] [3]

Filming

The scenes in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? studio were filmed in a set constructed at Wimbledon Studios. Scenes were also filmed outside Southwark Crown Court and inside a former court building in Hammersmith. [9]

International broadcasts

In Australia, the Nine Network, which aired both Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and its Hot Seat spin-off between 1999 and 2023, aired the serial in three parts on consecutive Thursday nights in late 2021. The first part, which aired on 25 November 2021, followed an episode of Hot Seat in which contestant Antony McManus became the show's final winner. [15] [16]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 95% approval rating based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 7.57/10. The website's consensus reads, "With clever writing, a slick production, and a pitch perfect Michael Sheen, Quiz crafts a captivating snapshot of a wild scandal that will keep viewers on their toes." [17]

Ingram himself, who has always denied the charges, praised the series, calling it "balanced". [18]

Related Research Articles

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television, contestants tackle a series of multiple-choice questions to win large cash prizes in a format that twists on many game show genre conventions – only one contestant plays at a time, similar to radio quizzes; contestants are given the question before deciding whether to answer, and have no time limit to answer questions; and the amount offered increases as they tackle questions that become increasingly difficult. The maximum cash prize offered in most versions of the format is an aspirational value in local currency, such as £1 million in the UK or 75 million in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Tarrant</span> English broadcaster (born 1946)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">1950s quiz show scandals</span> Revelations that contestants on TV quiz shows were secretly assisted by producers

The 1950s quiz show scandals were a series of scandals involving the producers and contestants of several popular American television quiz shows. These shows' producers secretly gave assistance to certain contestants in order to prearrange the shows' outcomes while still attempting to deceive the public into believing that these shows were objective and fair competitions. Producers fixed the shows sometimes with the free consent of contestants and out of various motives: improving ratings, greed, and the lack of regulations prohibiting such conspiracy in game show productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Ingram</span> English fraudster (born 1963)

Charles William Ingram is an English fraudster and a former Major in the British Army who gained fame for his appearance on the ITV television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In episodes recorded in September 2001, Ingram correctly answered fifteen questions to win the show's maximum prize of £1 million, becoming the third recorded contestant ever to do so. However, he was denied the winnings due to suspicion of cheating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Plaskett</span> British chess grandmaster and writer (born 1960)

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Alex Michael Jennings is an English actor of the stage and screen, who worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. For his work on the London stage, Jennings received three Olivier Awards, winning for Too Clever by Half (1988), Peer Gynt (1996), and My Fair Lady (2003). He is the only performer to have won Olivier awards in the drama, musical, and comedy categories.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Keppel</span> British quiz show contestant

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen McCrory</span> British actress (1968–2021)

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Martin Flood is an Australian quiz show contestant who competed and won on the show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and participated in the short-lived program The Master. Flood was an I.T. analyst for Westpac bank at the time of winning Millionaire. He lives in New South Wales and retired from working altogether six months after the big win.

<i>Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?</i> (British game show) British television quiz show

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a British television quiz show, created by David Briggs, Steven Knight and Mike Whitehill for the ITV network. The programme's format has contestants answering multiple-choice questions based on general knowledge, winning a cash prize for each question they answer correctly, with the amount offered increasing as they take on more difficult questions. If an incorrect answer is given, the contestant will leave with whatever cash prize is guaranteed by the last safety net they have passed, unless they opt to walk away before answering the next question with the money they had managed to reach. To assist in the quiz, contestants are given a series of "lifelines" to help answer questions.

<i>Who Wants to Be a Millionaire</i> (American game show) American television game show

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television game show based on the format of the same-titled British program created by David Briggs, Steven Knight and Mike Whitehill and developed in the United States by Michael Davies. The show features a quiz competition with contestants attempting to win a top prize of $1,000,000 by answering a series of multiple-choice questions, usually of increasing difficulty. The program has endured as one of the longest-running and most successful international variants in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise.

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<i>Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?</i> (Australian game show) Australian game show

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is an Australian television game show which would offer a maximum cash prize of $1,000,000 for answering 15 successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The show was based on and follows the same general format of the original version of the show from the United Kingdom, and is part of the international Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise.

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Elliot Levey is an English Olivier award winning actor.

R v Ingram, C., Ingram, D. and Whittock, T. was a 2003 English Crown Court fraud case in which Major Charles Ingram, his wife Diana and college lecturer Tecwen Whittock were found guilty of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception—obtaining a signed cheque for £1 million—by cheating on the filming of the UK game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The charge was that Charles Ingram used coughs by his wife and Whittock to guide him to the correct answers, in order to win £1 million in violation of the rules of the game. The Ingrams were sentenced to an 18-month suspended sentence and Whittock to one of 12 months. The three also received fines and were ordered to pay costs.

<i>Quiz</i> (play) Play by James Graham

Quiz is a play written by James Graham. Originally commissioned by theatre producer, William Village, it made its world premiere at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in November 2017, before transferring to the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End in March 2018. The play centres on the true story of Charles Ingram and the coughing scandal that surrounded his 2001 win of £1,000,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. In 2020, the stage play was adapted for a TV series of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sian Clifford</span> English actress (born 1982)

Sian Clifford is an English actress. She is best known for playing Claire, the older sister of the titular character in the BBC comedy-drama series Fleabag (2016–2019) and also portrayed Martha Crawley in the ITV/Amazon Studios series Vanity Fair (2018). In 2020, she played Diana Ingram in the ITV series Quiz.

References

  1. "Quiz | Left Bank Pictures". www.leftbankpictures.co.uk.
  2. Bond, Kimberley (16 August 2019). "Helen McCrory and Michael Sheen lead cast of new ITV drama about Who Wants To Be A Millionaire's coughing scandal". Radio Times. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  3. 1 2 "ITV commissions three part drama, Quiz, directed by Stephen Frears and produced by Left Bank Pictures". Press Centre. 16 August 2019. Archived from the original on 4 December 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
  4. Quiz, episode 1, end credits.
  5. 1 2 Rajan, Amol (23 April 2019). "Stephen Frears 'to adapt' Quiz for ITV". BBC News. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  6. 1 2 "AMC Commissions Three-Part Drama Quiz Starring Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Sheen, Sian Clifford and More". AMC. 16 August 2019. Archived from the original on 2 May 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  7. Mousumi, Ojha (1 September 2021). "'Quiz': Amazon minTv Quiz" . Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  8. "Amazon Quiz".
  9. 1 2 Moir, Sophia (14 April 2020). "Quiz on TV: From Charles Ingram to Chris Tarrant - who's who?". bt.com. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  10. McIntosh, Steven (7 April 2020). "ITV drama Quiz explores Millionaire cough scandal". bbc.co.uk. BBC News.
  11. "Quiz and The Nest: Dramas score highly in Easter TV battle". BBC News. 14 April 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  12. Zemler, Emily (1 June 2020). "What's the true story of Charles and Diana Ingram's 'Millionare' game show scam?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  13. "BARB 7-Day viewing data". BARB.
  14. White, Peter (16 March 2018). "'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' Cheating Scandal Stage Play 'Quiz' Being Remade For Television By Left Bank Pictures". Deadline Hollywood .
  15. Knox, David (22 November 2021). "Hot Seat goes for the $Million". TV Tonight . Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  16. Abdullah, Immy. "The real story of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? cheating scandal as seen on Quiz dramatisation". Nine Entertainment. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
  17. "Quiz". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  18. Peplow, Gemma (16 April 2020). "Charles Ingram: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? cheat praises Quiz - as lawyer plans appeal". Sky News. Retrieved 25 January 2021.