Anna Daniels
What is it about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that lends so much Hollywood-worthy drama? Is it the progressively higher stakes as sweating contestants ponder harder questions for more money? Is it the dramatic lighting? The lifelines? Whatever the case, the sensationally popular TV game show has found itself at the center of several feature films and TV shows, the latest of which tells the true story of the British edition’s biggest scandal.
Quiz, an upcoming three-part AMC and ITV miniseries, stars Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Ingram, one of the most notorious contestants of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire who was famously convicted of cheating on the program. Watch the Quiz trailer below.
Quiz Trailer
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1boLn4lUjg?feature=oembed&w=740&h=416]
It started with a cough. An errant cough during a recording of the U.K. edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? would become the central focus of a highly publicized trial in which game show contestant Charles Ingram, his wife and former contestant Diana Ingram, and an alleged accomplice Tecwen Whittock were accused of cheating their way through the multiple choice answers of the popular game show to win one million pounds.
Macfadyen (Succession) stars as Charles Ingram, who would be convicted of cheating in 2001, in Quiz, a three-part miniseries directed Stephen Frears (A Very English Scandal) and written by James Graham (Brexit: An Uncivil War), and co-produced by AMC and British network ITV. Fleabag‘s Sian Clifford stars as his wife while a nearly-unrecognizable Michael Sheen, donning a blonde wig and no eyebrows, plays game show host Chris Tarrant.
Quiz looks like an intense, high-stakes take on a fairly low-stakes true story, if you call cheating a British TV network out of one million pounds low stakes. The cast impress in the short but effective trailer — I’m especially intrigued (and a little wistful, as a Pride and Prejudice fan) to see Macfadyen’s performance, as he completes his transformation from costume drama heartthrob to morally gray stooge, which started with his incredible performance in Succession.
Here is the synopsis for Quiz:
Quiz tells the extraordinary and sensational story of how Charles and Diana Ingram attempted an ‘audacious heist’ on the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
Quiz will premiere on AMC on May 31, 2020, following the U.K. premiere on ITV on April 13. The British series will air over three weeks with the second and third episodes airing June 7 and 14, respectively.
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