Quiz - ITV review

Quiz, which ran for three episodes on consecutive nights last week, was perfect lockdown televiewing. A family entertainment show about family entertainment, with an ingenious crime and a bit of courtroom drama. Fittingly, for a show about quizzes, it posed a tricky question. Did Major Charles Ingram and his wife Diana conspire with Tecwen Whittock in 2001 in an attempt to cheat a million pounds out of the show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

I was a big fan of Millionaire in its early years. I've always enjoyed quizzes and the TV show I watch most regularly is University Challenge, where the contestants play for glory rather than cash. A lot of the popular quiz-type shows with big cash prizes leave me cold, but Millionaire fascinated me until it became too samey. Quiz showed how Millionaire began before showing how the Ingrams, and Diana's brother became obsessed with the possibility of winning a million. In short, the issue was whether strategic coughing by Whittock was what tipped Ingram off about the right answers.

Quiz boasted impeccable credentials, with a script by James Graham and direction by Stephen Frears. The Major was played by the always appealing Matthew Macfadyen and Diana by Sian Clifford, who was excellent in Fleabag. Especially brilliant - but when is he not? - was Michael Sheen, with an extraordinarily convincing performance as quiz master Chris Tarrant. The third episode was cunningly written so as to strike quite a good balance between the competing arguments - in effect, the allegation of fraudulent conspiracy versus the defence of innocence and eccentricity.

History relates that the Ingrams and Whittock were convicted of the crime. But they have always maintained that the conviction was unjust. I thought that Quiz was not only extremely watchable but also extremely fair to the accused. It didn't, for instance, highlight the fact that two years after they avoided prison in this case, Ingram was convicted of an unrelated insurance fraud.

Caught in a Trap

The ITV 1 drama Caught in a Trap was a crime story, although not a mystery, and I enjoyed it a lot. It starred Connie Fisher, previously known to me only as a singer who won a talent contest on the BBC, playing the part of Gemma Perkins, a council worker who falsifies the takings from local parking meters to fund her craving for memorabilia connected with Elvis Presley.

The impressive script, by James Graham (a young writer who is definitely a name to watch, if this is anything to go by) was inspired by a true crime. A distinction is drawn between a script ‘inspired by’ real events and those ‘based on’ those events. It seems that Graham was much taken with the essence of a story, rather than the details, and his approach seems very sensible to me.

The real life case was that of Julie Wall, a North Kesteven council employee in her 40s, reportedly a ‘mild and modest’ individual who stole over half a million pounds, mainly on Elvis-related stuff before getting her inevitable come-uppance. The fictional Gemma was an attractive 28 year old. Connie Fisher played her very well, in an under-stated yet compelling way, and was admirably supported by a strong cast, including two actors of exceptional gifts, Jim Carter and Geraldine James.

Needless to say, the drama featured a lot of Elvis songs – including two which provided titles for books in my Harry Devlin series. One was The Devil in Disguise, and the other my favourite Elvis song, Suspicious Minds – from which the highly appropriate ‘caught in a trap’ title comes.