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.

Nocturnal Animals - 2016 film review

Nocturnal Animals is a recent thriller movie written and directed by Tom Ford which has won plaudits in many quarters. It stars Amy Adams as Susan Morrow, a rich art gallery owner based in L.A., and Jake Gyllenhal as her ex-husband Edward Sheffield. So - a top-notch cast.

And the premise is interesting, too. Amy has married a second time, and her husband is handsome but untrustworthy. She seems rather discontented with her glamorous lifestyle, and is intrigued when a parcel arrives for her unexpectedly. No, it doesn't contain poisoned chocolates, but rather their modern day equivalent (as in that interesting novel Disclaimer, for instance) - the manuscript of an extremely disturbing novel. It seems to have been written by her ex, Edward.

She starts to read the book, and we are plunged into a grim story about a man (also played by Gyllenhal) who is driving with his wife and teenage daughter in a remote part of Texas one evening, when their trip is rudely interrupted by an encounter with a menacing trio of trouble-makers who eventually run them off the road. It's quite clear that Bad Things are going to happen.

The film shifts back and forth between the story and Susan's life. This kind of structure is one I find very interesting. And yet. Despite the slickness of the film, I had reservations about it. They began with the opening scene, set at Susan's gallery, where obese naked women are dancing. This felt  a bit gratuitous to me, and some other reviewers seem to feel the same way. I also felt that the ending, which many others like, had a "so-what?" quality about it. Overall, despite the film's strengths, I was slightly disappointed. Nocturnal Animals seemed to me like a film that is too clever for its own good. 

The Damned United

David Peace is known for a number of dark books with crime themes, but The Damned United is something rather different. It’s about the 44 days that the controversial football manager Brian Clough spent in charge of Leeds United. I haven’t read the book, but I recently watched Tom Hooper’s 2009 film of the story, and much enjoyed it.

Brian Clough was a larger than life individual, and a very suitable character for fictional interpretation. He was both brilliant and deeply flawed (as so many brilliant people are deeply flawed) and his vanity led him into many disastrous errors. Prime among them was the decision to accept the job as manager of Leeds, a club which he despised. He also had a long-running vendetta with Don Revie, his predecessor at Leeds. When things go badly for Clough at Leeds, Revie finds it impossible not to gloat. In later years, Clough and Revie suffered ill-health and died relatively young, but in their hey-day they were truly formidable figures.

I was interested in the various changes made to the real life sequence of events for the purpose of making the story (and the rivalry with Revie) more dramatic. It’s a reminder that one has to take the ‘factual’ basis of most fact-based stories with a large pinch of salt. But, for the most part, the inventions seemed to be true to the spirit of the story.

Michael Sheen’s performance of Clough is superb; he really is an impressive performer. Timothy Spall does his usual great job as Peter Taylor, Clough’s long-suffering sidekick, and Colm Meaney is terrific as Revie. A very enjoyable film, even if you don’t like football.

Frost/Nixon

All writers, however retiring by nature, have to ‘do publicity’ these days (well, maybe not the likes of Harper Lee or the recently deceased J.D. Salinger, but it’s true for the rest of us) and sometimes handling interviews can be tricky. I’ve included a TV interview of myself on my website, but I don’t for a moment claim that I handled it that well. It’s always interesting to seize the chance to learn more, and sometimes the source of instruction can be unexpected.

I have in mind the interviews which are at the heart of Ron Howard’s excellent movie Frost/Nixon. This dramatises the famous confrontation between David Frost (now Sir David) and former President Richard M. Nixon. Of course, the script embellishes the reality, but it’s still very thought-provoking. You see the importance of preparation – both Frost and Nixon, and their respective teams, did plenty of prep – but you also see what happens to the best laid plans…

I really enjoyed the film. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella perform superbly in the title roles, and Rebecca Hall (daughter of Sir Peter) is stunningly glamorous as Frost’s then girlfriend (the film, it seems, invented a new version of the story of their initial meeting.) It’s unwise to treat a film like this as history, but it does cast a fascinating light on an unforgettable episode in our past.

I’ll never be interviewed by Sir David, but I do think this film offers, among many good things, a reminder of one of the golden rules of interviews. It’s a privilege to be interviewed, and it’s absolutely essential to treat the interviewer with the utmost respect. Interviewing is a real skill, and some of those who have quizzed me over the years have been highly expert practitioners.