Quiz – The Lowry, Salford

Writer: James Graham

Directors: Daniel Evans & Sean Linnen

Many of us have dreamed if being in the hot seat on TV’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? How far would we get? How much money would be actually be willing to risk? Who would you pick as your phone a friend? The format of this incredibly successful game show offering a genuinely life-changing sum of money as the top prize transformed TV game shows the world over. No wonder, then, that allegations of cheating to engineer winning the £1 million by Major Ingram in 2001, at the height of the show’s popularity, proved sensational news and produced a court case that gripped the media and public consciousness. Quiz is James Graham’s stage play reopening the case twenty years later and asking the question of whether the Ingrams were indeed guilty or not.

Beginning life in 2018, Quiz played in the West End before being adapted for a highly successful TV drama starring Michael Sheen as Chris Tarrant It is now back in theatrical form for a UK-wide tour. The popularity of this story has not waned throughout the years, due to a desire to know the truth whether the Ingrams really did engineer a plan to defraud the programme and, if so, just how they did it. Graham’s play cleverly sets the drama through the prism of Southwark’s courtroom and asks us to judge those in the dock. This is an active show that asks the audience to become the jury. Each member of the audience is even given a control pad to register their vote – adopting the TV show’s ‘Ask the Audience’ format.

There is a certain amount of gimmick and sensationalism in Graham’s play. Watching a populist piece of theatre about a populist TV programme and a trial that dominated the headlines of the red-top tabloids all feels very ITV. This is acknowledged unapologetically by Graham who has written a piece of theatre that is primarily designed to be an entertaining evening out rather than anything more. However, Graham stealthily slips in a more complex narrative – that of the constructed story, especially when narrated by barristers in a court of law, and how ‘truth’ and ‘lies’ can be manipulated in the hands of skilled storytellers. It is interesting to see how the audience’s voting can significantly alter when presented with one version of the ‘facts’ at the end of Act 1 to an alternative version at the end of the piece. Disguised amongst the flashing lights and intrigue into how such an audacious feat could be pulled off is a complex cross-examination of the nature of presented truth.

Directors Daniel Evans and Sean Linnen have assembled a first-class cast for this quick-moving show. Many of the thirteen strong cast multi-role and the show even boasts Rory Bremner playing Chris Tarrant. Bremner’s wide-graded Tarrant is, of course, uncanny even down to the mannerisms of the way Tarrant sat in the studio chair. In Lewis Reeves we witness Charles Ingram treading the line between bumbling puppet who is orchestrated by his wife and other members of the ‘syndicate’ or double-bluffing expert fraudster. There is a slight Macbeth and Lady Macbeth undercurrent to their relationship not missed by Graham. Designer Robert Jones and lighting designer Ryan Day transport us from television studio floor to courtroom in an instant as the non-linear structure runs throughout the show, cleverly using flashback and recurring narrative with an alternative perspective to let the audience re-evaluate the ‘facts’ surrounding the case.

Quiz is a very entertaining and audience-engaging piece of theatre. It doesn’t break any boundaries and because the case was so high profile there is no surprising denouement to the show. Therefore, there is a certain lack of drive to the narrative. However, it is a very interesting piece in terms of the art of perspective and truth and even whether ingenious fraud against companies making vast sums of money can ever be justified.

Runs at The Lowry until October 28 and continues on tour until 25 November 2023.