Quiz
Anyone under the age of thirty must find it bewildering that such a prosaic misdemeanour is even remembered, let along dramatized for the stage. And yet its grip obstinately refuses to let go. It’s a testament to the quality of Graham's writing that the show was not only entertaining, but gripping, with an ability to surprise in spite of its well-trodden path.
Theatre Royal
James Graham's dramatization of the coughing major scandal should come with a health warning. Packed with labyrinthine intrigue and fascinating detail, I found myself quite unable to stop thinking about the contradictory arguments presented, and was close to cursing this splendid production as I failed to get to sleep on the night I saw it. Quiz covers a controversial win on a game show twenty years ago, and therefore occupies that awkward space between history and contemporary events. Anyone under the age of thirty must find it bewildering that such a prosaic misdemeanour is even remembered, let along dramatized for the stage. And yet its grip obstinately refuses to let go. It’s a testament to the quality of Graham's writing that the show was not only entertaining, but gripping, with an ability to surprise in spite of its well-trodden path.
Masterfully constructed, it flip-flopped between the scene-of-the-crime game show and the ensuing court case, a conceit helped in no small part by Robert James's cunningly ambiguous set design. It's a device that required a suspension of belief from the audience that really only works on the stage (Graham understandably abandoned the technique in his linear TV adaptation). The effect heightened the contrast between the act itself and the conflicting interpretations the jury in the trial were invited to consider. Bluntly put, we, the audience, were manipulated into first finding him guilty, and then finding him innocent, a decision wittily boiled down to the binary choice of the keypad we were all provided with.
It wasn't just Charles Ingram on trial - he didn't actually do the coughing - and the play does a fine job of introducing his wife Diana as the brains of the outfit, along with Tecwen Whittlock as the expectorating brain box who knew all the answers. Both Charley Webb and Marc Antolin deliver solid performances as these accomplices, but its Lewis Reeves interpretation of Charles that is most effecting. His portrait of a rather silly man seduced into a task he was ill-equipped to deliver was nuanced and sympathetic.
The audience were invited to feel little sympathy for the mercurial TV execs, mercilessly lampooned by an excellent turn from Mark Benton. Benton occupied a number of minor parts with chameleon skill, and cheekily stole the show whenever he popped up. By way of contrast, despite getting punter-friendly top billing, Rory Bremner plays a surprisingly small part in proceedings, to the extent that he sheds his Chris Tarrant skin for a tiny cameo at one point, the nature of which I won't spoil here. As Tarrant, he does a decent, if heightened, impression of the man, but if anything, his appearance was distracting, to my mind throwing the drama off balance given that no one else was attempting pure mimicry. That said, plaudits are due to him for humbly taking a curtain call at the end of the line, when he could so easily have tilted the limelight in his direction.
Things have moved on a pace since the Major came a cropper, as they have in the years since the play was first staged. It's condemnation of trial by media proved to be prescient but is such a given these days that the opening section of the play felt a little didactic. I found myself willing the production onward towards the heart of the matter. A judicious nip and tuck of those first scenes would have got us much sooner to where we wanted to be. Having arrived, however, the play took off, and was both thought provoking and hilarious. At one point, Mark Benton had to break the fourth wall, defeated by singularly intrusive laughter from someone in the audience.
"You can come again" he quipped.
The evening continued in a similarly light hearted manner, and proved to be hugely enjoyable. If I have a misgiving, it's a nagging shared guilt in finding humour in the ruination of three people's lives. This is not place to discuss the details of the case, but the Ingrams and Whittlock were found guilty of fraud, supposedly beyond reasonable doubt, on the basis of his eccentric manner, a brief phone call between strangers and a tape doctored by a production company keen to hold on to a million quid. It was insufficient evidence for 51% of the audience at the Theatre Royal, but not for a jury obviously compromised by media coverage. I find it hard to imagine a similar miscarriage of justice being dealt with so humorously, but no doubt many would argue rough justice was done.
So what do you think?
Press your keypads to decide now.
