O. Lawrence

'Quiz' is the story of how an unlikely couple - Diana and Charles Ingram - coughed their way to a million pounds! The drama actually opens with an intro to Diana's lesser-known brother: Adrian Pollock (Trystan Gravelle), a quiz enthusiast in huge debt. Fortunately for him, a TV gameshow offering a million is on its way; and although it takes him countless call-in attempts, Adrian’s finally shortlisted, and invited to ITV. Here he encounters 'The Syndicate', a malevolent circle of masterminds who have it all figured out, from how to circumvent Millionaire’s various shortlist rounds; to redirecting your Phone-A-Friend to a room of quizzers. Adrian exercises some restraint. Taking assistance only to land himself on the show, he climbs the ladder fairly, banking £32,000, yet is gutted! Months later Adrian’s sister Diana Ingram (Sian Clifford), plays and wins the exact same £32K, though is comparatively delighted. But smiles soon fade as she informs husband Charles she’s donating half her winnings to debt-ridden Adrian. “What was that line, there were always three of us in this marriage?” Charles asks facetiously, echoing Lady Di. Indeed, few will fail to note the remarkable: this couple share the exact names of their yet-more-famous royal namesakes. Taking the lead, Matthew Macfadyen charitably conveys Ingram as a dedicated father and principled man, whose general innocence even endears us. It’s a role much complemented by Michael Sheen’s masterful capture of wit, charisma, and even looks, within Chris Tarrant. Episode two, and Charles is now in the hot seat performing disastrously before the claxon saves him for the day at Question 7 of 15. That night Diana calls Tecwen Whitock, Adrian’s neighbour who’ll be on the show the next day. Returning anew, Charles scales the ladder in the makings of a zero to hero story - but for a final stinger: 'What is the name of a number followed by one hundred zeros?'. Stakes highest, Tecwen turns to a fellow Fastest Finger contestant, who innocently reveals the answer - Googol. “Thought as much” claims Tecwen, before supplying history’s most lucrative cough for One Million Pounds. The rest is history – including the cheque, swiftly cancelled after Millionaire’s producers become suspicious of Charles’s incredible resurgence. The final installment of Quiz invites us to play along as jurors. Helen McCrory puts in a show-stopping performance as Sonia Woodley QC, maintaining that the prosecution's case is built on confirmation bias: “When an assumption seeps into the brain it rearranges all facts to support the theory”, the barrister upholds, before reminding the jury that Charles is a member of Mensa with an engineering degree. But will the QC’s articulate defence be enough to counter the prosecution’s argument, that there’s clearly a strategy at work in Charles’s dramatic U-turns, all at the prompt of a cough? There’s something for everyone in Quiz. It’s as humorous in parts as it is intellectual, and the production is abound with stellar performance. The result is enchanting entertainment TV, subtly-balanced with a discerning pathos for its real life characters, and their various extraordinary experiences. The drama is far less about guilt. Yes, Quiz repeatedly brings us within wafer thin distance, but do we actually ever see any wrongdoing take place? Rather the only bestowed truth is one that’s existed since time immemorial: you can have all the overwhelming set of coincidences in the world, but with no direct evidence, there'll always prevail a legitimate hint of doubt.