The three-part drama writer James Graham and actress Helen McCrory also speak. Production airs on ITV on April 13. Check out the new still on our gallery and read the full interview below:
Some cultural prompts become hardwired. Hear “Ask the audience”, “Phone a friend” or “50:50” and most likely your subconscious will respond with the melodramatic sound effects and swooping lights of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Read the words “coughing major” and you’ll probably think of the fidgety, stiff-shirted bumbler Charles Ingram, who went on to win the £1m prize.
Except, of course, he didn’t. Ingram had a plant called Tecwen Whittock in the audience who was coughing (the “coughing major” actually didn’t do any coughing) to tell him which of the multiple-choice answers was correct. Anyone who heard the playback could hear it clear as a bell, as Martin Bashir’s documentary A Major Fraud — made by ITV, complete with assumptive title, and watched by a remarkable 17 million viewers in 2003 — showed.
“It was a heist story about the most popular game show of all time,” says James Graham, who was so captivated by the tale that he wrote a play, Quiz, and now a three-part TV series of the same name, about the case of the coughing major. Michael Sheen, in another of his unnervingly flawless character melts, plays the show’s ringmaster, Chris Tarrant, all meringue hair and slick suits. Matthew Macfadyen is Charles Ingram, Sian Clifford his wife, Diana, Mark Bonnar plays Paul Smith, the executive producer of Millionaire, and Stephen Frears directs. But the real star of the show is the show itself — it is a startling reminder of just how big Millionaire was 20 years ago.
“It was like TV crack,” says Sheen, speaking from Wales via video link. “The thing that first struck me about it then was that it was on every night — I thought, ‘What could possibly justify that?’ It must signify something important or amazing. But a quiz show? Then, watching it, you got it immediately. When I was watching it, nothing could pull me away, and as soon as it finished I would want to watch the next one. It was addictive. I’d never seen a quiz show like that.”
Ler maisThe second volume from the ‘Book of Dust’ series, written by Philip Pullman and narrated by Michael Sheen, was shortlisted in the British Book Awards 2020 as audiobook of the year. Check out the other nominees:
According to organization:
The awards night will now be taking place on 29th June 2020. The awards have moved from their original date of 18th May 2020 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, which has disrupted many events and public gatherings.
Click here to buy it!
Today Michael Sheen joined the BBC Radio 2 Triathlon Trio (Jo Whiley, Reverend Kate Bottley and Richie Anderson) and rode in Cardiff alongside them in the Dare 2 Tri challenge, in order “to raise money for people living incredibly tough lives here in the UK and around the world.” You can donate to her campaign here. You can also listen to Jo Whiley’s show where she and Michael spoke of the challenge and more (available for 29 days as of March 11).
See some pictures and videos below:
On February 29 Michael Sheen reunited with his Masters of Sex co-star Lizzy Caplan for a Warner Bros. panel held at the Whitby Hotel in New York that signaled the beginning of the Emmy Awards FYC season. The actors spoke about Fox’s Prodigal Son and Hulu’s Castle Rock, shows where they both play serial killers. After they event, they attended a high tea. Check out the photos on out gallery:
Michael Sheen and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action have launched a donation page on GoFundMe in order to help those affected by Storm Dennis in Wales. Watch the video below and see what he says:
Michael has been announced as guest of Wales Comic Con: Telford Takeover, to take place on April 25 and 26 (Saturday and Sunday) at The Internacional Centre, Telford. Tickets can be purchased here. Note that autographs and photo-ops are not included in the entry price and must be purchased separately.
UPDATE: On March 13 Wales Comic Con: Telford Takeover was postponed until August 22-23 2020 due to the Coronavirus. Tickets already purchased will still be valid.
February 5 aka Michael Sheen’s 51st birthday is coming. Here are a couple of things you can do to honor this special day:
In this new interview for the American newspaper, Michael talks about his character on the Fox crime drama and gives a spoiler about Martin Whitly’s cardigan. It contains spoilers from episode Alone Time, aired on January 20!
There are also a couple of photos for this interview, which you can see on our gallery:
Michael Sheen has made cardigans dangerous. On the Fox drama “Prodigal Son,” he plays Dr. Martin Whitly, also known as the Surgeon, a brilliant Manhattan doctor who is responsible for at least 23 murders, most of them gruesome. Convicted and confined to a psychiatric hospital, he spends his days swathed in a nubbly, oatmeal sweater, playing mind games with his son, Malcolm (Tom Payne), a profiler for the New York Police Department.
Ler maisDolittle was released on Friday and unfortunately is getting panned by critics, currently rotten at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer (79% at the audience score). There are some lovely words for Michael’s performance as Dr. Blair Müdfly, which you can read below:
Our reluctant hero [Dolittle] will have to voyage to both of the other locations that weren’t cut out during reshoots, and he’ll have to get there before the chinless doctor Müdfly (a delicious Michael Sheen, making a glorious meal out of table scraps) is able to find the magic whatsit for himself.
Ler mais(…) the only wholly successful element of Dolittle is its villain. Michael Sheen plays Dr. Blair Müdfly, personal doctor to the queen of England and rival to the legendary Dolittle. Where Downey is fumbling with a clumsy Welsh accent and mawkish melancholy, Sheen is on fire, incensed by Müdfly’s jealousy and embracing this property’s camp past. With a severe goatee, bulging eyes, and a voice ever on the verge of breaking into a squeal of rage, Sheen gifts this fumbling film a surge of energy and hilarious pettiness. Perhaps the joke that proved the most silly yet satisfying is when Dolittle mutters that the man is a “chinless wonder,” then the cut leaps across leagues of open ocean to Müdfly’s warship where he’s looking through a spyglass and yelps, “I think he said something about my chin!” Sheen is the only one who seems to truly embrace what over-the-top fun this could have been. Bless him.
The American newtork AMC announced at the Television Critics’ Association Press Tour last night premiere dates for new and returning series, including the three-part drama Quiz:
Quiz
Monday, May 25 – Wednesday, May 27 at 9:00 p.m. ET/8c.
A three-part drama directed by the globally renowned Stephen Frears (A Very English Scandal, Florence Foster Jenkins, Philomena, The Queen) and written by playwright James Graham (Brexit: An Uncivil War, Ink, This House, Labour of Love), Quiz tells the extraordinary and sensational story of how Charles and Diana Ingram attempted an ‘audacious heist’ on the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Major Ingram (Matthew Macfadyen), his wife Diana (Sian Clifford) and an accomplice, Tecwen Whittock (Michael Jibson), who was sitting in the audience, were accused of cheating their way to a million pounds on what was the most popular game show on earth in 2001. The couple stood trial for conspiring by coughing during the recording to signify the correct answers to the multiple-choice questions posed to the Major by host, Chris Tarrant (Michael Sheen). Quiz is a Left Bank Pictures co-production for ITV and AMC and is distributed by Sony Pictures Television, which also owns and distributes Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? worldwide. Produced by Alice Pearse (Origin, Gregor), and executive produced by Dan Winch (A Very English Scandal, Broadchurch), William Village, James Graham, Stephen Frears and Left Bank CEO, Andy Harries.
