Noel Coward Theatre
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Quiz by James Graham is about the Who Wants to be a Millionaire scandal back in 2001, involving the contestant Major Charles Ingram. For each question he would slowly go through each of the four possible answers, and a fellow contestant would apparently cough, indicating that that answer was either correct or incorrect. For this, he was accused of cheating.
This play does not merely retell the story, instead it questions the elasticity of truth, how it can be manipulated to force people to believe what you want them to believe. The whole play is the trial of Charles Ingram and his supposed accomplices. The first act of the play is the prosecution and focuses on the truths that clearly paint an image of Ingram as guilty.. An audience vote at the end of act one showed that something like 84% of the audience believed him to be guilty. The second act, however, draws on the truths that the prosecution had conveniently left out. The audience vote at the end of the play was 50:50. |
Not only does this play tell an interesting story, or rather ask an interesting question, it also had some very exciting and unique design elements. The layout of the stage was so that it looked almost exactly like the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire platform. This meant that some of the audience were actually sitting on the stage in the heat of the action. The bright lights and live quiz show clips were great fun and the ability to vote really made me feel important as an audience member. The pub quizzes, however, were, with me at least, less of a hit. I found that putting the house lights so that you could do your quiz distracted from the rest of the play and it didn't seem to add anything to the meaning or the main plot. Perhaps I did not enjoy them because I barely knew a single answer, but in my opinion, pub quizzes should stay in pubs.
Overall, I think that this was a fun play (although the comedy did get a bit over done after a while) and an entirely new theatrical experience! What's really great about this play is that it is perfect if you want a fun day out at the theatre, but it will also do the trick if you want your opinions to be challenged. And who knows, if you're any good at pub quizzes you may even get a complimentary ice-cream!