Tonight with Trevor McDonald (TV Series) Major Fraud (2003) User Reviews

Quite good and easy to watch all the way through

[spacemafia · 10/10 · 18 March 2021]

Major Fraud is a documentary about Charles Ingram's appearance in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Throughout the documentary, we get to see the behind the scenes look at what was going on throughout his appearance, and the suspicions that arose. Up until this documentary was released, most of his appearance hadn't been released, but now we get to see the whole thing for ourselves.

It really gives a good insider look at whether or not Charles Ingram cheated. The thing that stood out to me the most was at the moment when Tecwen Whittock was asking another Fastest Finger First contestant, Tom Lucy, about the Anthony Eden and Googol questions. When I watched the real footage on YouTube, I could barely hear it, but thankfully they made it more convenient to listen to their conversations.

I suppose one drawback I have with this documentary is the amount of times we have to hear about Diana Ingram peering over at Tecwen Whittock, although I wouldn't blame them as it did happen constantly.

All in all, this was actually quite a good documentary that had me hooked in all the way through (which I can't really say the same for others). Even though I already knew about Charles Ingram cheating, just seeing the evidence throughout was what ignited my interest.

That's a nasty cough you've got there...

[Goingbegging · 9/10 · 15 February 2021]

Wife... brother... brother-in-law... What's this, the mafia?

A game-show is meant to be good clean fun, a general-knowledge contest between names picked out of a hat. So it is not reassuring to hear that Clan Ingram has been appearing repeatedly on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire', as though it's some kind of club. And that's only the first of many hints that all is not what it seems - the tension mounting-up dramatically, as the prizes accelerate towards the magic million.

In fact, these signs became so obvious that Chris Tarrant was later criticised for not noticing anything amiss. But ironically, Tarrant's job as ringmaster of this hectic circus presented too many distractions for such cool analysis. It was several others on the team, not under such pressure, who were reporting their suspicions almost from the start.

First, there was the behaviour of Ingram himself, who looked as though he might make a good rugger-captain, but a national quiz champion never. At each question, he goes plodding through all four answers in sequence, sometimes more than once, trying to look profound, and adding comments that are often contradictory. Even for the slow-witted Ingram, this seems a weird ritual, but presently we see what he is doing - waiting for an accomplice in the audience to signal the correct answer by coughing at the right moment.

Then there is his wife Diana, easily recognizable as Lady Macbeth, the brains behind it all. At first, nothing seems particularly out of place, except that she is inclined to glance to her left, for no obvious reason, but never to her right. It is when we get to the quarter-million mark that the stress-levels start to affect her, and she cannot hide her anxiety. At one point, she herself is even driven to cough - twice - in a most unconvincing way. It appears that he was meant to stop at the quarter-million and just take his win, not risk losing it all by going higher (while forgetting that the accomplice too would be unprepared). No wonder she was tapping her pretty foot with impatience.

And then Tarrant himself - perhaps born for the job, with his sociable manner and infectious air of optimism and good cheer, like an advertisement for the millionaire life. If you wonder why he tolerated Ingram's blunderings, it was because quiz-shows need to build-up suspense, with all that slow horror-film music, to contrast with all the left-brain logic.

As always, we get the Flat Earth Society protesting that the dear old major was innocent. Tarrant, after being made to sit through months of evidence in court, has a short way with such dreamers.