By T.R. Reid
The Washington Post
LONDON — Who wants to (cough) be a (cough, cough) millionaire?
That’s the ticklish question being probed by Scotland Yard as detectives pursue an alleged cheating scandal on the British version of the TV quiz show that has become a global hit. Police Thursday arrested a grand prize winner and two associates on grounds that the team used coded coughing by an audience member to signal the right answers.
The criminal investigation is an embarrassment to Celador, the British production company that invented "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and successfully exported the format around the world. The British have regularly maintained that their version of the show is harder, and thus purer, than overseas knockoffs. The media here particularly like to make fun of Regis Philbin and ABC for dumbing down the questions asked on the U.S. edition.
It is true that the British version has produced fewer millionaires than Regis and Co. across the Atlantic. When a British army major, Charles Ingram, correctly answered the final question in September, he was only the third person in the three-year history of the British show to win the million-pound ($1,440,000) top prize. (The ABC show, in contrast, has awarded the top money nine times.)
However, Ingram’s performance has not yet made him a millionaire. After reviewing videotapes of Ingram’s big night, the producers refused to broadcast the show, canceled payment on the check, then called Scotland Yard.
According to reports here, the contestant had a habit of repeating the questions and the multiple choice responses out loud before answering. As Ingram was contemplating his final answers to some questions, production officials thought they heard a suspicious pattern of coughs emanating from the audience. When the correct response was "C," for example, three coughs were heard.
On the last question — "What number is written as a 1 followed by 100 zeroes?" — there was reportedly a rash of coughing in the audience before Ingram chose the correct answer: "googol."
Ingram, 38, has vigorously denied cheating and has filed suit against Celador, demanding the million-pound payoff. Morgan Cole, the London law firm representing him, says the civil action is pending.
But Thursday, the legal situation turned murkier as police arrested Ingram, his wife, Diana, and another contestant who appeared on the show the same night Ingram hit the jackpot. All three have been released on bail. Scotland Yard said it is investigating "alleged conspiracy to defraud."
Ingram, a career officer in the Royal Engineers, is not the first member of his family to take a fling at the famous quiz show. Both his wife and his brother-in-law won $46,000 as contestants. Diana Ingram subsequently published a book, "Win a Million," describing tactics for the show.
One of the toughest parts of competing for the million-pound prize in this country is getting on the program in the first place. So many Britons want to compete that Celador charges a fee just for calling up to apply. Celador makes enough money on the telephone fee to cover the prizes its pays.
It’s tough even to get a seat in the audience for a taping. Since the Ingram incident, Celador says, audience members are routinely frisked before entering the soundstage and warned that cameras are trained on them throughout the program. Cell phones have been banned from the audience as well.
The British media have had a field day with the scandal, just as they did last year when insurers complained that ABC had made the questions too easy on the American show and was thus paying off too many millionaires.
"You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to become a millionaire — you just have to be an American," noted London’s Guardian newspaper.
Questions on the U.S. version have included such stumpers as "How many full bags of wool are there in "Baa Baa Black Sheep’?" and "Which condiment is known as a Latin dance: mustard, mayonnaise, relish or salsa?"
To win a million pounds on the British show, you have to answer queries like "What is the title of Part III of T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’?" (Answer: "The Fire Sermon.") And "What is the SI unit of magnetic flux density?" (Answer: The tesla.) And you’d better answer without coughing.
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