Who Wants To Be A Millionaire composer leaves £1.5million in will

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire composer Matthew Strachan left £1.5million in his will after death at the age of 50

• Composer Matthew Strachan died aged 50 in August last year
• He was famed for writing the TV quiz show’s theme and music with his father
• The pair wrote 95 snippets of music to cover every event on the show 

Composer Matthew Strachan, who co-wrote the theme tune for Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, left more than £1.5 million in his will.

Strachan died aged 50 in August last year. He was famed for writing the TV quiz show’s theme and dramatic incidental music with his father Keith over eight days in 1998.

The pair wrote 95 snippets of music to cover every event on the show. They increased the music cues by a semitone each time a contestant was asked a more difficult question to heighten tension and excitement.

The musical backdrop became an integral part of the show, and was well-known around the world thanks to the programme’s many international versions. 

Composer Matthew Strachan, who co-wrote the theme tune for Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, left more than £1.5 million in his will

It won Strachan and his father an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ award for ten years in a row as the most-broadcast piece of music on US television.

Probate records reveal that Strachan, of Twickenham, South-west London, left an estate of £1,588,109 to his wife Bernadette after legal and funeral expenses.

Strachan of Twickenham, south west London, collaborated with his chick-lit author wife, to jointly write musicals and two novels.

He also composed music for countless radio and television shows including Question Time, Winning Lines, The National Lottery, EastEnders and Radio 4’s World Ware One drama series Home Front which ran from 2014 to 2018.

Strachan died just weeks after being sentenced at Kingston Crown Court for setting fire to his house in a drunken suicide attempt in March 2020 after struggling over the breakdown of his marriage.

The court heard he had started fires in his kitchen and in piles of bedding before dialling 999, saying it was likely he would be dead before rescuers arrived.

The call handler heard him as he jumped out of a first-floor window.

He was given a ten month jail sentence suspended for two years, and ordered to undergo treatment for alcohol and mental health problems.  

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