Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial, West End review ★★★★★

It was the trial that piqued the interest of even those with little to no knowledge of Premier League footballers and their ‘WAGs’ (wives and girlfriends). In spring 2022, Rebekah Vardy’s libel case against Coleen Rooney went to the High Court, with Vardy attempting to sue Rooney for defamation after Rooney publicly accused Vardy of selling false stories about her to The Sun newspaper. Rooney outed Vardy in a viral, detective-style Instagram post that saw Rooney dubbed ‘Wagatha Christie’ (remember the ‘..........’?). Channel 4 released a courtroom drama based on the trial in December 2022, but not before stage and screen writer Liv Hennessy brought a dramatisation of it to the West End stage last autumn.

Clearly, the public interest in the Vardy vs Rooney case still has some mileage in it, because the show’s producers have brought it back for another West End run this spring, after which it’s off on a national tour.

‘There’s a difference between what’s in the public interest and what interests the public,’ says one of the play’s two annoying-but-necessary presenters, who step in to offer snippets of backstory. It’s a wry observation: Hennessy’s adaptation is essentially a tabloid newspaper’s 'sidebar of shame' drip-fed on stage.

Working with director Lisa Spirling, Hennessy’s script plucks the highlights from the transcription of the seven-day trial, presenting these verbatim but with a subtle sense of mischief and enough hammed-up humour for it to land as a comedy. The reveal that Vardy claimed arguing with Rooney 'would be like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell it it’s right and you’re wrong but it’s still going to sh** in your hair' was one of several winning lines that earned a laugh on press night.

Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. Photo: Pamela Raith

On designer Polly Sullivan’s set, panelled courtroom walls and a pair of long benches are offset by a stage floor resembling an astroturf football pitch, fusing the story’s two backdrops. The play is peppered with football puns and through shrill whistles, dramatic entrances and excitable commentary, similarities are drawn between the nature of a football match and a court case, with two opposing teams going head-to-head in a bid to win.

To our left we have Vardy, played with a deadpan expression and sarcastic drawl by Lucy May Barker, the drama’s funniest player. To our right, Laura Dos Santos is the fretful, softly spoken Liverpudlian Rooney. Each woman comes armed with a smug lawyer and through dimly lit flashbacks and wince-worthy readings of private messages, we hear of Vardy’s long-standing courting of The Sun, leaked (fake) stories of flooded basements and Rooney heading to Mexico for ‘gender selection’ treatment, and missing evidence on the phone of Vardy’s agent Caroline Watt, which was conveniently lost at sea.

Cameo appearances from a monosyllabic Rooney and a lairy Vardy get a cheer from the audience’s footie fans.

Halema Hussain and Nathan McMullen in Vardy v Rooney The Wagatha Christie Trial. Photo: Pamela Raith

The play ends with the verdict of the trial, handed down by a sidelined judge, who is silent for the most part.

It doesn’t pass judgement, or offer commentary, or muse on the rise and fall of our obsession with WAG culture, or question why, at a time of political turbulence, we became a nation enthralled by each vacuous detail of a brawl between two privileged footballers’ wives.

It’s the stage equivalent of reality TV, and while it’s not a play to make you think, Vardy V Rooney is guilty-pleasure watching that’s somehow both frivolous and fascinating.