The trial of the century was how the tabloids tried to bill the Vardy v Rooney showpiece. The Wagatha Christie Trial is the name social media gave it, writes Michael Holland…
The stage is the courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice. Honi Soit Qui Mal y Pense declares the coat of arms behind the judge’s chair, or Shame on him who thinks evil, and Vardy v Rooney does precisely that.
Coleen Rooney (Laura Dos Santos) opens proceedings by reading out the staggered tweets that revealed the ‘friend’ who had been leaking private stories about her to The Sun.
It was done slowly, tweet by tweet, spread out over time to create hyper-attention, until the final tweet claimed to the waiting world that it was Rebekah Vardy (Lucy May Barker) who had been doing the dirty on her; Vardy, who had been accepted as a friend but had been an enemy all the time.
The script has been put together from the case transcripts by Liv Hennessy, leaving us with the hilarious match highlights. And, of course, with the two women both married to top footballers the play is bursting with football references. Some used by the two pundits acting as narrators to the sordid tale, and others by the lawyers hired for a lot of money to win the case for their respective clients.
Pundit Halema Hussain also doubles up as Caroline Watt, Vardy’s PR and perhaps the real villain of the piece, while the second pundit, Nathan McMullen, fills in cameos of Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy.
There is a hectic first half with Vardy in the dock and facing four days of interrogation, with her main defence being that she didn’t remember anything. But David Sherborne (Tom Turner), the grandstanding barrister for Rooney, had Vardy on the back foot before long. He has been showboating through show trials for most of his career, so he looked very much up for the game.
But this was a trial of two halves. After half-time it is Coleen Rooney off the bench and facing questions from Hugh Tomlinson QC (Jonnie Broadbent) who, to be fair, had very little to work with after the kicking his client had been given before the interval and it was an easy win for Team Rooney – Back of the net!
The Wagatha Christie Trial is a laugh a minute, so much so that you lose sight of the sadness the whole affair brought to people’s lives: the betrayal, the lies, the paranoia. But this was played for laughs and it should be enjoyed for that.
It is a play that could get non-theatre-goers going. It is today’s Play For Today for a tabloid-reading generation, and that can’t be a bad thing.
When the cast came out for their bows they each did a well-known goal celebration, so expect a Robot and the Dentist Chair as well as others.
Ambassadors Theatre, West St, London WC2H 9ND until May 20th. Times: Mon – Sat 7.30pm; Thur & Sat matinees 2.30pm.
Admission: £25 – £75.
Booking: https://www.atgtickets.com/venues/ambassadors-theatre
