Wagatha Christie is now a Channel 4 TV series – but in reality, it’s just a farce

Vardy v Rooney (aka Wagatha Christie), unsurprisingly, is already scripted and will air on Channel 4 in two parts this week. David Sherborne, Coleen Rooney’s attorney, has been honored with the full treatment of Martin Sheen. It’s an actual play, in the sense that the entire scenario is taken from the court record. Not a single word is fictitious.

This is not the first time such a device has been used. Ten years ago, journalist Richard Norton-Taylor wrote a play, Colors of Justice, in which all the words were taken from the McPherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It’s a topic worthy of dramatization, turning a sometimes cumbersome but critically important event into a much more accessible form.

Vardy v Rooney is not but who frankly cares? It was an attempt to allow the millions of people who were attached to the trial to get a feel for what it really was like in that little room.

It was a noble endeavour, but, as someone in that small room, reporting, that is, mocking the trial for The Independent, there was arguably an omission.

Since Vardy v Rooney is not a play, it is a farce. It could hardly have looked more like a comedic event if it had been scripted (which it is now).

One of the clearest and most effective comedic devices ever used was to take the supposedly low-brow material and subject and convey it in a high-brow manner. In Posh, Laura Wade’s incredibly poignant and generally wonderful play about the Bullingdon Club (which later became the movie Riot Club), silly old Etonians performing rap tracks and Classic hip hop between scenes for the sake of little drama in addition to boisterous laughter .

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In real life, Wagatha Christie testing has taken this device to insurmountable extremes. The curt voices of the old Etonian lawyers, the oak-paneled walls, the capes and the wigs looked and sounded as if someone was about to be sent to Botany Bay for life for stealing a loaf of bread. . But the topic is about the difference between main Instagram stories and grids, how Insta stories work, who is “on fire” with whom at what time and why, etc.

It could be argued that it sheds some light on the state of the modern world, in the sense that these very well-paid lawyers are paid by women from lowly backgrounds who are now rich. much more than them. And more importantly, their huge hourly rate didn’t give any of them an Instagram savvy, which the vast majority of the population under 45 take for granted.

The trial’s ups and downs and the brutal cross-examination of Rebekah Vardy will not be easily forgotten by anyone who witnessed it. But one also won’t forget that it happened as a direct result of her decision to sue someone for defamation for accusing her of doing something that the judge would later conclude that she really did. the done. (Rebekah Vardy continues to deny this, in nearly countless television interviews. She does not support her rehabilitation in doing so.)

This is not to shed light on the legitimate sufferings of those involved. Undoubtedly, Coleen Rooney has been deeply distressed by stories from her personal Instagram account being monetized by someone she trusts but doesn’t know, especially the newspaper involved. The key is The Sun and she’s a very proud Scouser.

And there’s no doubt that the social media whirlwind caused by Coleen Rooney’s investigation into Rebekah Vardy is utterly evil, and that perhaps Coleen Rooney should have known better.

She said several times during the trial that she didn’t want to be there. That she wanted to settle out of court. In other words, she could have done it without the drama. But the dramatic act is her own at first. There are other paths open to her. The demons didn’t need to be released in such a complete way.

In real life, Wagatha Christie has brought relief to those living in a world that has become increasingly crazier. Some may choose to wonder whether more important events are worth dramatizing, and whether in the future we may wonder if we can reveal more than we can. expect it or not when there is so much going on and the wives of two footballers have kept it a secret. The high court was deemed worthy of this kind of impressive reconstruction.

It could also be something of a catalog error. Wagatha Christie’s joy lies in not taking it too seriously. Shine too much light on tears and pain and ruined lives, and it won’t be funny anymore, and that won’t work, frankly.