Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

From Wagatha Christie to Donald Trump: can rapid-fire real-life drama upstage the news?

Lucy May Barker (Rebekah Vardy) and Laura Dos Santos (Coleen Rooney) in Vardy V Rooney, The Wagatha Christie Trial at Wyndham;s theatre, London.
Lucy May Barker (Rebekah Vardy) and Laura Dos Santos (Coleen Rooney) in Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial at Wyndham’s theatre, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian

Just before the curtain came up on Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial, producer Eleanor Lloyd spoke to the audience about its breakneck transposition from real-life courtroom drama to stage show and the “high-wire act” that such theatre becomes. The part-verbatim show dramatises the case that was detonated soon after Coleen Rooney dropped her Instagram grenade and Rebekah Vardy filed for libel.

Having run in the high court and been reported in the media only a few months earlier, here it was again, reprising the best lines, from chipolata-gate to Davy Jones’s Locker. Laying its public interest debate aside, it was indisputably the watercooler story of the spring and summer, its incredible WhatsApp turns holding us rapt.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.