Wagatha Christie is a phrase that's been everywhere for the last few weeks, but few will know where the phrase was coined and who was behind it. The term has been widely used to describe a high profile dispute between footballers' wives Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy.
Kent funnyman Dan Atkinson actually unintentionally coined the phrase, not knowing how big it would become. He simply tweeted four words - Coleen Rooney: Wagatha Christie - and the rest is history.
In 2019 Coleen Rooney made a social media post accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories from her private Instagram account to The Sun newspaper. She stated she suspected someone was selling stories and had therefore restricted access to some of her posts, resulting in views from only one account under Rebekah's name.
When the story broke, Folkestone comedian Dan Atkinson tweeted and within minutes the post was being shared worldwide. It is now commonly associated with the subsequent trial, in which Rebekah Vardy is suing Coleen Rooney for libel reports KentLive.
They caught up with Dan to find out what he thinks about seeing the result of his viral tweet in the headlines every day. He said: "Going viral is weird. It’s something out of your control and that’s quite an unnerving experience. It all happened quite fast; the internet moves at such a ferocious speed.
"The good side of that is that it’s all over quite quickly as well, and the critics who were angered by my pun (and there were plenty, believe me - I think people receive online abuse for just daring to exist) moved onto their next fight quite quickly." Dan said, as a comedian, he is always on the lookout for stories 'mainly about Dover' that make him laugh, but he is not an avid 'WAG-watcher'.
He said: "I am not really interested in the case itself or the defendants, I just love a good pun, I have been avoiding the trial. My honest opinion is that nobody comes out of it any the better, and these are people with families, children etc - I don’t think it’s to my tastes to be honest."
The comedian has two children himself aged six and 10 and says that he was content enough that his tweet had managed to impress them for nearly '45 whole minutes'. He said: "Usually at that age children are easily impressed, but they are tough nuts to crack, or maybe I’ve broken them by ’trying to be funny’ around the house every day.
"Imagine how unimpressed they will be with me when they are teenagers. I’ve gone cold just thinking about it."
Despite the worldwide use of the name, and merchandise ranging from coffee mugs to hoodies being sold all over the internet, Dan is not reaping as much of the monetary reward as you might think. He said: "The card and gift shop Objectables on the Old High Street made a Wagatha Christie card, and promised to pay me a commission if they sold any.
"I received £2.20 cold hard cash, so it wasn’t all for nothing." Dan is the resident comedian at Folkstone Comedy Club and says it is 'like a dream come true'.
He said: "We have been running for nearly a decade now, and we’ve sold out every single show in advance. It really has turned into a bit of a hot ticket. I’ve always run professional comedy gigs, but nowhere in the country have people taken to it with the enthusiasm of this one.
"All five of us running the club are deeply passionate about creating a comedy experience that isn’t just good for Folkestone - we aim to make this the best comedy club in the whole country; we want people travelling from miles around to come here. We pour ourselves into everything from the atmosphere, to our gorgeous audiences right through to the professional sound, lights and smoke set-up.
"My own background in comedy means we can book comedians who wouldn’t usually come to play a town of this size; occasionally we will have big TV names popping in to try out new material, but we can’t advertise it."
The Folkestone Comedy Club doesn't run in the summer but is back from October 1 with a full season - on the first Saturday of every month.
