Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story (Disney+)
Bodies (Netflix)
Britain’s Housing Crisis: What Went Wrong? (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Breeders (Sky Comedy/Now)
Never mind “Wagatha Christie”, who is Coleen Rooney, the woman behind the uber-shiny football wife veneer? I’m still not sure after watching her, sitting preternaturally poised, sphinx-like, giving her full account in the three-part docuseries Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story on Disney+.
Briefly, for those who’ve been sleeping under a shellac-ed rock these past few years, Rooney, “Wagatha Christie” and wife of former England football player Wayne, publicly revealed she’d set an Instagram trap for fellow football wife Rebekah Vardy, whom she suspected of leaking private information to the Sun. Vardy sued for libel (and lost).
Did the media and the public lap up every gruesome, ridiculous detail: phones lost at sea; both women arriving at the high court dressed to the sombre nines like Sicilian mob widows? Guilty as charged, m’lord.
Personally, I thought of the trial as a dark fairytale about status anxiety, with Coleen cast as the all-powerful Wag queen. Here, she’s seen regally presiding over her domain, driving her 4x4 through Cheshire (“I live in my car”), or with her four sons in the vast Rooney mega-mansion. Elsewhere, accompanied by family, friends and her legal team, musing on her pre-Wayne life (studious Liverpool schoolgirl) or running through the mildly monotonous details of her “Wagatha” sting operation (after all, we know most of it by now).
Indeed, Coleen laboriously explaining her Insta settings or, later, meticulously preparing for her unwanted court case doesn’t amount to small-screen gold. However, there are compensations – not least how Wayne’s appearances appear to be rationed. When he’s there, he stiffly sits in his own home as if Coleen has given him a restricted area day pass. Similarly, while Wayne’s past (cough) extracurricular drunken “mistakes” are light on the old deets, at least Coleen acknowledges them (“You do think, do I know this person?”). For his part, Wayne glumly observes: “Yeah, she wasn’t happy.” Which is more honesty than the Beckhams managed in their recent Netflix series.
I end up warming to the Rooneys, especially Coleen. She’s so controlled (like a glossy, suspicious robot), but she doesn’t seem vindictive: “Rebekah didn’t deserve to be trolled like that.” This is much better than previous Wagatha fare, including that rather dry 2022 Channel 4 drama. Still, from Rooney and Vardy, that’s quite enough of the Wagatha cottage industry. It needs to end now. Please?
When did sci-fi get so exhausting? I fear I may have significantly shortened my life wading through the new Netflix time-hopping crime drama Bodies.
Please pay attention, because it’s complicated and stragglers will be left behind. Created by Paul Tomalin, it’s based on the DC Vertigo graphic novel by Si Spencer. There are four different time zones (1890; 1941; 2023; 2053). Each one has a different mystified cop (Kyle Soller, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Amaka Okafor, Shira Haas) investigating the same naked male corpse lying in an alleyway (shot in one eye, with a squiggle on his wrist).
That’s just the basic outline. Stephen Graham shows up as a sinister futuristic figure (think Elon Musk styled by Severus Snape with occasional “Marlon Brando in Superman” vibes). People keep creepily intoning: “Know you are loved.” It’s all linked to a terrible “event” in 2023. Themes include fascism, time travel, forbidden love, ominous state-controlled utopias and more. Lots more. Several centuries and eight heaving episodes of “more”.
Bodies isn’t without merit. The web of interconnectivity just about holds; each detective is given their own story arc; malevolent characters keep things interesting; the graphic novel origins are stylistically echoed, with hues, shadows and clever camera angles. It’s just a shame that an intriguing premise (the same crime investigated in different eras) turns into such a lumbering, high-concept logjam.
How did affordable homes become the impossible dream of 21st-century Britain? In the two-part BBC Two docuseries Britain’s Housing Crisis: What Went Wrong?, the answer (“Two decades of political and economic failure”) is as depressing as it is complex.
It starts with New Labour taking power in 1997 and goes from there. The buy-to-let boom. The global financial crisis. The dearth of social housing. The suppression of housebuilding to enhance profit margins. And so on. The second episode covers everything from slum housing conditions and the leasehold scandal to Brexit, the Grenfell Tower disaster and the pandemic. Interviewees include former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, politicians Sajid Javid and Michael Gove, and money expert Martin Lewis.
If this is a socioeconomic whodunnit, the crime scene is busy: investors, developers, home-builders, mortgage lenders, to name but a few. It’s also a catastrophe without end, with many Britons barely able to cover rent or mortgages. Arguably, Britain’s Housing Crisis… should have started at least as far back as the 1980s, with Margaret Thatcher’s decision to sell off council houses. Still, this is a thorough exploration of a problem that isn’t going away.
Over to Sky Comedy for the fourth and final 10-part series of Breeders, the fractious comedy drama, created by Martin Freeman, Simon Blackwell and Chris Addison, that does for modern British parenting what Bluebeard did for marriage.
Bar the occasional outburst, potty-mouthed anti-dad Paul (Freeman) has been steadily mellowing since the early days of Breeders, when you watched chiefly to marvel that nobody was tipping off social services. In this series, set five years after the previous one, he’s positively zen, despite him and Ally (Daisy Haggard) preparing to split; huge revelations from their children (now played by Zoë Athena and Ladhood’s Oscar Kennedy); and generalised midlife ennui and gallows humour. “When does parenting end?” muses Paul. “About the time the crematorium curtains close and the kids put the house on Rightmove,” sighs Ally.
Breeders isn’t perfect. Paul and Ally still live in a swanky house their real-life counterparts couldn’t afford if they sold their souls to Satan. A later episode (mainly comprising an overseas sojourn) feels so weirdly lethargic and pointless, you seriously wonder if cast and crew just fancied going on a jolly. Still, the series has hit its stride. I’ll miss its cynicism-fuelled sparkle.
Star ratings (out of five)
Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story ★★★
Bodies ★★★
Britain’s Housing Crisis: What Went Wrong? ★★★★
Breeders ★★★★
What else I’m watching
Camp Courage
(Netflix)
A brief, tender gem of a documentary. Young Ukrainian refugee Milana travels with her grandmother to the Austrian Alps to enrol in a healing summer camp. Along the way, it’s revealed what she’s been through.
The Ex-Wife
(Channel 5)
Four-part psychological British thriller, originally shown on Paramount+. A jealous ex-wife harasses the new wife. Gratifyingly preposterous, it’s elevated by a strong cast led by Céline Buckens.
Pride of Britain: A Windrush Special
(ITV1)
A warm tribute to high-achieving Caribbean immigrants of the Windrush generation. They’re interviewed about their experiences by, among others, Trevor McDonald and Prince William.
