A play about the Vardy v Rooney “Wagatha Christie” legal fight will be staged in the West End on a date to be announced. A TV dramatisation of the high profile court case has already been secured by Channel 4.
Vardy, 40, lost a libel battle against 36-year-old Rooney over a social media post in 2019 which a High Court judge found to be “substantially true”. Rooney said she had carried out a months-long “sting operation” and accused Vardy of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
The stage production Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial has been adapted from a High Court transcript by Liv Hennessy. It will be directed by Lisa Spirling and produced by Eleanor Lloyd, who is behind the stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness For The Prosecution currently running in London.
“The way the trial gripped the nation – myself included – demonstrated to me straight away how well this story would translate to the stage; the twists and turns of the case were so intriguing you couldn’t write it," said Lloyd. And director Spirling, said: "This trial asks key questions about the complex boundaries between privacy and celebrity in modern Britain and what it is to be a so-called ‘Wag’.
The Channel 4 TV show was also created from court transcripts and will air later this year. In August, Disney+ said it is also creating a three-part documentary series about the court battle with “exclusive access” to Mrs Rooney.
