Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama — Michael Sheen brings bravado to Wagatha Christie story  

Michael Sheen stars in a drama about an infamous confrontation between a high-profile figure with a probing mind and another who used underhanded methods to further their own interests. Is it Frost/Nixon? No, this is Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, Channel 4’s two-part re-enactment of the celebrity libel case dubbed the Wagatha Christie trial.

The show’s title is pretty self-explanatory, but for those who somehow had better things to do than follow the feud between two footballers’ wives, further context might be required. The story revolves around an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by Rebekah Vardy (wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy) against Coleen Rooney (married to former England captain Wayne), after the latter publicly accused her in 2019 of leaking private Instagram posts to the press.

Rooney did so after setting an ingenious trap whereby fake updates published on her personal account were made visible to fewer and fewer followers. When fabrications shared with only Vardy found their way into The Sun newspaper, Rooney named and shamed the alleged culprit on Twitter with the now immortal words: “It’s . . . Rebekah Vardy’s account.” 

In May this year, as proceedings began, the FT compared the “vanity case” to an inglorious West End show. Since then, the trial — a readily saleable meeting of lowbrow scandal and High Court gravitas — has inspired an actual West End play and now a TV adaptation based almost entirely on condensed court transcripts.

Sheen plays David Sherborne, a celebrity barrister (in both senses) who represents the self-made sleuth Rooney (Chanel Cresswell) and presents Vardy (Natalia Tena) as someone who sought to profit from any sordid story she came across. As Vardy desperately tries to explain away texts to her agent about proposed leaks as jokes or misunderstandings — or, worse still, acts of public service — it becomes clear that the whole trial is a disastrous own goal.

Those who find the whole matter egregiously trivial might still enjoy the spectacle of watching a top lawyer tie someone in knots. The role of Sherborne demands little more than fluency, rhetorical flair and a touch of smug bravado — all of which Sheen supplies effortlessly. Others may feel sympathy for the two women whose self-absorption and self-promotion may be unedifying, but hardly more so than the widespread and seemingly class-based sneering it elicits — not least from the barristers.

To its credit, the show doesn’t sensationalise events further with speculative out-of-court scenes. But the more we watch people parsing WhatsApp messages and scrutinising emojis, the more aware we are that this doesn’t quite have the same dramatic weight as, say, the OJ Simpson trial. Still, as an alternative to festive programming it’s . . . a reasonably entertaining account.

★★★☆☆

On Channel 4 on December 21 and 22 at 9pm, and on All4 thereafter