Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, review: time to drop this dreary affair in the North Sea

It must have seemed a good idea at the time, that time being the height of the “Wagatha Christie” madness that momentarily gripped the nation. A drama about the schlocky courtroom showdown between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy, with Michael Sheen as the grandstanding barrister, David Sherborne. How could it fail?

But what a dull enterprise Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama (Channel 4) turns out to be. What made the case so entertaining was the ludicrous pettiness of it all: two pampered footballers’ wives with more money than sense, having a public hissy fit about social media posts on subjects as piddling as a flooded basement and Rooney being tipsy in charge of a bicycle at Soho Farmhouse.

It was theatre, and the leading players knew it – Vardy rocking up to court in vintage Chanel, Rooney putting Wayne into service as her Fendi bag carrier. There was comedy in the juxtaposition of the setting and the subject matter, with an august High Court judge being asked to contemplate the significance of Vardy likening Peter Andre’s manhood to a chipolata.

Chris Atkins, the writer of Vardy v Rooney, has stripped away the comedy, because he thinks this is a serious business and no place for mockery. His high-minded sympathy is with Vardy, here portrayed as a vulnerable, unfairly maligned figure despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The script sticks rigidly to the real-life transcripts and ignores everything else. Vardy’s erstwhile agent, Caroline Watt (the woman who accidentally dropped her mobile phone into the North Sea, what are the chances), is featured but – because the court failed to hear evidence from her – she remains unknowable.

It’s ITV's Crown Court with lip filler. As someone who sat through almost every day of the case, I can say with some authority that the drama has got the window-dressing right (the set is a pretty accurate representation of the real-life courtroom) but the tone wrong. Vardy’s demeanour in the witness box was far more proud, while the boiling tension between the two couples on the day Jamie Vardy turned up is nowhere to be seen.

As for the casting? Natalia Tena looks more like a grieving Sicilian widow than a glamorous WAG. Chanel Cresswell looks the part as Rooney, but her Scouse accent is all over the shop, while the actor playing Wayne Rooney is small enough to fit down one of the real Wayne’s trouser legs. The recreation of Sherborne taking Vardy apart on the witness stand will be useful viewing for aspiring barristers. Other than that, though, I’m not sure what the point of this programme is.