Take a look at what critics have had to say about the play about the trial of the year with our review round up…
The Guardian: *** “It becomes a parable for our social media age: we see the function of Instagram in the women’s lives, its interconnections with the press, and our avid consumption of both. But there is a deeper level of queasiness over whether this is a story of modern-day sleuthing or an older, more lurid tale of two successful women, pitted against each other, tearing each other down.”
Evening Standard: **** “The thick Scouse accent of Laura Dos Santos’s Coleen is held up for ridicule but she has dignity and cuts through the sophistry of Vardy’s lawyer like Ecuador destroying Qatar’s defence in the opening game of this World Cup. Nathan McMullen and Sharan Phull breathlessly commentate and explain legal points, and also step up to play Watt – voicing those historic text messages – and a delicately discomfited but disarmingly frank Wayne Rooney. The WAG hairstyles are perfect.”
Time Out: **** “It takes a bit of time to find its feet, but once it hits its stride, ‘Wagatha Christie’ is a gripping retelling of what went down in court that week. It will leave you lamenting that all UK court cases are not publicly televised: this one would have pulled in bigger audiences than all of Wayne Rooney’s World Cup appearances combined.”
iNews: *** “We marvel at the glorious inconsequentiality of so many of the social media exchanges cited in evidence, although as the action starts to drag on the approach to second half injury time, I begin to feel lemming-like legions of my brain cells jumping over a cliff in despair that this was the legal case to transfix a nation – 12 Angry Men, meet two narked women. “Why on Earth are we here?” asks Rooney’s barrister as the judge prepares to publish her verdict, and it is as if he speaks for us all.”
The Telegraph: *** “This piece of rapid-response verbatim theatre, at the Wyndham’s, has the audience whooping and booing at the famous trial’s sillier moments.”
Why Now.co.uk: ** “But what could have been a fun and raucous fifty-minute Fringe show slowly gives way to a two-hour slog. The show professes only to use the highlights of the trial—unfortunately, most of the real highlights are covered before the interval. The two commentators used to add context to the legal proceedings were left to interrupt for no reason other than to remind the audience they were there, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that this material was stretched long past its breaking point.”
The Stage: *** “Humorous, quick-response verbatim play, edited by adapted by Liv Hennessy and directed by Lisa Spirling, about the notorious defamation trial.”
The Metro: **** “There are laughs aplenty, caused by the perfectly timed delivery of the litigants and their lawyers. ‘Ha ha! She deffo did it!’ says Vardy, suddenly spotlit, in a gloriously Disney-queen evil voice when reciting the text she sent to her agent. Lucy May Barker is brilliant as the hard-bitten and woefully unself-aware Vardy.”
To book tickets visit: https://wagathaplay.com/