Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama

Last updated

Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama
Genre Courtroom drama
Written by Chris Atkins
Directed byOonagh Kearney
Starring
Music byKieran Kiely
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes2
Production
Executive producer
  • Tom Popay
ProducerCatherine Donohoe
CinematographyEvan Barry
EditorJulian Ulrichs
Production company Chalkboard
Original release
Network Channel 4
Release21 December (2022-12-21) 
22 December 2022 (2022-12-22)

Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama is a Channel 4 two-part courtroom drama based on the Wagatha Christie events and subsequent high-profile court case. [1]

Contents

Premise

The mini series recreates the English High Court defamation case between the two figures Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney from 2022, with the focus on the opposing legal teams. The case arose after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking posts from her private Instagram account to The Sun newspaper resulting in Vardy suing Rooney for libel. [2] [3]

Cast

Production

In July 2022 it was announced that Channel 4 would produce a 2-part drama based on the events of the high-profile trial. Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, directed by Oonagh Kearney, which would recreate courtroom scenes using verbatim court transcripts against analysis from the media. [4]

Release

The series aired on 21 December 2022 on Channel 4 in the UK.

Reception

YearAwardCategoryNomineeResultRef.
2023 Broadcasting Press Guild Best Drama Mini SeriesVardy v Rooney: A Courtroom DramaNominated [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris[1997] EWHC 366 (QB), known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris over a factsheet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true.

<i>Witness for the Prosecution</i> (1957 film) 1957 American film by Billy Wilder

Witness for the Prosecution is a 1957 American legal mystery thriller film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, and Elsa Lanchester. The film, which has elements of bleak black comedy and film noir, is a courtroom drama set in the Old Bailey in London and is based on the 1953 play of the same title by Agatha Christie. The first film adaptation of Christie's story, Witness for the Prosecution was adapted for the screen by Larry Marcus, Harry Kurnitz, and Wilder. The film was acclaimed by critics and received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It also received five Golden Globes nominations including a win for Elsa Lanchester as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Additionally, the film was selected as the sixth-best courtroom drama ever by the American Film Institute for their AFI's 10 Top 10 list.

A canary trap is a method for exposing an information leak by giving different versions of a sensitive document to each of several suspects and seeing which version gets leaked. It could be one false statement, to see whether sensitive information gets out to other people as well. Special attention is paid to the quality of the prose of the unique language, in the hopes that the suspect will repeat it verbatim in the leak, thereby identifying the version of the document.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TruTV</span> American cable and satellite television channel

TruTV is an American basic cable channel owned By Warner Bros Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts reruns of comedy, docusoaps and reality shows, with a recent strong primetime focus on live sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davy Jones's locker</span> Sailor legend

Davy Jones' locker is a metaphor for the oceanic abyss, the final resting place of drowned sailors and travellers. It is a euphemism for drowning or shipwrecks in which the sailors' and ships' remains are consigned to the depths of the ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coleen Rooney</span> English television personality (born 1986)

Coleen Mary Rooney is an English media personality. She is married to English football manager and former player Wayne Rooney.

<i>Witness for the Prosecution</i> (play) 1953 play by Agatha Christie

Witness for the Prosecution is a play adapted by Agatha Christie from her 1925 short story "Traitor's Hands". The play opened in London on 28 October 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre. It was produced by Sir Peter Saunders.

Libel is a 1959 British drama film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Olivia de Havilland, Dirk Bogarde, Paul Massie, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Robert Morley. The screenplay was by Anatole de Grunwald and Karl Tunberg from a 1935 play of the same name by Edward Wooll.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Court TV</span> Digital broadcast television network

Court TV is an American digital broadcast network and former pay-television channel. It was originally launched in 1991 with a focus on crime-themed programs such as true crime documentary series, legal analysis talk shows, and live news coverage of prominent criminal cases. In 2008, the original cable channel became TruTV.

<i>The Sun</i> (United Kingdom) British tabloid newspaper

The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lachlan Murdoch's News Corp. It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom, but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtroom photography and broadcasting</span>

Courtroom photographing, videotaping and broadcasting is restricted in many jurisdictions. The law varies from limited film and electronic media coverage in some countries, to a complete ban in others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chanel Cresswell</span> English actress

Chanel Cresswell is an English actress, known for playing Kelly Jenkins in the film This Is England (2006) and the three subsequent series This Is England '86 (2010), This Is England '88 (2011) and This Is England '90 (2015), for which, she won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in 2016.

Vardy is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Atkins (filmmaker)</span> British filmmaker

Chris Atkins is a British journalist, documentary film maker and best-selling author. He has made several fiction feature films, feature length documentaries and television documentaries, which have received three BAFTA nominations.

The Trial: A Murder in the Family is a British television docudrama, produced by Dragonfly Film and television, that first broadcast on Channel 4 on 21 May 2017. The five-part series follows a fictional court case in which university lecturer Simon Davis is tried for the murder of his wife Carla, in an attempt to recreate an accurate portrayal of an English legal trial. Filming and recording of nearly all real court proceedings in England and Wales was prohibited, hence the trial presented cannot be a genuine case. However, the prosecuting counsel, defence counsel and judge featured in the series were real professionals; and the jury was made up of twelve members of the British public. The only actors featured were the defendant and other key witnesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2 Hare Court</span> British law firms established in 1567

2 Hare Court is a barristers' chambers specialising in criminal and regulatory law, located in the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of court. Established in the 1967, It employs 77 barristers, including 23 King's Counsel and several former prosecutors, including those who have acted as First Senior, Senior and Junior Treasury Counsel – barristers appointed by the Attorney General to prosecute the most serious and complex criminal cases to come before the courts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebekah Vardy</span> Wife of footballer (born 1982)

Rebekah Vardy is a British media personality. She was a contestant on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2017 and on Dancing on Ice in 2021. In 2022, she lost a well-publicised libel case against Coleen Rooney, dubbed the "Wagatha Christie" trial. It was determined that Vardy did play a role in leaking fabricated stories about Rooney to The Sun, a British tabloid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wagatha Christie</span> English libel dispute in 2019–2022

Wagatha Christie is a popular name given to a dispute between the British media personalities Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney, which culminated in a 2022 libel case in the English High Court, Vardy v Rooney.

Dame Karen Margaret Steyn, DBE is a British High Court judge.

David Alexander Sherborne is the son of a KC who practiced as a criminal barrister. Sherborne was educated at UCS Hampstead and at Oxford. He was called to the bar in October 1992, to specialise, like his father (b.1930) in criminal law.

References

  1. "The Cast of Channel 4's Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama Are Revealed". Channel 4. 12 October 2022.
  2. "Wagatha Christie Drama: Channel 4 Casts Its Rebekah Vardy & Coleen Rooney, With Michael Sheen Set To Play Barrister". Deadline. 12 October 2022.
  3. "Channel 4's Wagatha Christie Drama Has Found Its Coleen Rooney And Rebekah Vardy". Vogue. 12 October 2022.
  4. "Wagatha Christie: Channel 4 to turn Vardy v Rooney libel trial into two-part drama". Evening Standard. 26 July 2022.
  5. "Television and Streaming nominations for this year's BPG Awards revealed". Broadcasting Press Guild. 23 February 2023. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  6. "Broadcasting Press Guild Awards (2023)". IMDb. Retrieved 11 March 2024.