• Player Rating: 8.5
• Stream: Hulu
• Running Time: 3 episodes, 44 to 48 minutes each
• Audience: Ages 13 and Older
Gripping, sensational, and thoroughly entertaining: You don’t need to know anything about the scandal involving Coleen Rooney, wife of Wayne Rooney, and Rebekah Vardy, wife of Jamie Vardy, to enjoy this series. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about football. Wagatha is more a British procedural than a soc-doc, and the story is so gripping, and moves at such a crisp pace, that you should set aside enough time to binge-watch all three episodes in one sitting.
Don’t underestimate the power of a catchphrase.
Case in point: Wagatha Christie. No doubt the story of how Coleen Rooney, wife of Wayne Rooney, revealed that Rebekah Vardy, wife of Jamie Vardy, was feeding private information about the Rooneys to a trashy tabloid, and that Rebekah then sued Coleen for libel, would have grabbed headlines based on the sensational merits of the high-wattage drama. But by giving these events a perfect name that’s fun to pronounce – and that comes with a built-in chortle every time you say it aloud – the British press turned a scandal into a sensation.
The truth is, you don’t need to know anything about Wagatha Christie to fully enjoy Coleen Rooney: The real Wagatha story, a three-part docudrama that’s streaming on Hulu in the United States, and available on Disney+ in Great Britain. You don’t need to know anything about Coleen, or Rebekah. You don’t even need to know anything about Wayne, or Jamie, or soccer.
That’s because Wagatha is so entertaining, so shocking, and so well-told all you need is a comfy place to sit and a three-hour block of time — because once you start Part 1, you’re going to binge-watch the whole thing.