CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: The Vardys' futile reality show told us nothing new. How utterly pointless!See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, TV CRITIC Published: 00:04 BST, 5 June 2026 | Updated: 01:20 BST, 5 June 2026
The Vardys (ITV1) Rating: One out of five stars Blame Ozzy. The Prince of Darkness and his flint-edged wife Sharon invented the domestic reality show with MTV's The Osbournes, and now everyone does it.Within the past year alone, we've suffered through Stacey & Joe on BBC1, with the oh-so-happily married Mrs Solomon and Mr Swash, and At Home With The Furys on Netflix, about boxer Tyson and his family, while Wayne and Coleen Rooney are also due to release their own series.The Rooneys' rivals, professional WAG Rebekah Vardy and her husband, former England striker Jamie, got in on the act with The Vardys, a three-parter charting their family's struggles after moving to Italy.But though these shows are inevitably edited to create false and flattering impressions, The Osbournes did tell us secrets. Ozzy was far more damaged by drugs and alcohol than most people knew, and utterly dependent on his wife. She seemed incapable of seeing it and, because she believed in him as a rock 'n' roll superstar, she made the world believe it, too.Most other reality shows think they can get away with a pretence of revealing the family's day-to-day muddle, while hiding everything they don't want us to see. The Rooneys' rivals, professional WAG Rebekah Vardy and her husband, former England striker Jamie, got in on the act with The Vardys, a three-parter charting their family's struggles after moving to Italy Pictured: Jamie and Rebekah Vardy in their new TV show The Vardys in particular are so self-centred and over- confident that they really seem to think we won't notice.Rebekah was keen to show us her children's Easter egg hunt, a polite and restrained affair as her youngest three trotted round the villa and garden, following printed clues and collecting plastic eggs.'Chaos!' hooted Becky. 'Carnage!' — though the children couldn't have been more well behaved if they'd been dressed up in sailor suits singing Doh Re Mi like the Von Trapps. Posh party of the night Posh party of the night:Salt-of-the-earth aristocrats The Hardacres (Ch5) threw a ball to thank their servants. Fiction? No, these shindigs were traditional in country houses, while in London they were held at the Albert Hall till 1938. Cross-dressing was common, apparently. Do they ever have meltdowns, or refuse to go to bed, or copy their father's constant mumble of foul language? We weren't told — but then, so much else was suppressed as well.Do the Vardys have staff? Who does the cooking and cleaning? More to the point, is there a nanny, or do the couple handle all the childcare themselves?We weren't told. When burglars raided the villa, headlines claimed they got away with £80,000 in luxury goods and jewellery. Was that figure accurate? How did the crooks get past security? We weren't told.Who dealt with the police: Jamie, Becky or an employee? Do detectives have any idea who the raiders were? The family were out at the time: sheer luck, or part of the burglars' plan? We weren't told.Jamie spent part of the season unable to play, but what was his injury? Does he intend to play in England next year? He's nearly 40, so will he retire? Guess what — we weren't told.The Vardys was a fairly futile concept to begin with because, if it weren't for the feud with the Rooneys, very few people would care two pins about them.But this show spent three episodes telling us absolutely nothing. Pointless.
