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The benefits of hosting Eurovision are contested. But Liverpool has that song contest to thank, improbably enough, for wooing an exiled writer back to her native city. Helen Serafinowicz is the co-writer of BBC sitcoms Motherland and, more recently, Amandaland. The world of TV, you might think, is at her feet – but instead she’s returning to Merseyside with a debut theatre show, a swords-and-sorcery pastiche about the relationship between Wayne and Coleen Rooney, rejoicing in the title The Legend of Rooney’s Ring.
“I’ve started reconnecting with Liverpool recently,” says Serafinowicz, scouse accent unmistakable as she dishes up a cuppa at her home in Norwich. “And I was invited to the Eurovision song contest in the city a few years ago.” While there, she went to see her friend, the actor Keddy Sutton, in a Jonathan Harvey play called A Thong for Europe at the Royal Court theatre. This was where teenage Helen used to watch heavy metal bands: elitist middle-class theatre the Royal Court is not. “It seems to have opened itself up to everyone.” And the play? “It was mad, but very funny. It showed that you can be very silly and true to Liverpool without taking the piss. That unlocked a lot of stuff for me. I began to think I might have some ideas.”
The one she went with involved “a legend that exists in Liverpool of Wayne and Coleen Rooney having this massive argument in their car, and her chucking her very expensive engagement ring out of the window. The next day, everyone in town went out with their metal detectors, looking for it.” Local history? Urban myth? Or pretext for a sub-Game of Thrones summer panto with pop songs and a cameo for Donald Trump? “Coleen is a princess and her parents are queen and king, and Wayne is a warrior. They get together, they split up, she’s broken-hearted and he goes on a quest to find the ring and re-propose to her.” She pauses. “The theatre says they’ve never done anything like this before.”
It is, she says, “a love story. I’m not making fun of them. There’s no Rebekah Vardy in it. I could have really gone for Wayne with some of the things that have stuck with him from previous news stories. But I don’t want to do that.” And as for Coleen: “She’s clever, she’s cool, she’s just a really interesting person.” She’s invited the Rooneys via their agent (no response so far) – and “I know that some of their family go to that theatre and might come.”
Maybe that’s why the 51-year-old professes herself “a bit nervous” about the show. Or is it because the theatre, and writing by herself, are outside her comfort zone? The unglamorous-parenting comedy Motherland was co-written with Sharon Horgan, Holly Walsh and Barunka O’Shaughnessy; so too its recent sequel Amandaland, about which Serafinowicz was “really not sure,” she recalls. “Because spin-offs don’t have a great record, do they? I was so surprised when we got those brilliant reviews.” Collaborating is tried and tested, then – but “being on my own is great too, to stick the blinkers on and delve into it”. And as for writing for the stage: “I just wanted to see if I could.”
So has she caught the theatre bug? “I would do, if the bug had a little bit of money attached to it!” Perhaps writing a local show for local people in Merseyside wasn’t the shrewdest way to capitalise on TV success. But it’s still pinch-yourself territory for a woman whose primary professional concern until recently was selling vintage furniture. “I had a shop here in Norwich. It’s what Hygge Tygge in Motherland was based on. I bought a lorry-load of mid-century German furniture from this guy selling it at £30 a piece. But the day I signed the lease on my shop was the day Motherland got the nod from the BBC. So I used it as an office. Customers would disturb me while I was on Zoom. It was a strange situation.”
Back then, the most famous sitcom writer in Serafinowicz’s family was her then-husband Graham Linehan (The IT Crowd; Father Ted), from whom she has since separated. Her brother, meanwhile, is actor, comedian – and host of Netflix’s recent Million Dollar Secret – Peter Serafinowicz. But now it’s Helen who’s hot telly property. “I’m in a really good position,” she admits. “People will look at my stuff. There are a million things I want to do, and not enough time to do them.”
But first, Rooney’s ring. Might it be, in Eurovision parlance, her Waterloo? “I had a dream that I won a Tony award for the script. Oh, God!,” she groans, tea cups drained. “It’s like exposing yourself, like streaking at a football match. This is just what has come out of my head. I’m really interested – no, not interested, terrified – to see how it goes.”
