In 2017, I read a drinking diary my father kept, which I found painful and very brave. I had a moustache for another role I was playing. Suddenly I realized I looked like Quint. We were the same age. So I sketched out some ideas for a play. I shoved it in a drawer, thinking it was too crazy to actually do. Many years ago, I read about the extraordinary difficulties they had making JAWS, and it occurred to me that there was an interesting story behind the scenes of one of cinema’s most legendary movies.

I mentioned it to two of my friends, David Mounfield and Duncan Henderson, who thought the idea was good enough for them to co-produce at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Then I spoke to a writer friend, Joseph Nixon, who also thought it had legs and could be something a lot of people would find entertaining. I always loved the film, it feels burned into my DNA. And who doesn’t like a peek into a private world? So we wrote it together. Thank you to my wife Rachel and my family for all their support and love during that difficult process.

The play is dedicated to the wonderful David Mounfield and Joseph’s father Michael Nixon, both of whom sadly died in 2020. It is a farewell to them, and of course, my amazing father. Thank you to them for all the love and laughter they gave us.

Ian Shaw, 2023