The Shark Is Broken

THE SHARK IS BROKEN IS SET TO MAKE WAVES ON A UK & IRELAND TOUR FROM JAN 2025

★★★★★

Evening Standard Sunday Mirror Sunday Express

★★★★

The Times The Telegraph Daily Mail

FADE IN: The open ocean, 1974. Filming is delayed…again. The lead actors—theatre veteran Robert Shaw and young Hollywood hotshots Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider—are crammed into a too-small boat, entirely at the mercy of foul weather and a faulty mechanical co-star. Alcohol flows, egos collide, and tempers flare on a chaotic voyage that just might lead to cinematic magic…if it doesn’t sink them all.

Step aboard the Orca and into THE SHARK IS BROKEN, a “profound dive behind the scenes of the making of Jaws” (The Daily Telegraph, ★★★★). This Olivier Award-nominated new play is “hilariously brilliant and pure genius” raves the Sunday Express (★★★★★) and stars Ian Shaw (War Horse, Common) as his father, Robert Shaw.

THE SHARK IS BROKEN celebrates movie history and peeks at the choppy waters behind Hollywood’s first blockbuster.

Short tempers. Short circuits. 95 minutes, no intermission.

Photos of the original West End cast by Helen Maybanks

“It all comes together in a performance that swallows you whole.”

Theatermania

“SENSATIONAL! IN BETWEEN JOKES AND TASTY MOVIE TRIVIA, THIS IS A STORY OF FATHERS, SONS, MORTALITY, AND LEGACY.”

Mashable

“Witty and sharp with three terrific performances. Fin it to win it!”

The Daily Beast

“A wild ride worth taking!”

Entertainment Weekly

“Perfect summer entertainment.”

The Wall Street Journal

Gaiety Theatre

Tue 13 – Sat 17 May

Buy Tickets

Cast

Ian Shaw

Co-writer, Robert Shaw

Dan Fredenburgh

Roy Scheider

Ashley Margolis

Richard Dreyfuss

A Letter From The Author

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