Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1975 iconic blockbuster Jaws, producers Sonia Friedman Productions, Scott Landis, GFour Productions and Kenny Wax announce the critically acclaimed Olivier award-nominated West End and Broadway production, The Shark Is Broken, will embark on a UK and Ireland tour next year.
Co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon and inspired by Robert Shaw’s experience playing ‘Quint’ in Jaws, The Shark Is Broken is the brilliantly funny play which celebrates movie history as it peeks at the choppy waters behind Hollywood’s first blockbuster and imagines what happened on board ‘The Orca’ when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Steven Spielberg’s epic movie.
Starring Ian Shaw (Warhorse, Common) as his father, Robert Shaw, the UK and Ireland tour will open at Oxford Playhouse on Thursday 23 January and will tour to a further 14 venues culminating with a week at The Gaiety Theatre in Dublin until 17 May 2025. Tickets are now on sale at most venues with further dates coming soon (see tour listings overleaf).
Casting for the roles of Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are to be announced.
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.
Following its critical and sell-out success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019, The Shark Is Broken transferred to the West End in 2021 playing at the Ambassadors Theatre for a limited season where it enjoyed an extended run due to huge popular demand and an Olivier award nomination for Best Comedy Play. In July 2023 the production transferred to Broadway for a 16-week run at the John Golden Theatre where it garnered fresh critical acclaim.
