‘We’re going to need a bigger boat’. For people of a certain age – reader, include your reviewer in that category – these immortal lines evoke both terror and nostalgic fascination. Looking back to the heady days of 1970’s hot summers it’s hard to believe the level of excitement generated by Jaws – the film creating a money-making imprint for future blockbusters.
The fact that many people still associate going to the beach with the theme tune from Jaws in the back of their mind as they enter the water speaks volumes about the impact the film continues to have more than 50 years later.
The play’s title refers to the problems director Steven Spielberg and crew had with the mechanical shark created to replicate a great white. In fact, not just one animated shark made from steel and polyurethane but three different models were built in preparation for filming. Continuous mechanical failures meant constant stops in production and left the cast with nothing to do but bicker among themselves for days and weeks on end.

The play focusses on the relationship between the three main actors – Robert Shaw playing Quint, Richard Dreyfus playing Hooper and Roy Scheider as Chief Brody. It is deftly written by Ian Shaw, son of Robert, who sketches a no-holds bared portrait of his dad as a sclerotic alcoholic who could be by turns affectionate and damning. The wrath of his ire is aimed primarily at the ‘young punk’ Dreyfus, constantly clamouring for attention and validation and longing to be away from New England and its clam chowders and back home in Beverly Hills.
The play is affectionate in showing how the three actors – three very different characters themselves – navigate the boredom of being stuck on set (stuck indeed on a boat). It is in many ways a personal paean from Ian Shaw to his father, a man whose artistic temperament clashed with the imperatives of commercial film production. There is a particularly moving scene where Shaw senior reminisces about his alcoholic father, who died young, and how he felt he could somehow save him as a son, but failed to. It is hard not to imagine this is how Ian Shaw feels.

The play has lots of laugh-out-loud moments and much is made of the the actors predicting that the film is going to be a flop, but then wondering the next minute if Spielberg would make a sequel, something they all agree is a fanciful idea.
Ian Shaw is mesmerising as his father, not least because of the physical similarities, and with the play has pulled off a theatrical hit. The other star of the show – for all the obvious reasons – is Ashley Margolis as the hyperactive Dreyfus, bouncing around the cabin of the boat like a manic four-year-old, and wondering if the film is going to make him a star so that he can ‘make a million bucks’. He is the hippy weed and cocaine sniffer in deep contrast to the old school thespian ways of Robert Shaw.
Dan Fredenburgh bears an uncanny resemblance to Chief Brody and perfectly adopts his laconic mannerisms – playing the diplomat between Shaw and Dreyfus and eagerly soaking up the New England sunshine on deck.
It is now safe to go back in the water…
The Shark is Broken is at Lowry, Salford from 5-8 February 2025.