JAWS PLAY THE SHARK IS BROKEN NAMED BEST THEATRE 2021
Named as one of the theatre highlights of 2021 by the Evening Standard, The Shark Is Broken, is anything but in need of fixing.
In a year that has seen the struggle of Covid continue for us all and the fate of West End shows staying open hang in the balance, Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon's The Shark Is Broken has in many ways been a metaphor for us all in lockdown.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, Ian said: "The play itself I think will resonate with the audience purely because you’ve got three people in it who are trapped on the boat so they have their own form of confinement that we’ve all been experiencing.
"The tension between them arises from that and I think there will be a few laughs because we’re all aware of what it’s like to be in this form of semi-imprisonment."
Filled with uncertainty, confinement and something seemingly never ending, the shooting of Steven Spielberg's Jaws is legandary. And now so is this play, thanks in no small part to the commanding performance of Ian Shaw, looking and sounding uncannily like his dad, Robert Shaw, playing Quint.
Not that Demetri Goritsas or Liam Murray Smith as Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, dressed as Chief Brody and Matt Hooper, are slouches either. It's like the threesome have walked out of the cinema screen, bringing an amazing cutaway set of the Orca with them.
As a piece of theatre it is amazing to watch the three men fill The Ambassadors Theatre with their almost larger than life characters dressed as the beloved Jaws characters. As a Jaws fan, it takes you to a higher plain completely.
This is the nearest you will get to time travel back to Martha's Vineyard, 1974, the nearest we have got so far to a live action The Jaws Log (the seminal making of Jaws by actor and co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb) and the nearest you'll get to feeling like the fourth crew member of the Orca. It's that close you can almost feel the wind in your hair and smell of salt, chum and Old Spice in the air.
Ian actually visited the set of Jaws when he was five years old, he doesn't remember much from it, but does remember meeting Bruce the shark.
The Daily Jaws met The Shark Is Broken at its first performance in Brighton back in 2019.
The Daily Jaws creator Ross was thrilled to see The Shark Is Broken’s first ever performance
Speaking to the Evening Standard, he said: "They took me onto the lot and they had this thing under a kind of blanket and pulled it back to show me the head of the shark and even though it was not moving I will never forget that."
No doubt it is the black eyes, like a doll's eyes that linger.
Like the film, it has triumphed against the odds. Where some plays and musicals in the West End have had to close temporarily due to Covid, with its cast of three, it has happily escaped having to close its beaches.
It has been such a success that it even extended its run, now until February 13th. The question is now not whether it will get a sequel (The Shark Is Broken Does SeaWorld anyone?) but more, will it tour across the UK or even the US?
That remains to be seen, but there certainly seems to be the - pardon the pun - appetite for it.
Rest assured, this is the biggest thing to happen to Jaws since the release of the Steven Spielberg film in 1975. And it demands to be seen on stage.
Words by Dean Newman
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