Following the writing of a book titled “A Card From the Jaws Obsession,” an account of my younger self, ‘Jaws’, friends made, and a discovery of ‘The Book of Quint’, and Jaws OB Podcast by Ryan Dacko. This sixty-year-old, and once 11-year-old, came to sit alongside the cast of ‘The Shark Is Broken’ on May 1st, 2025.

On its arrival in the port town of Poole in May, a turn of events, starting in 1975, as that 11-year-old with a visit to the cinema to see Jaws in December of that year, had brought me here.

Now, in being asked to host a Q & A by Nick, a friend of old, linking back to my days playing in a band. Nick, a journalist and author, freelancing his expertise, working for The Lighthouse in Poole, brought my younger self hitched to this older version of me saying yes to his proposition.

A communication via e-mail does not do this proposition, in its acceptance, justice. For, in my astonishment, the penny took a spell to drop. Exchanges via this method are efficient, yes, but this can feel soulless. A significant unexpected proposal had landed on my shores. A use of exclamation marks, sufficed, several, representing my enthusiasm. Excitement, in abundance in 1975, I discovered, had been simmering about ‘Jaws’ for myself, from my rediscovery of watching the film again on its 2022 re-release. Nick, Introducing me to Charles, in our correspondence, ‘The Lighthouse’s Creative Engagement Producer’, set my destination, his guidance on what the evening required taken onboard.

This boyhood excitement, or very good in the 70s, needed taming. In hosting a Q & A, with Ian Shaw, playing his father Robert Shaw, Dan Fredenburgh, as Roy Scheider and Ashley Margolis as Richard Dreyfess, the elation dial needed turning down. A grin on my face, looking across the cast on the night, would, of course, be inappropriate. A permanent cheshire cat smile, although a truth in relating my emotional state on sharing the stage with the cast, would look weird, and off-putting for the actors and audience upon viewing.

Although for authenticity, if a sustained grin had been in need. A tooth lost in an accident in Poole as a young man matches the Robert Shaw, Quint missing tooth. The "do you wanna see something permanent, boom boom" line spoken in the film, whereupon Quint, after removing a capped tooth, matches my missing premolar.

Preparation: an orderly professional manner had to be portrayed on the night. An approach to achieve this appearance took shape in my construction of questions, where a sprinkling of nerves was always present. First port of call, phoning a friend. A sharing of the good news. A seeking of advice on the framing of the questions should start. Dialing the number, a voice answered.

Adrian McKenna, a man that knows a thing or two about Robert Shaw, about his work as an author, playwright, and actor. His insights into Shaw’s work are exceptional. We had become good friends discussing Robert Shaw over the Covid period via the socials. When a chance comes to a nearby venue, my partner and I go to see him play. He is a man of many talents, a musician being one. The music, life, and times of Eddie Cochrain is another passion of his.
Talking frequently of the route to go with ‘The Shark is Broken’ cast in the questioning, we discussed a theatre approach. Speak about the set design, upon cast preparation, the relationship of the film with the play. All splendid topics. All good theatre questions. This was our game plan.

Now, Adrain and I are both very aware of Robert’s novels. Robert Shaw’s talents as a writer are both things we admire, discussing Robert’s novels regularly. This is of note, when applied to myself observing the play, for the first time. Our game plan became a tad more. Well, not a plan at all.

I began thinking of the questions to ask on the night. That night, by the way, on May 1st was an important date in the Jaws universal calendar. For it was on this date in 1974 that the film entourage arrived in Martha’s Vineyard, the film's Amity. In 2025, 51 years later, the ripples touched Poole. To quote Ryan, “the Jaws universe is ever expanding”. Amity, as in Amity Square, is also a location in Poole. The film’s continuing ebb and flow never ceases.

First, the play. A viewing of the performance before my scheduled host appearance. This, being essential for an authenticity on the night, with my questioning. I had reserved seats at The Lighthouse, in fact, for two nights during its opening week, opening night 29th of April and the Q & A night itself. This, of course, although well appreciated, gave me little time to prepare questions related to the production.
Chance would have it. My partner Sheila and I had earlier in the year booked tickets to see the play at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham on April 26th. Wanting to meet up with Mark Fitzgibbons, a Jaws collector and Steph, this meeting in the Regency town was a chance to talk about the Jaws/Robert Shaw event in Westhoughton we had planned for August. Now, also an opportunity for a taking of notes with a closer look at ‘The Shark is Broken’.

Coming at the play with our game plan, but from a history of our discussions with Adrian, our shared acquaintance of Robert’s novels, made its presence known. I can say the lightbulb moment happened at the Everyman Theatre. More precisely, an over-analytic epiphany. Ah, that’s what the play is about. I must tell Adrian. That’s brilliant. I call this sort of revelation of understanding in thinking the “wait till I tell Eddie” moment. Spoken by Cabbie from John Carpenter's film Escape From New York, as Snake Plissken gets in his cab. The excitement shown by Cabbie gives an accurate measure of one’s emotional glee.

This was to be doubled, then trebled when viewing in Poole. For what is personal when observing another’s work is of importance.
When given time to compound that interpretation with several viewings, well, it was getting a bit like my 11-year-old self, with recurring viewings of the film. It’s not really just about a shark, or is it? Doubt, in this case, on meanings related to ‘The Shark is Broken’ was becoming non-existent. Sureness prevailed. The novels of Robert Shaw are ever present, skillfully relayed via the spoken word or tactilely placed in an action.

The performances were as expected excellent, over all three showings. A turn of events in Cheltenham, where Ian had to take care of his voice, had seen his understudy Owen Oldroyed play the Robert Shaw role. Frankly, viewing from the stalls, Owen, could have been Ian. I know, many see the plays’ importance, is the fact that Ian plays his father Robert. But, yes, a role that becomes something extraordinarily special with Ian’s role as his dad and him being also the writer of the play with Joseph Nixon, adds a gravitas. Owen’s convincing performance nevertheless made the role he played enjoyable to watch in relation to the production. As a standalone piece, the play works in the writing. Its performances, when done well by any actor, make the play thrive as a piece of theatre.

Now, the references to Robert’s books, mentioned earlier. A little knowledge of Robert Shaw as the author, when upon watching ‘The Shark is Broken’, had bookish references, levels, connections working overtime in my thoughts. I took one off the mind’s shelf, when appropriate. Bloody hell! It’s all about Robert, the author. Again, in interpretation, we carry our own experiences when digesting another’s story. I was in fear of becoming the biographer, who falls into the trap of falling in love with his subject. Where the overconfidence of understanding lurks in waiting, to be released as an arrogance. Let’s keep a little distance here. A balanced perspective applied. Well, that didn’t last long.
First thoughts on watching came early on. Notepad in hand.

A critique, questions asked, what is art, where it best serves us, and its purpose. The play journeys around this as an open-ended unanswered question in its meaning. What defines good art, storytelling? Validating their professions, fame, a pursuit of by Dreyfuss, is at odds with Shaw’s, where fame is only a side product of little worth attached to one’s work put in. Robert Shaw’s conflict between Richard Dreyfuss and himself centers on Shaw’s perspective. As a writer who prioritizes his acting career to support his family. It’s as the author, where he finds his greatest form of communication.

To himself and the reader, Shaw wrote for both. The play plays on this tug of war within Robert’s relationship with acting. Films that make money are not necessarily his best, yet films that took little at the box office as ‘The Luck of Ginger Godfrey’, where he acted with his wife, Mary Ure, had limited success. The acting profession itself, in ‘The Shark is Broken’, becomes somewhat of a broken industry in the eyes of Robert. He sees himself and Roy Scheider as being of another era, on the cusp of extinction, which with irony, is a film that they are both having a hand in making that would bring that change. Spielberg, as a director, is among those hastening the new upon the industry.

The timely placement of humor by the three actors lightened the mood for the audience. Shaw, the Shakespearean versed actor, writer, and playwright, in portraying Quint sees Robert’s acting experience aligning well with Quint’s old sea dog character. Both know their profession. Dreyfus’s brashness enveloped in arrogance as the newcomer clashes with Robert’s alcohol fueled accesses of personality; he howl’s at a storm clouds filled sky, while hanging off the upper deck of the Orca in the play, at one point. His own inner battles magnify his dismissal of Richard’s abilities. This has as an air of snobbery, the old hand at odds with this new upstart. Dreyfuss quibbles at Robert’s socialist values. Shaw’s need for money comes shaped as a champagne socialist in meaning weaponised framed jibe. This need to earn a good wage was a necessity. Robert had ten children to support. This reminds us of our many inner contradictions.

Ah, here is my first interpretation. They have brought into the play via this exchange Shaw’s political leanings, Robert’s socialist values, rubbing against his need for money, Shaw’s book ‘The Flag’, broke the surface. That’s clever, blimey.
This play cuts deep, pulling back the curtain, exposing the fragility of being human, our crutches required. Here, with any knowledge of any topic, throws up a question. Was I overthinking their exchange? Is one’s enjoyment enhanced by or made an overcomplicated experience by some knowledge of what is before us in any art? Does it matter? In honesty, with yourself, really? Go with what you see. Eck! Let’s stick with the books.

‘The Flag’, a fictional story, drew inspiration from the red (socialist) vicar of Thaxted, Conrad Noel. Conrad’s disdain for greed taps into the fictional town of Amity’s need for the tourist dollar. Quint’s introduction in the film is as a remedy. The town’s economic survival relies on Quint’s success in killing the shark. Shaw’s ‘The Flag’ brings a comical element into his book, where the characters are a mix of social standings, reacting to each other. As in the book, as in the play, we see both shared themes. An interacting of mixed personalities, around a shared journey to end resolution, their personalities shaped by their pasts, colour that journey. What’s interesting is the way Robert’s book, as in being fiction, plays into the town of Amity, many voices around the village pump reality, while the factual, as in based on Conrad, plays into the greed. Robert’s book, the play, works on several levels.

I’ll make a note of this. If another book reference subtly hid or not in the cast actions or dialogue appears in the performance, we are onto something. A validation. A direct reference. We didn’t have to wait long.
A line said by Richard, where he accuses Robert as antisemitic, brings into the performance a Shaw novel directly. Also, a play directed by Harold Pinter, ‘The Man in the Glass Booth’, is used to highlight Dreyfuss’s intellectual immaturity or a need to strike back at Robert with an accusation. He doesn’t get it or he needs a cutting remark. Either way, the mention is of importance. Robert’s novel portrays its main character, Goldman, a Jew who survived the Nazis. Experiencing survivor's guilt, he battles with his identity, a trait he shares with Quint, surviving the USS Indianapolis sinking. Quint is defined by this moment in his life. Ian Shaw and Joseph Dixion, including this reference to Robert’s novel, merge Robert and Quint. We hear in the play also, Shaw muttering to himself, exiting the Orca, “still trying to figure how much is Quint and much is Robert”.

Ian Shaw, in playing his dad, this inclusion of Robert’s novel has relevance as well. Ian, when asked about playing his father at the Q and A in Poole, he spoke of his father being fearless, where he is not. Yet, in fact, in taking on this role, where emotions run high, he is in fact like his father. Playing one’s father, from a perspective of a now adult but at the period of his dad’s death, as a young child is fearless. Grief never leaves you, it lives with you and becomes a part of you. Robert shares with the Richard and Brody characters the death of his father, while he was a boy by suicide. In our more understanding present, we now recognise his father as a soldier serving in WWI and a later doctor—as having Post Traumatic Stress.

This loss weighed heavily on Robert. Through his storytelling, he channels his emotions, finding a means of communication with himself and the reader via his novels. This is at its most obvious in his second book, ‘The Sun Doctor’, where the main character Doctor Halliday visits Stromness on Orkney, looking for those that knew his father. Reading passages from this book, it’s if you hear Ian and Robert in unison in sentiment when speaking about their dad’s dependence on alcohol.

Ian, as with his father through writing, as in a playwright or Robert as the novelist, brings a relationship with his dad as brothers, working together, speaking of a shared loss of a parent. Ian takes this commonality to the stage, Robert to the page, the ‘The Sun Doctor’ delivers several layers of interest. In his 1963 Hawthornden award-winning novel, Robert appears as a cameo in the novel as himself, observing himself as a character he played. Cast in the Willis Hall written play ‘The Long, And The Short And The Tall’, Robert played a tough, experienced sergeant called ‘Mitch’. In the book, he observes the cast of this play he was a part of in a bar. After overhearing their conversation, he follows the actors and enters a theatre, and as Dr Halliday he watches himself on stage. After watching the performance, and hearing the actors at the bar, he questions himself about the actors’ lack of gravitas shown after their performance about what they had just represented. We see again the questioning of art in meaning, and acting itself is being judged. Are you ever as your character?

Ian, in ‘The Shark is Broken’, explores this very notion of the actor becoming the character further and in its most direct form, as the son’s role being his dad. This throws up a multitude of intriguing questions about the father son relationship, not only as the actor but in a wider societal context.

Throughout the three performances, I became ever more convinced of my observations'. Penning e-mails to Adrian with these books included revelations, how the play by design or in an outer worldly manner, clutched from the expanding Jaws Universe, Ryan subscribes to. The black hole, pulling you in, then throwing out many forms. A kaleidoscope of versions, each as valid as the other. Thank you, Marty Milner.

Scheider all this while brings the moderator into play, he holds the fort'. With the ‘The Shark is Broken’, Roy steers the boat. He sees in the Richard Dreyfuss character an insecurity, which is looking for approval. In Robert, an understanding of each of his own in personality, he’s been around. He knows when to intervene, when not. The Robert and Dreyfuss flare-ups, a dance of managerial skills applied. Robert, strangely, with his animosity attitude towards Richard, becomes a father figure in Richard’s eyes. And it is he who meets Richard on an emotional level of understanding, and what is in need when Dreyfuss suffers a distressing panic attack. He recognises the inner demons playing mischief in one’s mind in another.

All the guards drop between all three when the father figure surfaces. A reflective mood settles between them. An opening up. Each tells their story. The heart of the play sits here. Their reasons for who they are, is in part defined by the father son relationship. This part of the play also has in common the camaraderie and sharing of scars we witness in Jaws. Those that we come in contact with stay with us and can leave scars.

When exiting the theatre in Poole, Adam Clifford, understudy for Dreyfuss and Scheider, was sitting on a chair by the exit. We exchanged a smile, ah a sign perhaps. Speaking with Ian at the stage door, I approached him on his dad's books, the play, the meanings. Overthinking or not. You decide.

Yes, but what of Robert Shaw’s other novels, ‘The Hiding Place’, (see the hiding of booze) ‘Card From Morocco’,? They are all in there. Wait till I tell Adrain.