The Shark Is Broken: When the Biggest Drama Was Never in the Water

There's a particular kind of theatre that feels like being let in on a secret — the kind that peels back the curtain on a cultural moment so enormous that its mythology has outlived the people who created it. The Shark Is Broken is exactly that kind of play, and it's finally coming to Australia.

Olivier Award nominated and greeted with five-star reviews across London's most discerning critics, this razor-sharp comedy by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon arrives at Sydney's Foundry Theatre in August, before heading to Melbourne in October. The premise is irresistible: the open ocean, 1974. The mechanical shark won't work. And three of Hollywood's most combustible egos — Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider — are stuck on a too-small boat with nowhere to go and everything to say.

What follows, audiences who saw the original London production will tell you, is one of the funniest, most unexpectedly moving pieces of theatre in recent memory.

The play carries a particular emotional weight that no press release can fully capture: Ian Shaw, who co-wrote the piece, is the son of Robert Shaw — the theatre veteran who played the gravel-voiced shark hunter Quint in Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic. Writing his father into existence on stage, as a man rather than a legend, is a quietly radical act. "In between jokes and tasty movie trivia, this is a story of fathers, sons, mortality and legacy," wrote Mashable. The Times and The Telegraph each awarded four stars. The Evening Standard gave it five.

For the Australian debut, producers StoreyBoard Entertainment and Stoddart Entertainment Group have assembled a cast that matches the material's ambition. Robin Goldsworthy steps into the shoes of Richard Dreyfuss — a role that demands both comic agility and genuine vulnerability. Goldsworthy's screen credits run deep: Home and Away, Colin From Accounts, Wolf Like Me, Wellmania and Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo among them, alongside significant stage work at Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare and Sydney Theatre Company.

Tom Stokes plays Roy Scheider, the quiet professional caught between two warring forces. Stokes has worked with every state theatre company in Australia — a career that includes the Death of a Salesman national tour alongside Anthony LaPaglia, Pygmalion at STC, and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None directed by Robyn Nevin.

Then there is Anthony Gooley as Robert Shaw — perhaps the most layered role in the piece, and one that Gooley is exquisitely equipped to inhabit. Queensland audiences will know him well: Boy Swallows Universe, Calamity Jane and Bernhardt Hamlet all for Queensland Theatre Company. His television work spans Young Rock, Joe Vs Carole and Underbelly, with his next appearance in Apples Never Fall for Peacock.

The production is directed by Luke Joslin, with a creative team that has built something technically extraordinary — eight live cameras feeding the action onto 80 metres of LED screens and ten video surfaces. This is not a small play dressed up in big clothes. It's a full theatrical spectacle that happens to also be hilarious.

"So vivid you can almost smell the salt air," said Deadline. That's the goal every time the curtain goes up. This production, by all accounts, clears it.

The Shark Is Broken plays the Foundry Theatre at Sydney Lyric from 28 August to 11 October 2026, then the Athenaeum Theatre Melbourne from 15 October to 8 November 2026. Tickets from $75 at sharkisbroken.com.au.

Watch the trailer here.

Images: supplied by Jessica Bendell Publicity