Swimming with Sharks

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Opened 16 October 2007, closed 19 January 2008 at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

The world premiere of the stage adaptation of George Huang's 1994 film Swimming with Sharks in London starring Christian Slater, Helen Baxendale and Matt Smith.

"A thrilling dip into dangerous waters" The Daily Express

In Swimming with Sharks we meet Buddy Ackerman, an incendiary, irresistible movie producer - the mastermind of a top studio's high-grossing, ultra violent horror slate, one of Hollywood's most powerful men - he's also the boss from hell. His eager and idealistic new assistant and would-be screenwriter, Guy, soon finds himself serving as Buddy's personal slave. Guy doggedly endures Buddy's tantrums and relentless abuse in the hope that he will be given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move up the Hollywood ladder. But the dream career seems a long way off when you're working for Buddy 24/7, doing everything from getting him coffee to getting him laid. When such an opportunity arises, Guy attempts to play the Hollywood system and preserve his integrity by drawing his high-powered producer girlfriend into a key deal with Buddy. Soon, however, he loses himself in Buddy's amoral world, irrevocably shattering his idealism and leading to a bitterly funny confrontation between mentor, protégé and lover that have devastating consequences for them all.

"Christian Slater is electric to watch" The Daily Mail

The cast for Swimming With Sharks in London features Christian Slater as 'Buddy Ackerman', Helen Baxendale and Matt Smith along with Elizabeth Croft, Arthur Darvill, Mark Edel-Hunt, Jonathan Newth and Fanos Xenofos (casting subject to change)

"Matt Smith is dashingly comic and eloquent as Guy" The London Evening Standard

George Huang's cult film is adapted for the stage by Michael Lesslie, who recently won the Cameron Mackintosh Award for new writing for Face Up, Face Down. The production is directed by Wilson Milam and has designs by Dick Bird, lighting by Paul Anderson, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound by Matt McKenzie for Autograph.

Christian Slater - "gives a high-voltage performance" The Guardian

"Swimming with Sharks was a 1994 film starring Kevin Spacey as Buddy Ackerman, a Hollywood big shot about as trustworthy as the average episode of Blue Peter. Now it is brought to the West End, with Christian Slater in the lead, who turns out to be the best thing in it. A clumsy satire on the movie business that has you wondering what it is doing on a stage at all, it is still popcorn-level entertaining... It is a crude, formulaic but enjoyable comedy, teaching that Hollywood movies are team efforts in which the team all hate each other, and there is no opposition." The Sunday Times

"Matt Smith... a name to watch" The Independent

"A complicated power dance - with a bit of sex, a spot of torture, a lot of switched allegiances and double bluffs - is batted undemandingly along by Wilson Milam's production. Christian Slater quiffed and gleaming-faced, gives a one-note, single-fin performance, delivered on a roar, but his high-velocity snapping is entertaining, and he actually makes himself look like a shark, with a no-lips grin and Concorde profile. He doesn't hit the fear level of Jaws, but he's no tadpole." The Observer

"In Wilson Milam's mostly slick but occasionally slack production, the film industry having fangs inspires little more than a yawn of recognition. With Christian Slater giving a typical, brazenly bullish performance, the cut-throat boss becomes merely a ghastly cliche... Slater does, to give him his due, have charisma. Helen Baxendale holds her own as the hard-nosed yet soft-centred Dawn, and Matt Smith's nerdy gestures are acutely observed - nervously tapping the bottom of his beer bottle on a first date." The Independent on Sunday