Shankley played George in "Spend Spend Spend" at the Piccadilly Theatre (1999); Gus/Growltiger in "Cats" in Germany in 2002; Sir Henry Baskerville in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" at the Nottingham Playhouse (2004), while in 2005–2006 and 2016 he played Pop in "We Will Rock You" at the Dominion Theatre.