Trailer for JAWS-inspired play The Shark Is Broken surfaces and it is fin-tastic

The trailer for JAWS in 1975 is still iconic to this day, complete with the foreboding voiceover tomes of Percy Rodriguez who told us “It is as if God created the devil and gave him JAWS.”

Fast forward almost 50 years later and a The Shark Is Broken – the Broadway show about what went on during the making of JAWS – has now got its own trailer.

There’s no Rodriquez, and no shark, but there are plenty of callbacks for JAWS and film fans alike. As one would expect, the show’s trailer – which features Ian Shaw, who is the spit of his dad Robert Shaw, and Alex Brightman as Richard Dreyfuss and Colin Donnell as Roy Scheider are just as mesmerising - is suitably cinematic in feel, but then you'd expect nothing less when that trailer is for a show about the making of Steven Spielberg's JAWS.

The distinct tones of Quint wash over teases of roaming point of view shots over what is unmistakably the Orca, a swinging table light, a close up of Quint's hands cradling his cup and a glimpse of a yellow barrel.

If the camera is hunting like a shark, then Quint's voice is the JAWS theme. His commanding tone regales us with the opening lines of the greatest monologue ever committed to film...the USS Indianapolis speech.

And then, it's like a needle jump off a record as Quint booms: "Oh my god, I can't say this. It's duller than my tax returns."

This isn't a film, it isn't JAWS, and it isn't even Robert Shaw, it is his son Ian Shaw playing his dad, and this is just another day at sea in a cramped cabin on location in Martha’s Vineyard, 1974.

There's some wonderful snatches of the characters Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider Richard and Dreyfuss (dressed as Quint, Brody and Hooper) verbally sparring against one another as they wait for the shark not to be broken, complete with a genius delivery of THAT Roy Scheider line that Stephen King has called his favourite in all of cinema.

It really is pitch perfect in selling the play, its sense of verve and knowing comedy and tone shows any idea that this is JAWS the film on stage the way to go home.

The trailer is a sheer delight and JAWS fans will have the hairs on the hairs on the back of their necks standing on end. To paraphrase Percy in that original trailer from 1975, see it before you go Broadway.

The play – which has already wowed audiences in Edinburgh, London and Toronto – has docked at the Golden Theater for its Broadway debut, and it isn't just good, it's sublime, and this new trailer leaves you in no doubt of that.

In fact, no doubt JAWS fans will be left smiling like a son-of-a-bitch after viewing it. To quote Quint, it’s pretty good stuff.

It is incredibly moving at times, but also hugely funny, the cast just ping off one another and it really is a three barrels of laughs, has a lot of heart and some deep things to say about fathers and sons.

At one wonderful point Robert Shaw states "Do you really think we are going to be talking about this in 50 years?"

Yes, we are Robert, yes, we are. And in no small part that's in thanks to the sharper than shark's teeth script by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, and the bristling performances of Ian Shaw, Alex Brightman and Colin Donnell stuck on the Orca. You’ll be stuck on each and every word they say, especially as Shaw does eventually give us the USS Indianapolis speech as was teased at the start of the trailer.

And we all know how powerful that is on the screen, seeing it on stage you’ll think you were there when it was recorded.

Be in no doubt, this is the biggest thing to happen to JAWS since the release of the Steven Spielberg film on the big screen.

The Shark Is Broken really captures the anarchy and camaraderie of being in the confines in the cabin on the Orca, which is a stunning design by Duncan Henderson, and is very much a member of the cast.

And, in turn, we the audience are like the fourth crew member, with this electric performance by all involved – and direction by Guy Masterson - being the nearest you'll get to being on Martha's Vineyard in 1974.

If you have been sitting on the karate chopped picket fence on whether you should come aboard and see the show, after watching this exhilarating trailer. the only question you'll be asking is show me the way to buy tickets.

The Shark Is Broken is making waves at the Golden Theater until November 19, you can buy tickets for The Shark Is Broken here.

Words by Dean Newman

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