Review: MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET at Menier Chocolate Factory

Set at the fictional downtown Never Get cabaret club at Greenwich Village during the 1960s, Platt plays wannabe crooner Trevor Copeland who falls for the man tinkling the ivories Arthur Brightman played by Gregor Milne. Arthur writes the songs and the snappy lyrics, accompanying Trevor on piano as they perform together at the seedy backroom bar. The illicit establishment is frequently raided by New York’s finest, the men in blue. Ironically (and more than a little amusingly), such a cop becomes the subject of one of the evening’s many tunes, all of which have been created by the show’s writer Mark Sonnenblick.

Platt has never struggled when conveying characters wracked by inner turmoil and vulnerability. It has become his stock in trade and resulted most notably in his towering performance in Dear Evan Hansen for which he won the Tony Award in 2017. In “…Never Get” it is Arthur who is jaded by the lack of commercial songwriting success, and we see him gradually pull the plug on their relationship when he rejects the burgeoning Stonewall protests as a means of freedom and instead moves west to pursue a closeted mainstream career in Los Angeles.

Platt’s sense of abandonment and heartbreak are writ large in his portrayal of Trevor, yet he stoically suppresses the emotional churn beneath his innately polished performance. Bedecked in a bronze coloured suit which serves as a carapace, he delivers torch-songs, comedy numbers and ballads, each of which could feasibly be drawn from the Great American Songbook such is the quality of their evident musical influences and panache. The man’s a pro from his slicked and coiffured hair, down to his buffed and polished brogues and the show must go on. The undertone contributes considerable pathos to the knowing patter which precedes it.

Directed by David Cromer on a set design by Scott Pask, the audience are instrumental in generating the cabaret feel at the lamped tables as we empathise with Trevor’s mistreatment and his pining for the relationship which was the centre of his universe. The show suffers a slight drag at the two-thirds point (a few too many songs, perhaps?) but when the denouement lands, it does so with a thud. Age catches up with all of us and finally, what Trevor is left with are the reflections of things past… but what a past. As the elderly Trevor, Barry James (who is now in his 80s) more than holds his own in a cheek-moistening finale.

MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET plays 90mins straight through and continues at Menier Chocolate Factory until 12th September.