Ben Platt Stars in 1960s Gay Cabaret Musical
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- Ben Platt plays Trevor Copeland, a crooning bar-singer reliving a 1960s romance, in Mark Sonnenblick's cabaret-musical "Midnight at the Never Get" at the Menier Chocolate Factory
- Gregor Milne co-stars as songwriter Arthur Brightman with "plate-spinning brilliance," serving as the story's musical and emotional anchor on piano
- The plot forces the couple to choose between protest and assimilation when politics intrudes on their underground gay club, with their openly queer love songs repelling some audiences and attracting others
- Director David Cromer ("The Fear of 13") keeps the staging intimate and uses a "minor magic trick" — kept under wraps by the reviewer — to resolve the narrator's gaps in time and memory
- Designer Scott Pask transformed the Menier space into a lamplit cabaret framing American Songbook-style songs that range from "jaunty knee-bouncing number" to "big-band ballad"
- The review praises Platt's "sky-gliding voice" and the live band while reserving its one sharp critique for the ending, calling it a gut-punch that "would hit even harder with a trim"
Why it matters: Platt, a Tony/Emmy/Grammy winner, takes a London fringe stage in a two-hander that turns the protest-vs-assimilation dilemma into the couple's breaking point — a choice that gives the otherwise jazz-smooth love story its grit. The 180-seat venue and cabaret format make it a deliberately intimate vehicle, not a Broadway-scale showcase.
