By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: Awards potential

WHEN? Monday 13 July, opens 20 July and runs through 12 September 2026 RUNTIME: 100 minutes (no interval)

As this musical reaches its conclusion we can hear sniffing, stifled sobbing and crying around our front row seat showing the work’s immediate emotional impact.

• Read on for reasons including Midnight At The Never Get will make you think, make you laugh and make you cry

Midnight At The Never Get was staged off-Broadway at the York Theatre in 2018 and has book, music and lyrics by Mark Sonnenblick who co-wrote many of the songs for the animated 2025 film KPop Demon Hunters, including Golden which was a US number 1 winning an Oscar and Grammy.

It stars Ben Platt (The Last Five Years, London Palladium) in this story about Trevor Copeland and Arthur Brightman who perform love songs in 1965 New York as duo Midnight in the titular Never Get bar at a time when their love is against the law.

The Menier has reconfigured itself for this show and do get the cabaret seating if you can because both Platt, himself a Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award-winner as the duo’s singer, and Gregor Milne as its songwriter come out from the stage into the audience as the drama intensifies.

Midnight At The Never Get is mostly told by Platt’s singer who is unashamed in his pride in opening with the duo’s original song The Mercy Of Love which is about being unapologetically gay at a time when it was legislated against.

New musicals only really work if the songs the audience is mostly hearing for the 1st time are memorable and propel the plot – and like Golden from last year’s fun KPop Demon Hunters they very much do.

We learn a little of the duo’s working relationship with Arthur professing his love for Trevor for the 1st time by writing song The Bells Are Ringing about that feeling.

There’s even a pastiche joke song called The Boy In Blue about the perils of performing gay love songs at a time when the bar venues like the Never Get would be regularly raided by police.

The thorny question of queer activism raises its head with Platt’s Trevor wanting to protest while Arthur believes the songwriting is enough for the duo to shape the world rather than let it shape their love.

Inevitably their relationship strains and Arthur’s love song When Spring Comes Again sung to Trevor is 1 of the show’s heartbreakers.

It’s Arthur’s dismissal of Trevor’s sole composition – the unforgettable My Song – reprised in an extremely moving final number which sparks those sniffles, stifled sobs and audible tears.

Midnight At The Never Get benefits from its cabaret staging in this intimate 200-seater and the 6-strong band open out the performance from the initial piano and voice.

From our front row seat we can see how much Platt is putting into his extraordinary vocals and even how he himself dissolves into a mess of tears near the show’s close as the devastating truth of what we are actually witnessing becomes brutally clear.

Sonnenblick’s name may also be familiar to you because he was also 1 of the lyricists for the musical The Devil Wears Prada which we loved on a recent 2nd visit.

Like the cabaret genre it takes its inspiration from, Midnight At The Never Get will make you think, make you laugh and make you cry. Probably all at the same time. A potential winner come awards season.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Menier Chocolate Factory Tickets
• Have you seen a Ben Platt show before and what did you think of it? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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