MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET Menier, SE1

TROUBLED HEARTS AND TORCH SONGS When someone pops a sticker on your cameraphone at the door it generally means a performer is going to get their kit off, repeatedly. Not in this caseI am relieved to say, though this 90-minute chamber musical does have one late and I suppose spoilable coup de théatre. And the first excitement is the seats: if there’s one thing the dear Menier’s usual benches are not, it’s an acreage of comfy pink plush. But for Mark Sonnenblick and David Cromer’s show there it is: a few of the audience are sitting at cabaret tables below, the rest of us are tiered above, on the plush, between moody little shaded lights. Shoulda brought a Martini. For we are in a basement back-room jazz club in Greenwich Village NY, early 1960’s. The last generation of melancholy, yearning torch-songs are struggling on against the jolly simplicities of rock ‘n roll (in one lovely line, a hero scoffs that “I wanna hold your hand” is not a song for grown ups but a kidergarten rhyme. Here,…