Ben Platt on Netflix

If I didn't really care for his album, is that what the Netflix special primarily is or does he sing any Dear Evan Hansen and other show tunes in there?

There are no showtunes at all. This focuses on his pop career. There are 2 covers, one Elton John and one Brandi Carlisle and that's it. If you don't like his album, you definitely will not like this.

BUT, if you like Ben Platt, you might still want to watch to hear the stories behind these songs he wrote, which reveal quite a bit about his personal life. Plus he's such a great performer no matter what he's singing.

I love the album and saw the show in person so I highly recommend, but if you're looking for musical theatre, this definitely isn't for you.

"The only non-Ben platt song performed was “the joke” by brandi Carlile."

This is both wrong and has already been posted (correctly). It's such a weird thing when people feel a thread could use their wisdom but they can't be bothered to read the whole thread. Oof.

Updated On: 5/22/20 at 10:02 AM

CT2NYC said: "Call me superficial, but I would have enjoyed the show a lot more if he was wearing something less...ugly. I get it, he's a quirky artistic type, but his outfit was so distracting and off-putting to me that I found it difficult to focus on what he was saying or singing. It was only when he was sitting at the piano that I was able to really get into it."

AGREED! And he is so mannered .. a tad uncomfortable to watch . Bleh..

I've adored his performances in basically everything and his album is amiable enough... but he seems fairly intolerable as a person. At least how he comes across. It's like he's an eccentric weirdo who thinks he's one of the cool kids. With too much confidence and not enough irony. I don't know how to describe it.

Anyway. He's very talented and I look forward to seeing him in scripted entertainments!

Updated On: 5/22/20 at 01:54 PM

Who's making you watch it?

dmwnc1959 said: "It’s been a very rough week for me, so this sort of slipped my mind that it was on Netflix, which I don’t subscribe to. I very much would’ve liked to have seen this, and really needed some kind of ‘escape’. Hope it comes back on again, but maybe on another streaming service? I think we all should be very grateful things like this exist in a time when everything is shutdown."

It wasn't a one-time show. It's a Netflix special, which will always be exclusively on Netflix. They offer a 30-day free trial if you'd like to see it.

Updated On: 5/22/20 at 05:53 PM

It s unfair to comment of his style of dressing or his personality. Mariah once say to one of the hater that 'you dont have to like me to aprriciate my music' and I really do believe that s something we need to keep in mind for. Especially we are on Broadway forum that only people who love and care about music will come to visit.



So earlier when I say I dont actually into Ben, that purely just about musical aspect. I did finish the nexflix last night and I find many good things to say about it, the set the production look very classy and expensive. But I still think his voice is not one of those big voice plople can call 'the best voice in the business' . I love it when he singing soft or singing the song that dont have to use much power. Otherwise it sound a bit forced, almost he s at the end of vocal cord and he cant go further. Hard to explain. I get used to a lot of musical singers that can go very powerful when they need to be. And when Ben try his hardest to sing powerful, it' s just seem like a regular belting from other singer. That s my opinion. Didnt mean to hurt anyone of Ben's fan feeling. Sorry.

Updated On: 5/22/20 at 09:18 PM

There's no there there. I find him histrionic and superficial all at once. After DEH, I really wanted to like him...it was a tremendous performance. He played the character well; inhabited it. Nailed it. He was rewarded, as was appropriate, for it.

Today, watching this concert, I don't buy a thing he's trying to sell. I don't begrudge his fans. They love him and that's their right, but as I said at the very beginning, for me...there's nothing behind the surface but his remaining 15 minutes and family money.

RippedMan said: "I can't get into him. Dad's a huge movie producer. Of course he's going to be famous. No disrespect to his talents. He's very talented. But just another rich Hollywood kid. Eh. Pass."

I agree with this sentiment. Clearly he's talented but everyone is talented. It's infuriating to have to pretend that he's something special when he was just lucky enough to be born into a powerful family. Not necessarily his fault, but it does make me less interested in him as a person.

I really don't know if his family had anything to do with his success, so it seems sort of beside the point. It somewhat reminds me of conversations I've had with people about Talia Shire, or about Lorraine Grey, who are often attacked because they clearly seemed to have gotten their roles through nepotism, but I happen to think both are great in the roles they played, so I don't really care. But then, parts in movies don't have the same rags-to-riches mystique that is usually associated with a new Broadway sensation. So there's an emotional/wish fulfillment quality there, whether it's "fair" or not.

Platt just doesn't interest me. I didn't see Dear Evan Hanson on Broadway. I've seen clips. I own the cast recording and the script. I'm unimpressed (I seem to be the only person who is unimpressed: I think the score is blah and the situation more interesting in concept than realization). I tried watching The Politician, but it's another Ryan Murphy work where we're supposed to be enthralled by some gay sociopath, and this gay man ain't interested.

I find him kinda attractive because he's a cub, but that's about it. In interviews he alienates me, though I can't say why. I was a theater kid. Camp could have been a documentary of my childhood (I didn't laugh when the kid referenced doing 'night Mother because I didn't get it was a joke: when you're a theater kid, you do adult shows because those are the only roles that prepare you for the career you dream of), and yet I don't have very warm feelings about all that, and he does strike me very much as one of those kids.

Somehow, he and Lea Michele seem a pair, and that isn't a compliment, in my book.

Tl;dr. Average talent, oddly unappealing off-stage personality.