Every Brilliant Thing at Soho Place
Ever since its Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2014, Every Brilliant Thing has been staged in over 80 countries around the world. Not surprising: writer Duncan Macmillan’s play is stupendously funny and heartwrenchingly moving at the same time. A piece about depression and suicide, it handles its core themes with tremendous dignity and respect, delivering an entertaining evening that will please all audiences.
The premise is simple enough: it’s a one-hander about a person who begins making a list of all brilliant things in the world in order to convince their suicidal mother that there are things worth living for. The items on the list are necessarily varied – ice-cream, Christopher Walken’s voice, sharing books with others. The narrator grows older and, in various bursts of energy, extends the list until, in the end, he reaches one million items. Throughout, the audience participates by delivering various lines they had been handed at the start, and some even act minor roles in the story.
It’s all in good fun; some of the items on the list are touching, others hilarious; as is the narration of the life presented to the audience, which first handles the mother’s fits of depression, and later on the narrator’s own struggles with mental health. It never feels overbearing and is delivered with excellent pacing throughout the 85-minute runtime.
Every Brilliant Thing is performed by different actors on different dates – Jonny Donahoe, Ambika Mod, Sue Perkins, Minnie Driver and Lenny Henry, who appeared at press night. The actual experience will inevitably vary depending on who enacts the narrator. Henry’s delivery is absolutely spot-on: always with a charming smile on his face, he oozes sympathy and good humour as he takes the onlookers on a ride through this spectacular production.
As such, Every Brilliant Thing is an easy one-hander to recommend. With stellar writing, tongue-in-cheek audience interaction and an earnest engagement with a universally understood subject matter, it’s likely one of the best – and certainly the funniest – plays about depression currently on stage.
Michael Higgs
Photos: Helen Murray
Every Brilliant Thing is at Soho Place from 1st August until 8th November 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
Watch the trailer for Every Brilliant Thing at Soho Place here:
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