Every Brilliant Thing

If you live a long life and get to the end of it without ever once feeling crushingly depressed, then you probably weren’t paying attention.

You’re seven years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ’done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy. You start a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling.

A child attempts to ease their mother’s depression by creating a list of all the best things in the world. Through adulthood, as the list grows, they learn the deep significance it has on their own life.

From Olivier Award-nominated writer Duncan Macmillan (People, Places and Things), Every Brilliant Thing is a comedy about the lengths we will go for those we love.

This edition was published to coincide with the West End premiere at @sohoplace in August 2025. Co-directed by Jeremy Herrin (Best of Enemies), this production featured Lenny Henry, Ambika Mod, Sue Perkins, Minnie Driver, and the show’s original performer Jonny Donahoe.

Duncan Macmillan is an award-winning writer and director. Plays include: Lungs (Paines Plough/Sheffield Crucible and Studio Theatre Washington D.C.), Platform (Old Vic Tunnels), Monster (Royal Exchange/Manchester International Festival), The Most Humane Way to Kill A Lobster (Theatre 503), I Wish To Apologise For My Part In The Apocalypse, So Say All of Us and Family Tree (all BBC Radio 4). Formerly Writer-in-Residence at Paines Plough and the Royal Exchange, he has completed attachments at the National Theatre and the Royal Court/BBC, is a member of the Old Vic New Voices Company and a fellow of the TS Eliot UK/US Exchange. He is the winner of two Bruntwood Playwriting Awards, the Old Vic Big Ambition Award, a Pearson Residency Award, ’The 50’ Bursary, and has been nominated in the Best New Play category of the TMA and MEN Awards.