It’s hard to walk out of Every Brilliant Thing at Soho Place without feeling that something unsparingly true, somehow, has been laid bare. In this West-End staging of a one-person play, the premise is deceptively simple and the effect quietly powerful.
Written by Duncan Macmillan (with original co-creator Jonny Donahoe) and directed by Macmillan alongside Jeremy Herrin, the production features a rotating company of actors in the leading solo role (we saw Minnie Driver and – edit – it’s just been announced the show is transferring to Broadway starring Daniel Radcliffe).
The play begins with the narrator, ostensibly aged seven, discovering that their mother has been hospitalised after attempting suicide as the result of chronic depression. From there the child starts to make a list of every brilliant thing in the world to cheer his mother up: ice-cream, tree-climbing, the smell of old books, the items keep coming as the life story unfolds. Over the years the list takes on new meaning: at a parent-teacher meeting, at the moment the narrator is asked why? by an audience volunteer, at the point where they realise the list may be as much for them as for her. The audience is actively engaged: before the lights go down you are handed a card with a numbered list item; later the narrator calls your number and you read it aloud and even join the action on stage (but only if you volunteer in advance).
Driver’s performance anchors the piece. She opens with a conversational tone, walking among the seats pre-show as the speaking cards are handed out, and later she draws you in with quiet poise. Her comedic instincts emerge when she invites someone on stage who offers a book titled Enshitification, riffing off the title with dead-pan charm. Later, in the final quarter, she allows the laughter to fall away and softly sings a few bars in a moment of reflection: the tone shifts and you feel the room hold its breath. The choice to incorporate her singing voice doesn’t feel gadgety: it deepens the emotional resonance of the list-as-lifeline concept.
On the writing front, Macmillan’s script attempts a delicate balancing act: discussing depression and suicide while celebrating life’s small joys. In this production, the message lands with more honesty than sentimentality. The script still has moments that lean slender, some of the factual interjections about suicidal contagion and media reporting (Scene just past the hour mark) feel like a classroom slide rather than theatre, yet Driver’s embodiment rescues them and integrates them into the flow. Thematically the play is about memory, connection and the acts we undertake for love, even when we scarcely understand them ourselves. In today’s culture where mental-health conversations are more open yet still far from resolved, it feels timely rather than tiresomely topical.
Compared with earlier versions of Every Brilliant Thing (notably the 2014 Edinburgh run), this West-End staging is slicker and star-built; yet Driver’s interpretation reminds us that the story doesn’t depend on spectacle. Her quieter, almost gentle version is more subdued than some more boisterous runs, and that restraint pays off. It feels less like the narrator is hosting you and more like she’s inviting you in.