Every Brilliant Thing

⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every Brilliant Thing is a revival of a 2013 play by the iconic playwright Duncan Macmillan known for plays such as ‘People, Places & Things’. It stars Jonny Donahoe who reprises their role from the original production 11 years ago.

I’m going to start this review by saying that in the 20 shows I saw at the Fringe this year, this was the best of a brilliant bunch by far. This production is possibly as close to perfect as theatre can be, every single element is assembled in such a fantastic way. The play told by Donahoe relies heavily upon audience reaction and fortunately everyone in the audience was up for it even at 23.00, it tells the story of the protagonist’s idea to write down the titular list of ‘every brilliant thing’ in the world following his mother’s suicide attempt when he was aged 7.

As you may have guessed from the previous sentence, this is an incredibly emotional piece, but it is tackled with such delicacy and humour that it is never difficult to watch despite the frequent and plentiful tears from every member of the audience.

Donahoe’s performance is the thing which this play could not survive without, they give one of the strongest performances I’ve seen, the way they interact with the audience instantly puts us on side, the mix between humour and emotion is fantastic.

I can’t recommend this play enough, it plays at the Roundabout at Summerhall, hopefully we can see a future life for it.