Every Brilliant Thing

by Duncan Macmillan, with Jonny Donahoe
originally Directed by Natalie Carmolli
performed by Christopher Beaman

You’re six years old. Mom’s in hospital. Dad says she’s “done something stupid.” She finds it hard to be happy. So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for. (1) Ice cream. (2) Kung Fu movies. (3) Burning things. (4) Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose. (5) Construction cranes. (6) Me. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own. A play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.

Every Brilliant Thing is sad, but it is also gloriously funny and exceptionally warm. It’s a show that spells out a little of what depression can do to people, but it also highlights the irrepressible resilience of the human spirit and the capacity to find delight in the everyday. —Time Out (London).