PLAY REVIEW: Every Brilliant Thing ★★★★

Jonny Donahoe returns to Every Brilliant Thing, the critically acclaimed play he co-wrote with Duncan Macmillan, in a luminous new production at Soho Place. Tender, disarming, and fiercely compassionate, this one-person performance is less a monologue than a shared conversation — part confessional, part collective act of remembering.

The premise is simple: a child begins compiling a list of brilliant things to help his mother battle depression. Ice cream. Kung Fu movies. Staying up past your bedtime. As the list grows into adulthood, so too does the complexity of the narrator’s emotional world. What begins in childhood optimism gives way to something far more poignant — and profoundly human.

Donahoe’s performance is magnetic. He shifts seamlessly between joy and sorrow, buoyed by a warmth that never feels performative. There’s a rare kind of generosity in his presence, and it’s this quality that makes the show’s audience interaction feel natural, even necessary. In lesser hands, it might verge on novelty; here, it becomes an act of communion.

The in-the-round staging at Soho Place enhances the production’s intimacy. Directed with subtlety and care by Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin, the show draws its strength not from spectacle but from sincerity. There are no grand gestures here — just a string of small, brilliant moments.

At a time when conversations around mental health still carry stigma, Every Brilliant Thing offers something quietly radical: a gentle, joyful reckoning with pain, and a reminder that meaning can be found in the smallest of things.

A deeply affecting evening. Don’t miss it.