Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Every Brilliant Thing
Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The masterful dramaturgy of Duncan Macmillan and the charming performance of Jonny Donahoe made Every Brilliant Thing amusing and moving. The audience participation gave the play an impressive dynamism and offered most of the comedic moments, from the expert hand of Jonny Donahoe. There was not a single dry eye in the house, while laughs all throughout were also not in short supply.
Review
Optimism or pessimism? Innocence or realism? Is it really a choice how we see the world? Every Brilliant Thing ponders over these questions, exploring depression, the lengths we go for those we love and the events that shape one’s outlook on life. The play is written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, directed by Duncan Macmillan, and performed by Jonny Donahoe, ten years after the play’s debut. After his mom’s attempts suicide, a seven year old comes up with a list of every brilliant thing in the world, to show her everything worth living for. It also follows the main character through his life, exploring how this key event influences his decisions, personality and perspective, as the list grows and grows. From a distant perspective we also follow the story of the mom and the impact of the son’s pursuits to help her. Every Brilliant Thing is a one man show with prominent audience participation, some guided and some improvised. The son interacts with a wide variety of characters across the show.
The play starts with the child’s innocent outlook on suicide, trying to come up with a list that will make the mom want to stay alive, heart-wrenchingly oblivious to the complexities of suicide at the age of seven. This premise could’ve played out as cheesy or childish, but both the masterful dramaturgy of Duncan Macmillan and the charming performance of Jonny Donahoe made it a lot more profound, making you actually ponder on the millions of beautiful things in life we disregard in a daily basis. The audience participation gave the play an impressive dynamism and offered most of the comedic moments, from the expert hand of Jonny Donahoe. The camaraderie of so many audience members participating constantly in a story that was simultaneously gut-wrenching, endearing and wholesome was palpable.
The story manages to keep this innocent outlook but makes it layered and darker as the play goes, showing the difficulties of feeling happy as life hits you. It delves on the incredibly complex topic of suicide, exploring who understands it and who doesn’t, and why. The frustrations of trying to help someone you love are also beautifully explored, as well as the limitations of it. The writing is clever and sensitive, however the play relies heavily on narration, leaving most of the live scenes to be had between the performer and audience members, adding levity and limiting how performative the piece is. The viewer is left to draw conclusions about how the character is feeling from the ways in which the character narrates what happened, other than seeing it happen live.
The production in the round was frugal, with no set and most of the props being the individual pieces of paper with the numbered things that made the list, often read out loud by the audience. This bare setting is accompanied by soul classics, which have a strong significance for the main character.
I personally found the dichotomy of innocence and suicide fascinating, dealt with much nuance, without falling into cliches or stereotypes. There was not a single dry eye in the house, while laughs all throughout were also not in short supply. This is not an easy accomplishment and it was a testament to the impact of the piece on its viewers.
Every Brilliant Thing is a wonderfully written, directed and performed play, both amusing and moving the audience. The simplicity of the production is complemented with dynamic audience participation. The story would have benefitted from less narration and more live scenes with only the main character, without the levity of having these scenes always happen with an audience member. On the whole, Every Brilliant Thing achieves its ambitious goal of portraying the layered effects of depression on the person and the family through time, seen through the lens of the son at different ages.
