Jonny Donahoe
Every Brilliant Thing
Soho Place Theatre, London, August 2025
Photo by Danny Kaan
102 – Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe
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The narrator begins their story from when they were seven years old, and their mother has been taken to hospital because she has “done something stupid”. In fact, the something stupid she has done is to attempt to take her own life. The seven-year-old child decides on that day to start a list, a list of “everything brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for.” A list for mum.
This is the premise for Duncan Macmillan’s funny and heart-rending one-person show, Every Brilliant Thing. In fact, this is not really a one-person show, because although the narrator is telling us the story, the audience also plays an important part in creating the show in every performance. Members of the audience call out items on the list, several individuals are invited to play characters, and some of the props used in the show are sourced spontaneously from the audience. The one person whose show it has largely been for the last ten years, is comedian, writer and performer, Jonny Donahoe, who is also credited with co-creating the play.
The play that Duncan and Jonny created started life in 2013, and in the decade or so since it has been seen in over 70 countries around the world. As we record this episode, Every Brilliant Thing, has finally reached London’s West End, with a rotating cast of five different performers appearing as the narrator over its three-month run at the Soho Place theatre, including Jonny Donahoe, Lennie Henry, Ambika Mod, Sue Perkins and Minnie Driver.
The always-brilliant critic, Lyn Gardner, described Every Brilliant Thing as “one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see about depression.” She is spot on – it is funny and poignant and finally life affirming.
I am very privileged to be joined in this episode by the show’s two creators, Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe.
Duncan Macmillan
Duncan Macmillan’s plays include his adaptation of 1984 co-written with Robert Icke; Lungs, his funny and prophetic look at the personal impact of climate change on our everyday lives, which we covered in episode seven of the podcast; People, Places and Things, his blistering portrait of addiction which we also talked about on the podcast with Duncan himself and director Jeremy Herrin when the play was revived in London last year.
Most recently Duncan wrote the English texts for Thomas Ostermeier’s striking adaptations of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and Chekhov’s The Seagull, both of which have been on stage in London recently, and which we have also covered on the podcast.
007 Lungs by Duncan Macmillan
082 People Places & Things by Duncan Macmillan
Duncan recommended seven methods of killing kylie jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones
Photo by Natasha Krstic-Howe
Jonny Donahoe
In addition to being the co-creator and original performer of Every Brilliant Thing, Jonny Donahoe also writes and performs with his touring comedy group, Jonny and the Baptists. He has written several plays including Anna/Anastasia, 30 Christmases, and Forgiveness, as well as appeared regularly on BBC Radio 4 in The Now Show, Sketchorama, Fresh from the Fringe, and Infinite Monkey Cage, among many others.
Jonny recommended An Intervention by Mike Bartlett
Photo by Danny Kaan
113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
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Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia, is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
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