Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - March 12, 2026 Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe. Directed by Jeremy Herrin and Duncan Macmillan. Set and costume design by Vicki Mortimer. Lighting design by Jack Knowles. Sound design by Tom Gibbons. Associate directors Laura Dupper and David Hull. Creative consultant Tom Donahoe.
Every Brilliant Thing, written by Duncan Macmillan with British comic Jonny Donahoe, was last seen in New York a decade ago at the 199-seat Barrow Street Theatre. Donahoe was on hand then to do the heavy lifting and to entice members of the audience to join in at key moments, which is a good thing since there would be little left of the 70-minute production if they balked. The play itself, which is based on a fictional short story by Macmillan, is structured so as to keep us actively engaged with what you might call a spoonful of sugar as it feeds us its discomfiting content, that of mental illness and suicide. Whoever serves as the ringmaster (in various productions through the years, the list has included Minnie Driver, Liz Callaway, and Daniel K. Isaac) has quite a balancing act to accomplish, needing to make sure the designated audience participants meet their cues while telling a very personal story about growing up with a depressed and suicidal mother. As is often the case, the child internalizes the problem and sets out to "fix" the parent, in this case by creating an extensive list for her of "every brilliant thing" (i.e. reasons to embrace life) that comes to mind, starting with "ice cream" and moving on from there, until, over time, the compilation grows into the thousands. Periodically, selected and prepped audience members call out items on the list, while others are enlisted to enact improvised scenes with the star. All things considered, the pressure on the star, on the director (in this case, the team of Jeremy Herrin and Mr. Macmillan), and on the set designer (Vicki Mortimer) is greatly heightened when the show is being performed at a much larger Broadway venue, the 970-seat Hudson Theatre, and at Broadway prices starting at $88 and closing in on $400. To create a sense of intimacy, the Hudson has been transformed into a theater-within-a-theater. A staircase leads up from the floor to the stage, where perhaps 40 or 50 audience members are seated on three sides. The solo actor then has to juggle everything in order to play to both those nearby and to the larger mass of people on the floor and in the dress circle and balcony. Which leads us to Daniel Radcliffe, who has been in the public eye ever since we watched him over the course of eight wildly successful films in which he portrayed the young wizard Harry Potter. Since then, he has carved out a career in quirky movies, on television, and, happily for New York theatre audiences, on stage. It's been quite a range for someone only in his mid-thirties. Broadway has seen him in both straight plays (Equus, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Lifespan of a Fact) and musicals (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and his Tony-winning performance as Charley Kringas in Merrily We Roll Along). Time for a rest? Not hardly. The lure of starring alone on stage was irresistible. Part of the enjoyment of being in the audience derives from the pre-show activities in which Radcliffe races around, chatting up potential participants ("Hi, I'm Dan") and helping to work out the logistics. This is the real improvisation that takes place before every performance. Because once the play itself begins, there's no turning back. "Dan" becomes the character in the show, the one who talks about his mother, the creation of his life-affirming list, his personal relationship with a significant other, and of his own struggles with depression. These are topics that have been explored in numerous other plays, but here, it all seems truly personal. Even if we can't directly identify with these experiences, we most certainly can identify with the participating audience members and the star's interactions with them. This is the wizardry of Radcliffe's performance and the magic of live theatre, and why it is that Every Brilliant Thing is able to grab hold of our hearts, leaving us, at least briefly, with a renewed appreciation for friends and loved ones and the good things in life. And in this day and age, that is something to be cherished.
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