From the moment you enter the theatre and see Lenny Henry roaming the stage, chatting with audience members and handing out slips of paper, it’s clear this won’t be your typical play. The story centres on a child grappling with their mother’s depression and repeated suicide attempts and you might expect you’re in for a bleak and emotionally gruelling evening, but you’d be wrong. Every Brilliant Thing is laugh-out-loud funny, deeply heartfelt and unexpectedly uplifting.
Every Brilliant Thing is technically a one-person show, with Sir Lenny Henry as the sole actor, but I say “technically” because members of the audience are called on to play various roles to help bring the story to life. The play opens with Henry portraying an unnamed 7-year-old boy who begins compiling a list of brilliant things in life worth living for. His mother has just been hospitalised after a suicide attempt and the list is his way of trying to lift her spirits. He shouts, “One,” prompting an audience member to respond, “Ice cream,” the first item on the list. “Two” is met with “Water fights” from another part of the theatre and “Three” brings “Staying up past bedtime and being allowed to watch TV.”
We follow the boy through adolescence and into adulthood, with the list growing longer and more sophisticated such as at number 1,007, someone shouts “Sometimes there’s a perfect song to match how you’re feeling.” Some list items are delightfully random, while others are shaped by the character’s experiences, like falling in love at university or noticing how his father’s music choices reflect his moods.
Lenny Henry delivers a phenomenal performance. Drawing on the comedic instincts for which he’s best known, he infuses the role with warmth, humour and comic timing but also reveals a surprising dramatic depth and heartfelt empathy for the play’s more serious themes. His ability to elicit genuine humour from painful moments never feels forced or inappropriate, demonstrating a deep understanding that laughter and sorrow often coexist. What’s especially impressive is Henry’s masterful handling of the show’s extensive audience interaction.
With the finesse of a seasoned stand-up, he reads the room effortlessly, adapting to unexpected responses while keeping the story flowing. Whether assigning list items or casting audience members as key characters, from a kindly teacher to a vet to his own father, he creates an atmosphere of trust and support. The result is a room full of people silently rooting for each participant to succeed.
Duncan MacMillan’s writing, developed in collaboration with original performer Jonny Donahoe, achieves something remarkable: it makes depression accessible without ever trivialising it. The script moves fluidly between heartbreak and humour, often within the same breath. The list format offers structure, yet allows flexibility to shift between memories, moments, and timelines. It also creates a framework for personal anecdotes and makes space for spontaneous, sometimes surprising, audience interaction.
Directors Jeremy Herrin and Duncan MacMillan have crafted a production that feels both meticulously designed and refreshingly free. The pacing gives emotional moments room to land, while maintaining enough momentum to avoid tipping into sentimentality. They clearly understand Henry’s strengths: his comic timing, his warmth, his ability to connect with a room, and have shaped the piece around them. Over the course of its run, Every Brilliant Thing will also be performed by Jonny Donahoe, Ambika Mod, Sue Perkins, and Minnie Driver. It will be interesting to see how the production evolves as each brings their own unique presence and interpretation to the role.
The intimate setting of @sohoplace makes it the perfect venue for Every Brilliant Thing. It allows Lenny Henry to work his particular magic, transforming a room full of strangers into a connected community, even if only for 85 minutes. His performance is extraordinary: the work of an artist at the peak of his powers, drawing on a lifetime of experience while still uncovering new emotional territory.
His natural empathy, refined through decades of connecting with audiences, is perfectly suited to the material. The play’s power lies in its simplicity and its belief that small, human acts of noticing one another, connecting and caring, can matter more than any grand gesture. Every Brilliant Thing is every bit as brilliant as its title suggests.
Need to Know | Every Brilliant Thing runs from 1 August – 8 November | @sohoplace theatre | 4 Soho Place, London, W1D 3BG | www.sohoplace.org
