Every Brilliant Thing

Duncan Macmillan

Bloomsbury Academic, Sep 8, 2015 - Psychology - 64 pages

You're six years old. Mum's in hospital. Dad says she's 'done something stupid'. She finds it hard to be happy.

So you start to make a list of everything that's brilliant about the world. Everything that's worth living for.

1. Ice Cream

2. Kung Fu Movies

3. Burning Things

4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose

5. Construction cranes

6. Me

You leave it on her pillow. You know she's read it because she's corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own.

A new play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - bookworm12 - LibraryThing

I saw this play in 2019 and was blown away by the audience interaction and the blend of comedy and drama. I loved being able to read the stage directions and examples of what the original actor did ...

User Review -

I saw this play at my State Competition here in Wyoming only 2015. I think some girl from Green River or Jackson Hole was performing it. Any who, I didn't want to see it. Because the tittle put me in a head locked idea of how this is show is only going to remind me of all the total bull crap I had/have/still freaking am going through. But, never the less, I went, with my headphones in my ears, and my hood up, dreadfully waiting the stereotypical "It'll be O.K." message.
And holy mother of God, I was fricking wrong.
1. It is still the only form of acting that has ever made me cry. (It even beat the season 2 finale of Doctor Who)
2. It opened my eyes to a lot of crap the I and many many others that saw needed to see.
3. I (and a few others) ended up making or own "Brilliant" lists. And whether or not those friends have kept their lists going, It made us think, and got us to do something, it made us focus on the positive when all we could see was negative.
POINT IS: I highly encourage people reading or watching this, it's 100% fantastic, in every way...unless you're against audience participation. 

About the author

Duncan Macmillan is an award-winning writer and director. Plays include: Lungs (Paines Plough/Sheffield Crucible and Studio Theatre Washington D.C.), Platform (Old Vic Tunnels), Monster (Royal Exchange/Manchester International Festival), The Most Humane Way to Kill A Lobster (Theatre 503), I Wish To Apologise For My Part In The Apocalypse , So Say All of Us and Family Tree (all BBC Radio 4). Formerly Writer-in-Residence at Paines Plough and the Royal Exchange, he has completed attachments at the National Theatre and the Royal Court/BBC, is a member of the Old Vic New Voices Company and a fellow of the TS Eliot UK/US Exchange. He is the winner of two Bruntwood Playwriting Awards, the Old Vic Big Ambition Award, a Pearson Residency Award, 'The 50' Bursary, and has been nominated in the Best New Play category of the TMA and MEN Awards.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Every Brilliant Thing; Oberon Modern Plays
• Author: Duncan Macmillan
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015
• ISBN: 1783191430, 9781783191437
• Length: 64 pages
• Subjects: Drama / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Psychology / Mental Health