The West End premiere of Every Brilliant Thing, written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe and directed by Jeremy Herrin and Duncan Macmillan will play @sohoplace theatre for a strictly limited run from 1 August – 27 September 2025.
First presented by Paines Plough at Roundabout at Summerhall in 2014, this wildly popular, one-person play has delighted audiences in over 80 countries worldwide, been adapted into a highly successful HBO film and now debuts in the West End @sohoplace, performed by four exceptional actors. The season opens with Lenny Henry (August in England, Bush Theatre; Othello, Northern Broadsides) followed in date order by Jonny Donahoe (co-creator and original performer Every Brilliant Thing), Ambika Mod (One Day, Netflix; This is Going to Hurt, BBC) and Sue Perkins (The Great British Bake Off, BBC; Just a Minute, BBC Radio 4).
You’re seven years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy. You start a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling.
A child attempts to ease their mother’s depression by creating a list of all the best things in the world. Through adulthood, as the list grows, they learn the deep significance it has on their own life. Every Brilliant Thing is a comedy about the lengths we will go for those we love.
Lenny Henry: 1 August – 30 August
Lenny Henry has risen from being a cult star on children’s television to becoming one of Britain’s best known television performers, as well as a writer, philanthropist and award-winning stage actor. Lenny’s recent acting screen credits include Netflix’s Missing You, The Witcher: Blood Origin, Rings of Power, Broadchurch, The Syndicate and the biographic film Danny and The Human Zoo. In theatre, Lenny has starred in The Comedy of Errors at The National, Fences at the Duchess Theatre and The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar Warehouse.
As a co-founder and public face of Comic Relief he has played a central role in the charity raising over £1.6 billion since 1985. Lenny is a leading advocate for diversity in the arts and has established his production company, Esmerelda, a centre for Media Diversity at Birmingham City University, written two books on the topic and co-hosted the podcast Black British Lives Matter. He was awarded a Knighthood in 2015 for services to drama and charity and was a Trustee of the National Theatre from 2016 to 2023.
Lenny has written two memoirs with Faber alongside a series of children’s books published through Pan Macmillan. In 2023, his “innovative” ITV1 drama series Three Little Birds received critical acclaim as did his five star, one man play August in England which Lenny wrote and performed in at The Bush Theatre.
Jonny Donahoe: 13 August – 1 September
Jonny Donahoe is a comedian, writer and performer. He is the co-creator and original performer of Every Brilliant Thing, which has now played in over seventy countries across six continents. He has also written and performed for over ten years with his touring comedy group Jonny & The Baptists. They have performed their shows at the Royal National Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange, Barrow Street Theatre, New York, Soho Theatre, Downstage Theatre Wellington, Liverpool Everyman and Battersea Arts Centre amongst many others.
Jonny was nominated for a Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Every Brilliant Thing. Jonny and the Baptists have been nominated for a Chortle Award, Hackney Empire New Act of the Year and the Musical Comedy Awards. He won a BBC Audio Drama Award for his work on Sound Heap (Max Fun/Auddy).
Other plays include Anna/Anastasia (Oran Mor/Traverse/APA), 30 Christmases, (New Diorama, London/ OFS, Oxford), Forgiveness (UK & International Tour), short plays include The Sound Ours Hearts Made (Trafalgar Studios/Paines Plough) and There Was an Old Woman (Soho Theatre).
He has appeared regularly on The Now Show, Sketchorama, Fresh from the Fringe, and Infinite Monkey Cage (all BBC Radio 4), and Live from TV Centre (BBC TV/Battersea Arts Centre), amongst many others. His performance in Every Brilliant Thing was recorded at Barrow Street Theatre by World of Wonder, and released as a special on HBO.
Ambika Mod: 2 September – 26 September
Ambika Mod is an actor, comedian and writer. She began her career as a stand-up, sketch and improv comedian aged 19, writing and performing her own material around the country and at several Edinburgh Fringe Festivals.
Her breakout role came in 2022 in the hit, widely acclaimed BBC One series This is Going to Hurt as junior doctor ‘Shruti Acharya’, starring opposite Ben Whishaw. For her performance, Ambika won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Broadcast Press Guild Award for Best Actress, and was selected for the highly prestigious BAFTA Breakthrough programme.
In 2024, Ambika starred in the lead role of ‘Emma Morley’ in the massively popular Netflix series One Day, based on David Nicholls’ best-selling novel of the same name. The show was a critical and public success, becoming Netflix’s #1 viewed show globally shortly after its release, and remaining in the top 10 for several weeks. For her performance, Ambika was nominated for a Gotham Award for Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series and a Royal Television Society Award for Leading Actress. In 2024, she was also named as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Europe and included on the Time NEXT100 and Sunday Times Young Power lists.
Ambika is currently starring in the TV series The Stolen Girl for Disney+ and later this year she will star alongside Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, and Salma Hayek in the Romain Gavras directed adventure comedy film, Sacrifice.
Sue Perkins: 4 September – 27 September
Sue Perkins is one of Britain’s best-loved presenters; her quick-fire, self-deprecating wit making her a household name and firm favourite on British television for over twenty years. She’s probably best known for being one half of Mel & Sue, a duo who stole the nations heart on The Great British Bake Off. Sue has been Grierson and BAFTA nominated for her travel documentaries and is the host of Radio 4’s flagship comedy show, Just a Minute. She has written two Sunday Times best-selling memoirs and starred in two series of hit comedy Hitmen for Sky One, as well as roles in Caitlin Moran’s How To Build A Girl and Paul Feig’s Last Christmas.
Tickets to Every Brilliant Thing
Additional information
Booking until
1 August – 27 September 2025
Show Times
Mon-Sat 7.30pm (except Fri 6pm & 8.30pm)
Thurs & Sat 2.30pm
Running Time
75 minutes, no interval
Theatre
@sohoplace
Age Recommendation
12+
Access Performances
BSL interpreted:
Thursday 21 August, 2.30pm (Lenny Henry)
Friday 26 September, 6pm (Ambika Mod)
Captioned performance:
Monday 1 September, 7.30pm (Jonny Donahoe)
Audio Described performance:
Saturday 20 September, 7.30pm (Sue Perkins)
