Every Brilliant Thing

His script is brutally honest, yet sensitive, about the subject matter and in this sense, he is fearless. There’s discussions about what depression is like for children of people with depression, attitudes towards suicide, mental health statistics and how we find hope in a difficult world. It doesn’t offer any judgement, it’s purely matter of fact. It says that we can’t ever fully understand why someone dies by suicide and there isn’t a simple fix for depression, so we should strive to be more compassionate and empathetic both with others and ourselves. It both empathises with historically negative attitudes towards reaching out for support and argues that there is no shame in it. It urges us to check in on ourselves as well as others and shows that even the smallest post it note can make someone’s day.

All of these elements are further emphasised through Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin’s exceptional direction in combination with Henry’s storming performance. 

There is a lot of audience interaction in this show, from audience members reading out items on the list to playing the roles of family members, romantic connections and important people in the protagonists life (with guidance and support of course). We are also invited to sing along with a line from a song and get up and dance/raise our hand to receive a high five. 

The audience is fully engaged, in part due to Henry’s charisma. He’s electric on stage, unafraid to move with the flow of the audience’s reactions and the sentiments in the script. He’s utterly captivating in his control of the tone of what’s going on, almost mirroring the experiences of the child in the script from taking us through epic highs and deeply moving lows. He’s creative with the improvised parts, using a jacket as an injured dog and exchanging reading glasses between audience participants.