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. 

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Duncan MacMillan’s play Every Brilliant Thing pulls back the curtain on what it’s like to be a child of a suicidal mother and the lengths we go for those we love. Based on true and untrue stories, Every Brilliant Thing is a life-affirming story of how to achieve hope through focusing on the smallest miracles of life.